Chapter 42 Gina
Gina
I’ve been at Vincenzo’s home in Italy for a week now. The walks on his expansive estate, with the sun and ocean air, have helped keep my panic at bay. They have also helped more of my memories come back of me as a young girl with my Babbo and Mamma.
I ignore the fact that my father is imprisoned by Vincenzo. The man being held in the basement is my blood, but he’s not my Babbo, and I have to separate the two, otherwise I’ll go mad.
Zeus is accompanying me on my walk today. At Vincenzo’s encouragement, we ventured farther today and are near the cliff’s edge.
“I never thanked you,” he says in his gruff voice.
“For what?” I look at him, shielding my eyes from the sun.
“For the role you played in getting the Chamber formed.”
I shake my head. “That was all Tommaso and the rest of you leaders.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Gina.”
I blush but nod. “Thank you. Is that why you’re here? Because if it is, that seems like a huge commitment as an ally. This is taking you from your own duties, being so far from your territory.”
The wind picks up as we follow the cliff’s edge, but we avoid going too close to it.
“Tommaso needed men he could trust who wouldn’t be known here.
Both Tomas and I wanted him to know we’re all-in for this alliance.
Plus, we’re firmly against trafficking. Both of us have lost loved ones to it.
” He looks out over the water before turning back to me, his blue eyes hard.
“So, we’re all-in to prevent it, especially if there’s a conspiracy and plan for it to happen in our home territories. ”
“I’m sorry you lost loved ones to something like this.” Emotion is thick in my chest because my father has played a devil’s role in such things.
“There are better ways to make profits than that.” His crooked smile reminds me that he, like Tommaso, may have some morals that guide their actions, but they’re still criminals.
A shout shatters the peaceful, bright day; it’s behind us in the direction of the house, and the sound that follows makes me jump.
Was that a gunshot? As I turn around to see, an explosion rocks the air.
My mouth opens in shock, and I see in the distance there’s smoke and flames in the direction of Vincenzo’s house.
“Are we under attack?”
The sound of rapid gunfire starting up answers my question. Zeus and I are out in the open, but out of range at least.
“Go, Zeus,” I say.
His head snaps to me. “Like hell I’m leaving you.”
“They need you.”
But before he can answer, he grunts and stumbles forward. My breath snags as I see the back of his shirt has a hole ripped in it, and blood rapidly coats the fabric.
“Zeus,” I gasp, but he reacts quickly, spinning toward the cliff and shoving me behind him.
“It’s a diversion,” he grits, obviously in pain, and pulls out his gun.
My brain connects the dots: he’s been shot. But where had the shot come from? There’s no one on the cliff’s edge or out on the water.
Suddenly, like out of a supernatural horror movie, three men dressed in combat gear and automatic weapons rise up as if they’re levitating. I know they can’t be levitating, so there must be a ledge or something they were crouched down on the side of the cliff, and they’re now rising to stand.
But how had they gotten there? And why are they here?
I have no time to dwell on those unanswered questions as Zeus shoots at them. Blood explodes from one of the men’s necks, and he topples backward over the cliff. The other two roll onto the grass, but they don’t fire back.
“You’re an awful lot of trouble for a piece of ass.”
My head whips to the right, recognizing the man’s voice.
Arturo Altera comes into view, like he’s climbing stairs on the side of the cliff face. I had no idea there was an incline or stairs down to the water below. My heart stops, though, as another man comes into view behind him.
Stefano.
“Stop, or I’ll put a bullet in your head,” Zeus growls.
“My men will fill you with bullets before you get off another shot.” Arturo smiles as he watches the blood from Zeus’s wound drip onto the ground. “But you’ll be dead soon enough.”
“Gina. Come.” Stefano holds out his hand to me as Zeus keeps me behind him.
My eyes sting with tears. “How could you do this to Tommaso?”
Stefano’s jaw hardens, but his face is unreadable. He looks at Zeus, then back to me. I know we’re fucked; the staccato of gunfire is behind us, and Zeus and I have no cover or place to go.
Arturo laughs, an evil sound, and my attention goes to him and his equally evil smile.
“There are no allies back there, Gina. You’re as stupid and gullible as Tommaso if you thought Vincenzo was your friend.
” My stomach sinks. “Didn’t you and your guard dog here question why he encouraged you to come to the cliff’s edge today?
Where there’s access to the beach below, and he let us land our helicopter here to wait for the perfect time? ”
My stomach plummets because what Arturo says all makes sense.
“Your allies are really your enemies, you stupid girl,” he hammers the reality home.
