Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
A ntonio
I throw my body in front of Dahlia’s to protect her from the intruders at the same time I reach for my gun beside the bed.
“Don’t shoot!" A voice shouts from above deck. "My daughter’s in there!”
Aw, fuck.
Benedict King must want to die.
I point the gun back and forth between the two men. They must be mercenaries–ex-US military types. “Shoot me, and you’ll risk her.”
“Dahlia, get away from him!” one of the men growls.
The sound of her name on his lips is all it takes to make me go off. I shoot him then the other guy in less than one second.
Dahlia screams at the top of her lungs.
I leap up from the bed and run to the door.
“Dahlia!” Her father calls from out on the deck.
“Don’t shoot!” she screams back.
I’m not sure if she’s pleading with me or him.
I storm out and up the stairs to the deck and immediately draw fire from the sun deck. I duck back into the corridor, peering up in the direction it came.
I see one of my men dangling from the railing, blood pouring from his head. Another of my soldiers lies on the deck.
Fanculo.
I aim my pistol toward the sun deck and slowly shift my weight out until I’m far enough to take aim. A bullet strikes the wall directly beside my head, but mine finds home in another merc.
I hear shouts in Italian and more gunfire. Some of my men are still alive, then.
“Dahlia?”
I spot Benedict hiding behind two of his mercs. He has a gun in his hand but holds it awkwardly. He’ll probably shoot his own foot before he fires on me. I take down the two men guarding him.
“No!” Dahlia screams. She’s thrown on a robe and is coming up the stairs behind me.
“Get back in the cabin,” I snarl. “It’s not safe out here.”
“Dahlia!”
My attention is drawn away from Benedict by three of his men rounding the corner. I shield Dahlia’s body and take them out.
Before I know it, Dahlia has darted past me and is running for her father. “Daddy! You got my message!”
The ship spins. Or maybe I’m spinning. Something is fucking spinning.
Dahlia sent a message to her father last night. That’s how he found us here.
Betrayal stabs deep in my heart, igniting my old rage. My old need for revenge. Yes, I’m a brute, a true monster, but the Kings are what made me this way.
I lift my pistol and point it right at Benedict’s head. I’m an excellent shot. Not one of my bullets has missed its mark thus far. One twitch of my finger, and he would be dead.
He’s hustling Dahlia to the rail and pointing over the side. There must be a motor boat pulled alongside ours. How it got close without my men spotting it is unfathomable to me.
I follow them with my gun arm extended, Benedict’s head clearly in my sight.
My wife–the woman I just made scream with pleasure–has one leg over the railing. She glances back at me, and her eyes round with terror. “No!” her scream rings with so much horror that I draw my hand up, pointing toward the sky instead of her father. “Please, Antonio–”
She doesn’t get to finish the plea because her father fires wildly at me.
I’ve reached them by now.
Benedict shoves Dahlia off the rail, and we both stand there a moment, peering off the side at her flailing body plummeting down.
I’m holding my breath, afraid she might crack her head on the boat below, but she misses it, plunging into the water.
I slam my hand down on Benedict’s wrist, causing him to lose grip on the pistol. It fires wildly as it falls to the deck and slides away from us. I press my gun to his temple.
“Antonio!”
The sound of my name on my wife’s lips makes something deep inside of me shudder with recognition. Despite her betrayal, it’s all still there–my desire to please her. To make her happy.
I tear my glance away from her father to peer over the rail. She’s swimming beside the boat, one arm tossed over the side to steady herself.
She catches my gaze. “Antonio, no. Please. ”
She’s begging me.
As I desired.
As I predicted.
But not the reason I’d hoped.
Fanculo.
I jab the pistol into Benedict’s flesh. “Jump,” I snarl.
He scrambles to comply.
“Jump,” I repeat. “If I see you again, you’re a dead man.”
He topples sloppily over the side, hitting a limb on the lower railing as he goes, likely breaking his arm.
I look back at my wife. She hasn’t moved to climb in the boat. She’s still staring up at me, stricken.
What? What is it?
What does she want from me?
I aim my pistol at her father, who is already climbing in the boat. He yanks the rope free from The Honeymoon’s ladder and starts the engine of the boat as Dahlia climbs in.
And then they’re gone.
My revenge has been undone.
It’s gone flat.
And I don’t even care.
The rage in me is quiet.
In fact, I feel nothing at all.
I’m totally blank. Empty. As dead as the bloody bodies strewn across the slick deck.
It’s over.
My revenge plan, my marriage, my plans for the future. I just conceded everything to a little blonde debutante who sings like a bird.
Dahlia
My father paces back and forth, a blanket from the bed draped around his shoulders. We’re at a hotel in Miami, and he is on the phone with Senator Reese, Jake’s father, talking about the logistics and illegality of getting U.S. Marines down here to take Antonio out.
I go into the bathroom and step into the shower, my wet clothing still on. I stand under the spray for a long time, then I sit down on the tile floor and hold my head in my hands.
What have I done?
What has my father done?
And Antonio?
Men died today over this feud. I should be applauding my father’s new plan, but I can’t. I’m just sick over all of it.
None of this had to happen, starting with my father condemning Antonio to prison for a crime he didn’t commit.
I guess we truly are Romeo and Juliet, and this all ends in tragedy.
The image of Antonio’s body being one of the many corpses we left on that yacht today makes me choke with a sob. The numbness cracks, and I break down–full-on, ugly crying.
How would I feel if Antonio had been killed today? It would have been all my fault. I’m the one who delivered the message to my father about where to find us. I saw the shock of betrayal in Antonio’s expression when he realized what I’d done, and it makes my stomach knot and twist.
Does he hate me now, too?
The thought leaves me broken. Bereft. I didn’t even want to leave the yacht when I jumped over the side. I wanted to run back to Antonio’s bed and crawl back in his arms.
Oh, God. Was it only this morning that we made love? It feels like years ago. Centuries.
Lifetimes have passed since he kissed me.
I scrub my hands over my cheeks, my tears mixed with the shower water.
What now?
Am I going to let them plot Antonio’s murder?
My hand finds my belly. It’s unlikely, but possible that I could be pregnant right now with his child. Am I going to allow my father to kill my husband?
I struggle to my feet and rip my wet robe from my body. I have to stop this madness.
It has to stop here.
Antonio belongs to me now as much as he believes I belong to him.
We’re married.
And that’s when I realize something else. Perhaps the most important thing of all: Antonio cares about me.
He let my father go.
It wasn’t because he’s not a killer–he clearly is. I watched him shoot at least four men today. He hates my father–spent years of his life plotting his revenge against him.
And yet today he let him go.
I can only surmise it’s because I asked.
Because he cares for me. He hasn’t said so. He’s called me beautiful, made me feel beautiful, but he hasn’t said I mean anything to him other than as a conquest.
But if I were just a conquest, he wouldn’t spare my father. Especially not after realizing I’d betrayed him and wanted to escape.
And for the record–I didn’t want to.
I’d do anything if I could back in time and not deliver that message to the restaurant host last night.
To still be with Antonio on the yacht. Or off the yacht, for that matter. Where would he have brought me to live? What would our life have looked like?
All those questions make my heart strain, as if pulled long and twisted.
I turn off the water and towel off, then wrap up in a fluffy hotel robe and step out into the suite to confront my father.
“You have to let Antonio go.”
“It’s too late.” My father shakes his head. “The FBI is on their way to arrest Antonio right now. With the bodycount he left today, he’ll never see the light of day again.”