Chapter 26 Allegra
ALLEGRA
Ihate him. I fucking hate Cassian Trevino.
And I hate myself for the fucking stupid tears I’m trying to hide from the soldiers sitting on either side of me, from Enzo in the passenger seat and the driver.
Four soldiers.
Four huge, armed men to take me back to the house, like there was any chance I might escape this car. Like he thought maybe I’d leap over one of their laps and somehow get the door, that automatically locked as soon as the engine started, opened and leap to my death on the fucking highway.
I hate Cassian Trevino with all my heart.
The highway is busy in both directions, fully stopped heading into Atlantic City, but we’re moving at a snail’s pace here, too.
I’m not sure it matters. I’m either going to be locked in here or cuffed to Cassian’s bed until he gets there and then what?
What’s he going to do to me then? Either way, I lose.
I close my eyes, lean my head back and press the heels of my hands into them.
Shit. I should have told him about the phone.
He’d have let me keep it. Why wouldn’t he have let me keep it?
We were starting to trust each other at least a little.
The drive to AC, the custard stop, I don’t know, all of it, me talking about my parents, him talking about his and telling me about Vivi, we were getting somewhere.
Now I’m back to square one. A prisoner. Collateral.
“I’ll take the surface road,” the driver says.
“Stay on the highway,” Enzo orders, but the driver is already shifting lanes. “I said stay on the fucking highway,” Enzo commands.
Enzo takes out a gun, cocks it and points it to the driver’s temple.
I gasp. Am I fucking seeing this?
“I said we stay on the fucking highway,” Enzo repeats, tone low and deadly.
The driver doesn’t even blink or turn his head, though. What’s Enzo going to do, shoot the driver? He can’t. We’ll crash if he does.
But another gun is cocked before a split-second passes. It’s the soldier on my right and he’s holding the pistol to the back of Enzo’s skull.
I glimpse Enzo’s expression in the side mirror. He’s not going to put the weapon down. Shit. Is he really going to shoot the driver?
“Enzo, give me the weapon,” the man to my right says.
The driver has by now exited the highway and he’s driving down a surface road. The soldier to my left texts a message to someone and I get the feeling it’s not Cassian.
“I said give me the weapon, Enzo. I will kill you if I have to. Don’t make me have to.”
“Traitor,” Enzo says and draws his weapon from the driver’s temple. I think he’s going to give it to the man at my right. He reaches his arm to pass the weapon back. The man to my right lowers his pistol. The instant he does, Enzo shifts his grip, aims using the side mirror and fires.
The man’s head jerks backward. Well, what’s left of it does.
I scream as blood and brains splatter the window, the back windshield, all over me. My face, my already ruined dress.
“Mother fucker,” Enzo says, taking aim at the one to my left who has just gotten his weapon in hand. I guess he didn’t expect trouble because he’s slow and Enzo has no trouble taking him out.
More blood. Another slumped body. Me screaming.
The driver mutters a curse as Enzo leaps across to take the wheel.
“I told you to stay on the fucking highway!” He jerks it, pushing the button to release the driver’s seatbelt before reaching over to open his door.
I grab hold of the seat in front of me as the car swerves sharply off the road, bouncing over the barrier as the driver is ejected, his scream sharp, the sound of his body hitting the asphalt muted by my own scream.
Enzo maneuvers himself into the driver’s seat, the SUV bounding the door still open. He slows the vehicle, glancing at me in the rear-view mirror.
“You all right?”
I nod. When I lick my lips, I taste blood I’m pretty sure isn’t mine.
His phone rings then, but it must be on the floor of the passenger seat.
He ignores it and it stops ringing then starts again right away.
Enzo is focused on getting the car back on the road, but as soon as he does, as soon as we’re back on, I know this isn’t over.
I know something is very wrong. Because three sets of headlights turn on out of nowhere ahead of us and three more come up behind.
“It’s a fucking ambush,” Enzo mutters. “Hold on!” He hits the gas, and I slam against the back seat, but I know there’s nowhere to go. I know they have six vehicles, and we have one on a road where we’re trapped. However Enzo managed what he just managed, we’re not getting out of this.
As if to prove me right, one of the cars behind us slams into us.
I scream again and Enzo curses, yells at me to hold on.
But I know this is as fast as our SUV will go.
The driver of the other vehicle does it again and this time, one of the others pulls up right alongside us and when I look over, I think I recognize the man in the driver’s seat.
I think it’s Rami. As if to confirm, he turns to give me a wide, gold-toothed grin, just before slamming into the side of our SUV. Fucking bastard.
Enzo has no choice, but to slow as he approaches the barricade of vehicles blocking the road, but he doesn’t. He hits the gas instead.
“Enzo, what are you doing?” I scream, gripping the edge of the front seats for dear life.
But just before we hit them, just as those cars chasing us match their speed to ours, he slams the breaks.
Tires scream, and I scream and watch as two of their SUVs slam into two of the vehicles blocking the road ahead.
Enzo just watches the fireball that lights up the sky and hits the gas again, turning the SUV around, but it’s not time to celebrate a victory yet.
