Chapter 30
VALENTINA
Gunshots ring out through the night.
I feel Luca stirring beside me.
“Valentina, get down!” he shouts.
It’s dark, except for the light coming in from the open motel room door, as men come through the splintered frame. There are four of them. They’re clad in black and heavily armed.
“Don’t move!” one of them shouts.
Luca reaches for his gun, which he left on the nightstand. I scream, the terror tightening its hold on my throat.
Before Luca manages to grab his gun, the men jump him. He fights back, naked and feral, but he’s overpowered.
A punch lands. His head whips around, yet he finds the strength and the clarity to try to keep them away from me. The fourth goon runs around the bed, pointing his gun at me.
“I said don’t fucking move!” he snarls.
“You picked the wrong night for this,” Luca replies and lunges at him, but the other three tackle him. I scream, again and again, watching in horror, as they throw punches to his face, to his torso, to his side. They hit him so hard, he doubles over.
Then the butt of a pistol cracks against his temple. The skin splits open. Luca begins to bleed and falls to the ground.
“Luca!” I cry out.
He’s alive, barely conscious and quickly slipping away, but alive. He struggles to stay awake and fails while the fourth guy grabs me out of the bed. One of the other three yanks the sheet off the bed and throws it over me.
They hold me and wrap me in it.
“Let me go!” I scream, kicking like an untamed horse, wild and out of control.
“Don’t make me hurt you!” the fourth man says.
I manage to yank my head out of the sheet long enough to see Luca as he tries to get up. A boot rams into his stomach, forcing him to cough and heave, before he drops back down.
“Let’s go!” the shot caller says, already at the door, looking out and clearing the path. His weapon is cocked and ready, a semi-automatic that glints slightly orange under the motel’s neon sign. A man throws me over one shoulder, like a sack of potatoes, and carries me out of the motel room.
I try to scream as loud as I can, but the second guy presses his gun against my temple. I feel the cold metal, along with drops of sweat dripping down my forehead.
“Say one more fucking thing, and I’ll kill you. Our orders were to take you, preferably alive. But it’s not a prerequisite, Mrs. Petrucci.”
Someone knew we’d be here. They waited to attack us in our most vulnerable moment, and it worked. My blood thickens with icy dread as I look around.
I catch a glimpse of Luca tripping into the doorway, gun in his hand. Blood trickles down his face, his temple bleeding and rapidly swelling.
But he doesn’t have a clear shot, not with me in the picture.
They toss me into the back of a black van, and just before they shut the side door, I hear my son crying somewhere close to me.
“Oh, God, Michael!” I cry out and spot him in the front, his car seat strapped next to the driver.
Everything happens so fast, I only have a few moments to register the details—the little things that really matter. I gasp when I see Victor on the ground by the car, blood pooling beneath him. His head moves slightly. He’s still alive, though I’m not sure for how long.
“Hurry!” one of the men says.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
Gunshots ring out.
The driver gets behind the wheel. Two of the men jump in the back of the van with me, while the fourth lingers for a couple of seconds to fire back at Luca before he joins us and slides the door shut with an unbearable clang.
“GO! GO! GO!”
The tires screech, and I smell the smoke before the van skids away, the engine rumbling furiously as we hit the road and leave the motel behind. I’m shaking like a leaf, my mind split between Luca, Victor, and Michael. My whole body is rigid, my joints stiff and my heart racing.
“What is this?” I manage, wincing from sore knees and elbows and listening to my son’s cries. “It’s okay, honey, everything is going to be okay, baby. Mama’s here!” I call out, hoping to soothe him.
It tears me apart that he’s so scared and confused right now.
One of the men crouches next to me to bind my hands.
“What the fuck is going on?” I snarl in his covered face.
He stills and looks at me, his eyes wide and warm brown.
“It’s best if you keep quiet. You don’t wanna make our boss mad,” he replies in an irritatingly calm manner.
“What’s this about? Where are you taking me?”
“That’s none of your fucking concern, Mrs. Petrucci. Your primary concern right now is for you to shut the fuck up if you want to reach your destination alive,” the driver shoots back sarcastically. “And somebody give this kid a lollipop or something. He’s driving me nuts!”
One of the guys moves closer to the front, reaching over the passenger seat to soothe my son.
“Don’t you dare fucking touch him!” I shout.
“It’s for his sake and yours. Shut up!” he growls and, to my surprise, produces a sucker from his pocket to give Michael.
Relief washes over me, albeit briefly, once I realize the sucker does the trick, keeping Michael busy and quiet while I crane my neck to get a view of the road ahead. My captors notice my curiosity and pull me down to keep me from seeing, two guns viciously trained on me.
“Who are you?” I ask again. “Why are you doing this?”
“The less you talk, the better,” the driver states.
“Who hired you?”
“What did I just fucking say?” he groans with frustration.
For my son’s sake, I need to tread this line carefully. But we’re in danger, that much is obvious. Victor was shot. They left him to bleed out on the ground, then they took my son and rushed to catch me and Luca in a vulnerable moment. This was timed with Swiss-like precision, and it’s terrifying.
They knew everything.
I need to focus on something, anything, to keep my mind from spiraling out of control, so I look at the guy who wrapped me in the bed sheet.
He sits across from me; his gun pointed at my chest and a sour look in his eyes.
I can’t see his face because it is covered with the balaclava, but his frame tells me enough.
He’s big, brawny, built for violence but light on his feet.
“Where are we going?” I decide to ask, if only to keep them talking, to get one of them to slip up.
“It’s none of your fucking concern,” the driver replies.
He’s the scrawniest. The others referred to him as the boss. I’m guessing they’re his crew. They’re guns for hire, freelancers with no particular affiliation, much like Lanny and the people who shot up Gamberetti’s gala and attacked Luca’s transport truck.
What’s happening here is the conclusion to someone’s master plan.
And I’m smack in the middle of it.