Chapter 37
ETHAN
I evaluated the room quickly, doing all I could to take emotion out of it.
Olivia was still dressed, with no visible wounds.
Good. Her hands were in metal handcuffs, which was also good.
Metal was easier to get out of than the plastic ones, which would be helpful when the time came for escape.
Carlo stood near her, a telescoping wand gripped in his right hand like a crop for training a disobedient horse.
Her mouth fell open, she sucked in a sharp breath, and she held it like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
Olivia probably hadn’t expected I’d come after her so soon, or to see that I’d been captured.
Yet getting inside the house to her was the only goal, and the fastest way to gain access was through capture. I hadn’t exactly made it easy on them. I’d put on a show and calculated exactly how many men were outside the compound for when it came time to escape.
Vitale was going to want to question me, so there wasn’t any sense trying to infiltrate the house. I might end up getting shot before the guards realized who I was.
She took a hesitant step toward me, and although her limp was subtle, the pain in her green eyes was not, and I lost the ability to keep emotion out of the situation. All the other men in this room were going to pay for that.
And soon.
“You’ve been quiet, Nathan,” Vitale said. “Seeing Carlo work should make you more willing to have a conversation.”
My gaze slid to Gio. “Are you sure you want me to talk with your father?”
Because of Renzo. His eyes narrowed to slits. “I’m sure he’s not interested in hearing your lies about me.”
Vitale’s phone chimed in his pocket, and a displeased look spread on the man’s face.
It would be an informant who’d tell him there was an order moving swiftly through the police to raid the compound, and Abramo money would be needed to kill that order.
It should keep him busy for at least ten minutes.
The office door clicked shut as he went, leaving me to Carlo and Gio, and I wondered if the Italians knew they were outnumbered.
I’d take the gun from Gio that was carried in a back holster, and fire a round into Carlo’s right shoulder, which would render his arm useless for holding a gun or the riot wand.
Then, Gio would take one in the knee, where he could walk with a limp for the rest of his life if he survived the night.
I took my final breath, preparing to initiate my plan.
“The knee,” Gio said casually.
Carlo reared back and unleashed a strike against Olivia, angling it across her left knee. Her scream cut through the air, slicing through me with icy horror. I turned toward her, and that slight hesitation from me was all Gio needed.
A sharp, fiery pain shot into my back, right below a shoulder blade.
The fucker had stabbed me, and although the knife was short and he’d retracted it quickly without twisting, it hurt like a motherfucker. I gasped a breath over the pain.
This made my plan of escape more difficult.
“Did you enjoy being stabbed in the back as much as I did?” Gio sneered at me.
He put a hand on my shoulder and shoved, forcing me down on the couch. The searing pain only hurt when I moved or breathed, but thankfully I could still do both. The knife must have hit a rib and avoided puncturing a lung.
Carlo opened a cabinet beneath a bar, pulled out black cord and duct tape, and tossed them beside me on the couch cushion where they bounced to a stop.
Olivia was doubled over with a hand clenched to her knee. Her eyes were heavy with pain, but her gaze remained locked on me and her expression filled with alarm. She looked so worried about what had just happened to me, it verged on fright.
“I’m okay,” I said to her in Spanish.
She pressed her lips together. Shit. I’d forgotten she could tell when I was lying.
Beside me, Gio was working fast. I was going to have to stop this now since I was already in serious trouble. If the ropes got around me, I was done for. I gnashed my teeth as I launched to my feet and swung my arms to strike Gio, hefting my full weight behind it.
Only I came up empty.
I hadn’t counted on her terrible timing, or that perhaps she’d had the same thought as I had. She’d lunged for him at the same moment, but she’d telegraphed her impending move and he’d simply stepped back from both of our attacks.
The cord was looped around me and yanked my arms tight against my body, my suit jacket saving me from rope burns. At least they’d left it on. It might be possible to slide out of it. Another loop went around my torso, and then through the plastic cuffs, and down around my ankles.
There, the cord dug in.
“Go ahead and tell my father I shot an unarmed Renzo, it won’t matter,” he said. “He’s only interested in what you think you know about our business.”
Although she’d been unsuccessful in her attack, he still wasn’t happy about it. He grabbed a fistful of her hair at the back of her head and jerked, making her chin snap toward the ceiling. She cried out, a mixture of pain and surprise.
