Chapter 11 Elena #2
“Well, they’re not fucking here,” the first snaps, gesturing to the bed.
The second man lifts a hand to his ear, pressing it as he speaks again, voice clipped. “Room is empty.” A pause. Then, firmer. “Yes. We’re in the right room.”
My pulse roars in my ears.
Why are they searching for us? For me?
The questions tumble over one another relentlessly. Are they here to take me to use me as leverage against Dante? A bargaining chip to force his hand and draw him out into the open where he can be killed? To weaken him somehow? That’s how this world works—hostages and debts paid for with bodies.
But even that doesn’t make sense. I have no value to anyone outside these walls.
Not anymore. With my father having vanished off the face of the earth and his name poisoned with every other syndicate in Sicily, I’ve been stripped of any standing or protection beyond being Dante Cosenza’s unwilling bride.
Our marriage… God, it’s barely days old. Word of it couldn’t have spread that fast, could it?
This villa is locked down tighter than a fortress.
Information is priceless here, guarded as fiercely as their cache.
Even the staff would never talk that openly.
They’re always careful of who might be listening in on their gossip.
There’s no way news of our marriage—or Luca, for that matter—should have reached anyone beyond these walls.
Unless someone inside let it slip for a purpose.
The thought makes my stomach twist violently.
A traitor, a leak… someone feeding information to an enemy they knew would be bold enough to take the bait and storm Dante’s villa without forethought. Whoever gave them the information had also sold them the floor plans of this place. How else would they have known this is Luca’s room?
My grip tightens around him instinctively.
The taller man exhales sharply, glancing toward the open window. “We’ve got less than thirty seconds. We need to go now.”
His flashlight sweeps over the room again.
Its beam drags across the dresser and the fallen bedding to where the shards of broken porcelain litter the floor like scattered teeth.
The light lingers for half a second too long on the empty bed again, coming back around before stopping right on the closet doors.
Every muscle in my body locks up all at once.
No. No, no, no.
Dust motes drift through the slats of the door, floating lazily and all but mocking me as the terror unfolds inches away.
“Check it,” the other man says quietly.
The light grows brighter as boots approach, bleeding through the cracks in blinding streaks.
I squeeze my eyes shut for a split second, pressing my forehead into Luca’s hair.
My mind races uselessly, realizing there’s nowhere else left to go.
I have no way out of this. If they open the doors, it’s over.
There’s no hiding us. No protecting him.
Luca lets out a tiny, broken sound against my hand, a whimper he can’t quite stop. Panic surges so violently through me that bile burns the back of my throat. The closet door is ripped open in one brutal motion.
Light pours over us, harsh and blinding, and hands seize me without warning. Fingers dig into my arms, yanking me forward with ruthless force. I barely have time to scream before Luca is torn from my chest, my hands splaying uselessly in the air as I reach for him.
“Mama!” he shrieks, his small body thrashing as he’s held by the shorter of the two men in a bear hold.
“No! Please!” I scream, clawing at the man holding onto me. My nails scrape uselessly against his tactical vest as I fight with everything I have, kicking and twisting as I try again to reach for my son.
The man above me curses under his breath and then I’m thrown hard onto the floor.
The impact knocks the air from my lungs as I’m forced flat on my stomach, my cheek pressed painfully against the stone.
A gun is shoved against my temple, the barrel biting into my skin.
I freeze instantly, terror locking every muscle in place once again.
“Don’t move,” he snarls from above me. “Or he dies.”
Luca is wailing now, completely inconsolable. His cries shatter the quiet as the other man drags him away from where I am.
“Mama! Mama!” he sobs.
Something inside me shatters completely.
“Please,” I beg, my voice shaking as tears flood my eyes. “Please… just take me. Take me instead and leave him. He’s just a baby. He doesn’t understand. Please—”
The gun presses hard against my temple. “Shut up.”
The shorter man lifts a hand to his ear, speaking into his comms with detached calmness. “We’ve got them.”
There’s a pause. Then confirmation crackles back.
Rough hands haul me up again. My legs barely cooperate, shaking so badly, I almost collapse a second time as I’m dragged forward. I stumble, feet dragging uselessly against the floor as every instinct screams to resist even though I already know it won’t matter.
