Chapter Two Guinevere #2
Stars popped and fizzed in my vision as I sagged into the other man, momentarily losing control of my legs. When his arms wrapped around me, I dug an elbow into his gut and had the pleasure of feeling the air rush out of his lungs.
He didn’t let me go completely, but I was able to drop out of his loosened hold to the floor. Twisting, I wrapped both hands around the gun he held and wrenched, using all my weight as a counterbalance to try to wrest it from his grip.
When that didn’t work, I leaned forward and sank my teeth into his hand, clenching when he rained a fist down on my shoulder to pry me free.
“Basta!” Kirkpatrick bellowed, the one word vibrating the steel cage taking us to the underground parking garage. “Enough, Guinevere, or I’ll shoot you even though they want you alive.”
The man above me, whose hand was clamped between my teeth, reached down to dig a thumb into the bullet wound on the side of my temple. I spat out his palm without hesitation, wincing at the bright edge of hurt that cut through my brain.
“Up,” Kirkpatrick demanded with a gesture from the gun trained on me.
My legs shook slightly, with exhaustion or fear I wasn’t certain, as I slowly stood. With a muttered curse, they placed me between them again.
“Any more funny business and I’ll knock you out,” he warned me.
Blood dripped down the side of my head onto my cheek, itching.
I didn’t respond, staring straight ahead as I tried to figure out some escape route between the elevator and the car they no doubt had ready in the garage. I remembered reading somewhere that once your abductors had you in a car, your chances of surviving were reduced by more than half.
“The plane won’t wait forever,” the unnamed man murmured in Italian, probably unaware of my proficiency in the language. “This took too long.”
“They’ll wait,” Kirkpatrick said grimly, adjusting his grip on me. “They want her enough to wait forever.”
The elevator dinged as we reached the parking level, their hands tightening on me as the doors slid open to reveal a black limousine waiting ten yards away, idling with the back door open.
Who the hell kidnapped someone in a limo?
As we started toward it, another suited man emerged from the front seat holding a gun.
“What took you so long?” he demanded in Italian.
The only Italians I knew who would do something like this were mafiosi. But why in the world would they want me?
And why now?
Even if this was somehow associated with Raffa, it had been two long months of radio silence between us.
They shoved me toward the car, and no matter how hard I struggled, I couldn’t get free. My heart was in my throat, beating so hard I thought I would vomit. Their hands were iron shackles around my arms, bruising and twisting until agony burned through them.
I kicked at the door to the limo, bracing so they couldn’t push me inside, but when the third man got involved, they shoved me into the car without issue.
The moment I fell to the floor, I knew with painful clarity that this was it.
I wouldn’t see Mom and Dad again.
I wouldn’t have this life back in Michigan I’d been hating, and how stupid was I for being so ungrateful while I was living it? At least I was alive! How had I forgotten how precious and inconstant that could be?
Doors slammed around me as the men got back into the car. They didn’t bother to pick me up off the floor as the wheels screamed from the velocity of the car gunning forward.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked, my voice hoarse from screaming. The car was moving up the ramp, waiting for the automatic door to lift so they could drive into the deserted street. “Why are you doing this, and who for?”
Kirkpatrick smiled that big, toothy smile at me. “We are taking you home,” he said.
Seconds later, as the car pulled out of the building into the driveway, my body flew sideways, slamming into the door as another car barreled into us. I was aware of Italian shouts and the metallic click of guns cocking before blackness swarmed my vision and I passed out.
When I came to, only seconds had passed, my head drumming with misery from the dual impact of the gunshot and the contact with the door.
A bullet pierced the window above me, sending glass raining over my body.
I curled into a tight ball in the corner, protecting my head with my arms as Kirkpatrick shot from behind the protection of the other back door.
I peered at him as he fired back at whoever had hit us, so I watched as a bullet caught him in the cheek and exploded out the back of his head.
“Oh my God,” I murmured, pressing my lips to my knee as I swallowed the bile in my throat.
What the fuck was happening?
A moment later, quiet descended, and I realized that there was utter stillness in the limo around me.
Kirkpatrick lay half inside the car, his brains splattered on the upholstery.
The other man who had chased me was visible on the pavement beyond him, blood spreading around his body like a red halo.
When I found the courage to unravel and peek into the front seat through the transparent partition, two bodies sat in the seats unmoving.
The crunch of shoes over glass alerted me to someone moving my way.
Without hesitation, I fell forward toward Kirkpatrick, groping over his body to grab the gun caught loosely in one hand.
The metal was still warm from his grip as I fumbled it between my fingers.
After scooting to the other side of the car on my butt, I adjusted the gun, then rested my wrist on my knee so it would stop shaking.
I waited.
It only took seconds for the man to appear in the doorway, just his suited torso beneath an open overcoat. A gun hung loosely in one hand as he kicked at Kirkpatrick and then dragged him out of the way with one fierce tug, depositing him on the pavement like a pile of rubbish.
Done with that, he turned his attention to the inside of the car.
I sucked in a deep breath, my finger fluttering against the trigger, ready to pull at the slightest provocation. When the man stepped into the doorframe and slowly lowered himself to fit through the gap, I pulled the trigger.
The bullet lodged in the frame, a handspan from the stranger’s shoulder.
“I’m armed,” I announced, my voice thin but loud. “Tell me who the hell you are, or next time I’ll put one between your eyes.”
Too many films, I scolded myself almost hysterically. I wasn’t even sure I could aim to hit the man at all with the way my hands trembled.
“You know who I am,” the man said before ducking his head into the car and fixing me with that familiar pale-bronze stare.
“Raffa.” The word fell from my mouth in an exhale of shock and relief.
“Vera,” he said, his voice so soft it reached between us like a silken feather to caress my bloodstained cheek. “What have they done to you, cerbiatta mia?”
Without a single second of hesitation, I dropped the gun to the floor with a dull, concussive thud, and I crawled across the distance between us to throw myself into Raffa’s arms.
He caught me instantly, cradling me in his arms with one hand palming the entire back of my skull as I fit my face into his neck and burst into tears.
“Hush, hush,” he murmured as he slowly worked us both out of the car and stood easily with me in his embrace. “I have got you now. And I will not let you go again.”