“You’re not taking her,” Zeus growls, but I hear the pain in his voice, and he sways slightly. He’s been shot in the back, and I’m not sure if the bullet exited out the front. I’m not sure which scenario would be worse.
“You, dead or alive,” Arturo says emotionlessly, “doesn’t matter. The whore is coming with us.” He smiles at me. “We have plans for her.”
The soldiers level their guns at Zeus’s head.
We’re outnumbered and have no place to even try to run for cover.
“Don’t shoot him,” I command more bravely and steadily than I feel. “Leave Zeus alive, and I’ll go with you willingly.”
“Gina, no,” he grits, swaying again, and the puddle of blood at his feet grows by the second.
“Agreed,” Stefano says quickly but without emotion. He levels Arturo with a hard look when he tries to disagree.
Arturo doesn’t like it, but he motions to his men to lower their weapons.
“Gina, you need to know what’s going on,” Zeus says quietly. “This isn’t how—”
I stand on my toes to speak low into his ear. “I have a tracker. Tell Tommaso that his father betrayed him.”
Then I step around Zeus because the two soldiers still look like they want to fill him with bullets. Stefano seems to have some control over the situation and is willing to spare Zeus, while I pray that his wound doesn’t kill him before he can get help.
I glare at Arturo and Stefano. Hate burns and swells within me. Bloodlust rises. These bastards will pay. Maybe not by my hands, but by my husband’s.
But in the meantime, I’ll do whatever I have to in order to protect the life inside me.
Because as a queen, hard choices have to be made, especially when backed into a corner with no way out.
I’m going to be taken, one way or the other.
Giving Zeus a chance to survive, not only for him to live, but so he can tell Tommaso about his father and Vincenzo, is the strategic move.
So, I’ll concede for right now, but I’ll fight to the death.
Tommaso, my king, deserves that from his queen.
Once I’m at the cliff’s edge, I can see that in this section, there’s a rocky incline up from the beach.
It looks treacherous as hell. As I suspected, there’s a ledge the three soldiers had stood on.
The remaining two soldiers lead the way down the rocky descent.
Arturo follows them, and Stefano nudges me to go next.
His face is cold and impassive as he stares at me.
Does he care that I’m his daughter-in-law? That I carry his grandchild?
Or are the child and I just roadblocks to get the alliance he wants with Arturo?
The thought of Rosa marrying Tommaso makes my blood heat. Over my dead body. Which is how they think this is going to go down, but I refuse to accept that as an option.
They want me alive; otherwise, I’d be dead already.
I follow Arturo down with Stefano bringing up the rear.
The soldier Zeus had shot in the neck lies at the bottom of the cliff, his body in a twisted, crumpled heap.
Neither the soldiers nor Arturo stop to get him; they leave him where he landed.
No loyalty in death. Which shows the kind of men I’m dealing with.
I stare at the man’s unmoving body as we pass; looking back over my shoulder, I see that Stefano is as well. When he sees me looking at him, he jerks his chin toward the helicopter waiting for us.
The machine fires up, and the blades start to rotate, creating both wind and noise. As I approach, I hear Stefano say into my ear, “Not all is what it seems, piccolo sole.”
I startle and stare at him.
Little sun.
Stefano called me little sun.
Climbing into the helicopter, I take one of the seats across from Arturo, and Stefano gets in beside me. He doesn’t look at me, but I notice he wears the same Santoro-crest ring Tommaso does, only his is a bit larger. And I notice something else: his fingertip covers part of the shield.
Or is he pointing at the top two quadrants of the shield?
Stefano knows I’m looking at him, yet he refuses to look at me. His finger taps once, and I realize he is pointing at the top two quadrants of the shield.
The tree with deep roots and interlocking rings.
Legacy and loyalty; unity, alliance, and oaths.
Arturo turns around to say something to two soldiers in the front, and Stefano’s eyes, so like Tommaso’s, meet mine.
Then he mouths the words, Family above all. Santoros above all.
And resumes staring straight ahead.
I don’t know the game here. I only know that I’m right in the middle of it.
I’m just not sure if Stefano views me as family and a Santoro. Or if I’m the threat.
And if he does view me as part of his family, is he playing Arturo? Does that mean Vincenzo is part of this as well? Is this Tommaso’s plan somehow?
“You may not know it, but that man is as brutal and unhinged as they come if he decides you’re his enemy,” Salvo’s words from the other day ring in my mind.
I stare at Arturo when he turns back around to face me. A shiver runs through me. Not of fear or a foreboding omen.
But of anticipation.
Because I know without a doubt that I’m looking at a dead man walking.