The open window looms ahead. The breeze whips my hair back from my face, cooling the tears streaking down my cheeks in a way that feels cruelly gentle.
Beyond the sill, the drop is dizzying. It’s dark and endless, the ground far below swallowed by night.
One wrong move and there would be nothing left of us but broken bodies laid out over jagged stone.
Somewhere in the distance, a new sound cuts through the chaos.
Helicopter blades.
The rhythmic chopping grows louder by the second, vibrating through the air and straight down to my bones.
My stomach drops with a sickening certainty as understanding clicks into place.
This isn’t a rushed extraction or an impulsive move.
This was all incredibly planned. It has to be with how organized these men, and their retreat, seem.
I know with absolute certainty that once we’re shoved through that window and dragged into that helicopter, we will not survive. Whatever waits for Luca and me beyond these walls isn’t captivity or some ransom to get whatever they want out of Dante.
It’s death.
The clarity of it settles over me, stealing what little strength I have left. My resistance falters, grief crashing in so hard, it nearly drops me to my knees. A sob tears free from my chest, raw and broken.
My son should have gotten a full life. He should have known what it was like to live without fear, laugh without looking over his shoulder every few blocks.
He deserved a childhood that wasn’t shaped by false names and constant vigilance.
He’s barely lived at all and yet he’s already known more terror than most people face in their entire lifetime.
All he’s ever known is running and hiding.
I swore to myself the night he was born and I first held him in my arms alone in that hospital room that no one from his world would ever touch him. Yet now here we are, being dragged toward our final moments while I’m powerless to stop it.
It isn’t fair.
None of this is—
Suddenly, two sharp shots crack through the room.
The sound is deafening at this distance, so loud it feels like it punches straight through my skull. For a split second, my mind simply… blanks. I stumble forward, barely keeping my balance because the hands holding me up suddenly give.
Turning, I catch the sight of blood as it spatters outward.
It blooms across the front of the man’s chest who had just been holding me.
He staggers backward, his eyes wide with shock rather than pain as if his body hasn’t quite caught up to what’s happened.
His chest heaves as he presses a gloved hand over the wound, fingers slicking instantly while he tries futilely to compress it.
Another shot rings out. This one hits him square in the temple, snapping his head to the side before he crumples to the floor. There’s no twitch afterward, just his dead weight settling on the floor as the last bits of life leave him.
I don’t let myself process the sight of it.
There’s no time for shock or room for fear to settle in and immobilize me again.
Instinct takes over, forcing me to twist on my heel and lunge for the second man holding my baby.
I slam into him from the side with everything I have.
The impact knocks him off balance, sending him stumbling away from the window.
He swears, instinctively reaching for his weapon, and in that split second, his grip loosens on Luca.
The sound of my son’s small body hitting the floor is a nightmare I will hear for the rest of my life.
A dull, sickening thud that rips a scream straight out of my mouth.
But he doesn’t stay there. Whether it’s instinct or some desperate, primal will to survive, Luca uses the momentum to roll away just as the man scrambles to recover.
I throw myself down onto the floor and curve my body around him, pressing him flat against the floor to shield him with every inch of myself. I bury my face in his hair, my arms locked around his small body while waiting for the inevitable.
Gunfire erupts again with two more shots. The gurgle that follows is sickening and makes my stomach turn. The body falls soon after, hitting the floor with a deafening thud before stilling.
Silence crashes down around us.
I drag in a sharp, shaking breath and slowly lift my head. My vision blurs as I try to focus on the figure standing just in the doorway, my brain lagging behind as it struggles to make sense of what I’m seeing.
Dante holds his gun gripped tightly in his hand, his chest heaving as he scans the room intently.
His weapon is still raised and trained forward, his posture rigid and ready for more.
He looks like hell—hair disheveled, strands falling into his face, his clothes smeared with blood that I instinctively register as not his own.
From the way he moves, I know he hasn’t been hit.
When he finally lowers his weapon, he crosses the room in seconds.
I don’t even have time to stand before he’s there kneeling in front of us, his hands firm and sure as they close around Luca and me, lifting us carefully off the floor and crushing us both against his chest. Luca sobs immediately, his small body shaking as he clings to Dante’s ruined shirt.
“You’re safe,” he murmurs in my ear right as my body sags into his, the fight draining from me. “I’ve got you.”