We aren’t victorious. And before he can get the SUV turned around, the last car chasing us slams into us sending us spinning off the road, Enzo’s grip on the steering wheel unable to keep him in the driver’s seat, the force of the crash sending him across the passenger seat, his head colliding with the window, shattering it, as the SUV finally crashes into a tree and jerks to a stop at the side of the road.
“Enzo? Enzo!” I call out, dazed, but somehow conscious, somehow unhurt. Although I can’t tell if any of the blood covering me is mine and it may be shock that has me shaking, but not feeling pain.
I undo my seatbelt, look over the front seat at Enzo’s slumped form.
“Enzo?”
Nothing. I don’t know if he’s dead or unconscious, but it doesn’t matter because I see the four men in balaclavas approaching with machine guns.
I see them and I reach for the gun the soldier next to me struggled to get out of its holster and tug.
Enzo’s phone rings. It’s such a normal sound in all this chaos. This blood and death.
I manage to free the gun just as one of the men opens my door, machine gun slung over one shoulder.
I point my weapon at him, my hand shaking so hard.
But then he pulls his balaclava off and it’s Michael.
“Bet you didn’t think I had it in me, did you?” he asks.
“Michael.”
He must have been in the one car that didn’t go up in flames or maybe another car off in the distance because he isn’t bloodied or remotely disheveled and I’m not sure he even knows how to operate that gun on his shoulder.
“In the flesh.” He looks with distaste to the dead soldier between us. “Get him out,” he tells a soldier who steps forward and pulls the body out, letting it drop to the ground like it’s garbage. “Put the gun down, sis. You don’t want to hurt yourself.”
I look at it. I didn’t realize I was still holding it. I put it down.
“Bring her.” He tells one of the soldiers.
He reaches in, undoes my belt and hauls me out, setting me on the ground in front of my brother.
“How did you get to me?” I ask, shaking so badly I wrap my arms around myself. I’m not sure it’s the cold or the shock. Probably the latter though.
He grins proudly. “That Enzo?” he asks.
I glance over to see Enzo’s face. It’s bloodied and bruised and he’s either unconscious or dead. I nod. “I think he’s dead,” I say, even though I’m not sure. I don’t want them to shoot him.
One of the guards goes to drag him out.
Malek walks up alongside my brother. He’s wearing his usual suit, looking relaxed and casual.
“Leave him. Don’t waste a bullet,” he tells the soldier. “You got her. Well done, Michael,” he says to my brother. He looks me over, seeing all the blood and guts doing nothing to his smile.
“Of course I did,” Michael says.
Malek turns to him, cocks his head. “Of course you did,” he repeats just before turning to Rami who is standing behind Michael. He’s still smiling as he gives a small nod of his head.
I realize what is about to happen just before Michael does.
No. I’m not sure Michael sees it coming at all. And in some way, I hope he doesn’t.
“No!” I yell as the gun is cocked and fired and Malek takes a step to the side to avoid Michael’s body falling into him. To avoid getting blood on his suit, although he does. Blood splatters and gets everywhere.
I drop to my knees beside my brother’s body and somehow, I’m not screaming.
I’m not screaming in this darkest of nights when I have lost the last of my family.
Cars drive by on the highway unaware of the massacre here just on the other side of the wall.
I take Michael’s head in my lap, look at his still open eyes. Empty eyes. He’s gone.
I look up to find Malek watching me. He glances at Michael’s face then looks back to me.
“He was always a useless brat, wasn’t he?”
“What did you do?” I hiss. “What did you do?”
His eyes darken, go flat. I know this look. The death inside him. I’ve seen it before although he’s been so good at hiding it from Michael. I think my father saw it too. I think that’s why he kept him at arm’s length in the end.
“You were always too fucking dramatic. Let’s go.” He turns, signals to Rami, because they are all his soldiers, not Michael’s. I’m hauled to my feet.
I lunge at Malek as soon as I’m up, and even though Rami holds me back by one arm, I manage to slap Malek hard across his face, so hard his head jerks to the left.
“I will kill you! I will fucking kill you!”
He chuckles as Rami grips both my arms, immobilizing me.
Malek touches his lip where I see blood.
He must have bit it. He looks at his finger, then up at me.
He raises his arm and slaps me and if Rami wasn’t holding me up, I’d fall to the ground with the force of it.
But he’s not done yet because with the back of his hand he slaps me once more before gripping my jaw, my ears ringing as he holds me still, as he gives my eyes time to focus on him even as my head spins.
“No, Allegra, you won’t kill me. You’ll get on your knees and thank me for allowing you to live every day for the rest of what may be a very short life.”
I hate him. I’ve always hated him. I never thought he could do anything, though. Amal warned me. And now, my brother is dead, his blood seeping into this dirty road.
“I will fucking kill you,” I tell him and he digs his fingers into my jaw and his smile widens, just before he slams my head hard against the one unbroken window of the car.
The impact sends me crashing to my knees in that bloody asphalt and one final blow from the butt of a soldier’s gun knocks me out.