The muscles in my arms corded and flexed as I struggled uselessly to break free. Stop. I was bleeding badly and losing precious energy, so I needed to not waste any more of it.
“Carlo will open a bottle of wine, and you will pour me a glass.” I understood them before Gio’s words were echoed in English by his translator. “Go ahead and keep disobeying. I want Nathan to see what happens.”
“Leave her out of this,” I said in Italian.
He pretended he didn’t hear me. He released her with a shove, pushing her toward the bar, and she waited beside it as Carlo complied with the order. I watched her eye the corkscrew longingly while it was used to open the bottle, and I wanted her to get her hands on it almost as badly as she did.
But what I wanted more than anything was for her to do exactly as Gio had instructed. He was unpredictable, and if he hurt her again, I didn’t know what I’d do.
Of course she disobeyed.
She turned and strutted toward me, her determined gaze fixed on mine. I ignored the searing pain in my body and the blood that was running down my back, making my shirt stick to my skin when she all but crawled into my lap.
What the actual fuck was she doing?
She leaned in, the handcuffs around her wrists rattling as she grasped my chin. Was . . . she going to kiss me?
It threw me into total chaos when she set her mouth on mine and dropped her hands to the lapels of my jacket, pulling me closer. The kiss was tame by our standards, but it still sent me spinning. Maybe she thought this was it, the end for her, and she wanted a final moment for us.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Gio yelled.
Her hands slipped inside my jacket, and then I understood what this kiss was really about—distraction.
While the men watched the kiss, dumbfounded, they didn’t see how she searched for the tiny bottle she knew I kept with me.
The guard who’d searched me had written off the vial as inconsequential when I’d allowed myself to be taken.
Goddamn, I fucking loved the fight in this woman, and I kissed her back, trying to communicate it.
“Don’t worry, I can take it,” she whispered in Spanish, and I felt her hand retract from my pocket. The vial was safely concealed in a fist. She thought she could endure the punishment, but I wasn’t entirely sure I could. Watching her—
It wasn’t like I’d never taken a punch before, but when Gio’s fist hit the side of my head, the jarring action shot straight to the stab wound in my back.
It wasn’t all bad. My mother had told me for years that I had a thick head, and his stream of curse words proved that.
The punch must have hurt the bastard’s delicate hands, and he’d been dumb enough to not aim for a soft spot like the nose or throat. His inexperience was showing again.
“Knee,” Gio snapped.
Shit. I took a deep breath, my gaze glued to the wand. The tendons in Carlo’s hand tightened his grip and the rod drew back.
“No,” I pleaded.
The rod whipped through the air, smacking her knee with a horrific crack.
Olivia barely made a noise this time. Her mouth fell open to scream, but the pain stole all her breath so she made a gasping, choking sound, followed by a quiet hiss.
“Stop,” she whispered on a pain-soaked voice.
I jolted, straining against the ropes once more, desperate to do something. Anything. I could handle whatever they wanted to do to me, but not this. I couldn’t watch another woman suffer, most certainly not this woman.
She was barely standing, hunched over with a hand on the counter, and I watched as she slowly reached over to grab the bottle of wine, her hand shaking violently. You can do this, I silently urged because I was concerned Carlo might know some Spanish. I will help you.
The dark red wine sloshed inside the waiting glass, and beneath the hand on the counter, her thumb moved, untwisting the cap on the vial. The moment she seemed ready, I set my sights on Gio.
“You’re going to regret that,” I said in Italian.
There was a whoosh as Carlo’s wand came down and slapped against my kneecap.
“Motherfucker,” I swore, this time in English.
Holy mother of God, that hurt. The muscles in my jaw ached as I clenched my teeth, trying to stay above the pain and focus on Olivia. Her face was blank. Numb with pain, or . . . pretending to be. For once, it was impossible to know what was a lie and what was real.
She shuffled along, keeping her head up as she went past me and offered the glass to Gio, and her face took on a dark cast. “Salute.”
It was said with so much contempt, it was like she’d only just stopped herself from saying another word. Like she’d really meant to say, to your health, cocksucker.
I had no idea how much of the vial she’d dosed the glass with, but as the wine disappeared behind his lips, I hoped it had been the whole goddamn bottle. If so, his body would progressively slow down until his heart went too long between beats and his brain starved of oxygen.