CHAPTER 29 #2
I moved again. Faster this time. My rage fuelled me.
I shoved past the guard holding Dante, hard enough to break his balance.
Dante lurched to the side with him, creating just enough space.
My hand hit the guard’s holster. My wrist was likely broken.
I needed a gun to fight now. I pulled it free and this time, I didn’t hesitate.
I turned immediately, raising it where I knew one of the other guards had been standing and I pulled the trigger.
The bullet tore through him centre mass, just as Arran had taught me, when he took me to an illegal shooting range to practice weeks before.
I took aim again. But Daniel was quicker.
He reached from behind me, already in position like he had pre-empted my moves.
His hand closed around my wrist mid-raise and redirected the barrel upward in one controlled motion.
I had already pulled the trigger and the shot went through the ceiling above us, plaster scattering down before me as Daniel twisted my hand and forced me to release the gun again.
“Sonofabitch!” I yelled angrily as I slipped my hand free of his grip and tried to evade him completely. He caught me at the waist, holding me there with enough control to stop my mounting fight and escalation.
In one last savage act of rebellion and fight, I leaned over and bit Daniel’s hand as hard as I could.
He barely made a sound, but the fact he released me and flinched back, assured me it had hurt.
I would have smiled, but as I turned to glare at him, he lashed out fast, landing a hard hit to the side of my face that had me reeling.
I fought not to give him the pleasure of hearing my cry of pain, biting my lip as I slammed my hand over my cheek and glared at him hard.
“Big man,” I sneered. “Did Daddy teach you to hit women half your size?”
He reached for me, grabbing me again and pressing my back hard against his front as he seemed to loose just a little of that calm and composed manner he had been holding onto so tightly. He squeezed his iron like arm around my waist until I could barely breathe.
“Last warning. One more fight and he’s dead. I’ll send him back to your brother in pieces,” he warned quietly near my ear. I shook against him, fighting to get free.
“You’re going to kill us both anyway,” I spat back.
“Probably, but not yet. Behave or his death will not be the only consequence.”
He released me finally, and strolled away like he didn’t have a single concern I might dive for him behind his back. He knew he was stronger than me. He didn’t need to be worried.
“Take him,” Daniel spoke.
I watched on, tears flooding down my face, my body shaking as Dante was pulled away. The only mercy was that he seemed to be unconscious again.
“Stop!” I tried to run after him, but Daniel stepped just enough into my space that I couldn’t reach him. Not blocking like a wall, but more like positioning me exactly where I could see everything I needed to see, and nothing I could act on. Another threat.
The guards dragged Dante toward the exit, and all I could do was stand there shaking, swiping at my tears, realizing I had lost again.
But I hadn’t given up. I refused to, and that had to matter, didn’t it? I was still fighting, and I would until my last breath.
Daniel glanced at me once, just watching, like he was sizing me up. I thought part of him was shocked that I was capable of even trying to fight, and I found some satisfaction in that.
“You’ll cooperate now,” he said.
“Oh, will I?” I laughed, bitter and breathless.
He didn’t respond, but again he seemed surprised he hadn’t broken me yet. He obviously didn’t realise how hard it was to break something that was already destroyed.
“Bring them both.” He nodded to the door as he issued the order, then he strode through it casually, straightening his navy suit as he went.
I was roughly manhandled between two of the men out to the drive, then I watched as they shoved Dante into the back of one vehicle a little more carefully this time, at least carefully enough to keep him alive anyway; not careful enough to make it mercy.
I looked at Dante through the window. He wasn’t conscious, but his chest was moving. He was still there, still breathing. That fact was the only thing stopping me from falling apart there and then. I didn’t want to give up, and I wouldn’t, but it was starting to feel like a losing battle.
“Move,” A rough voice grunted and a bruising grip on my arm shoved me into the back of a second SUV. I fought the grip and the shove, but they didn’t let me go until I was in the car. Someone sat gracefully beside me and I knew it was Daniel without looking. Arsehole.
I sat up, smoothing yet more wild, escaped hair back from my face. And when I looked up, across from me sat Adamian.
I knew him before I processed him. It pained me to even think it, but there were similarities between us. The shape of my nose was just like his, as was the shape of my face.
Even if I hadn’t have recognised those things though, I’d have known it was him. The oxygen tank. The thinness. The way illness had hollowed him out but not softened anything inside him. His face was hard and cruel. I saw so much of Marcello in the way he held himself, even so close to death.
He looked at me like I was something finally delivered. An annoyance that he’d been forced to deal with repeatedly.
“My daughter,” he said softly.
“If you’re holding out for me to call you ‘daddy,’ you’ll be waiting a long time. I’m not your anything.”
A faint smile crossed his skeletal face, but it was neither soft, nor kind. It was calculating. He was taking a measure of me, I realised.
“You are.”
“You donated sperm. Nothing more. I want nothing to do with you.”
Daniel sat beside me without speaking yet. Just observing.
Adamian studied me for a long moment.
“You look like her,” he announced, and my stomach clenched.
“Don’t talk about my mother.”
Something like amusement passed through his expression. I was surprised to see an actual emotion.
“She was a problem.”
My hands curled into fists. He wasn’t wrong, but he didn’t have the right to comment on her. He didn’t know her. He didn’t spend years trying to hold her together and take care of her. He tossed her aside after he used her and me right along with her.
“She was a person.”
“She was unstable. A drug addict and a whore,” he corrected. “And she spoke too freely.”
“You killed her.” It wasn’t a question. I already knew the answer.
He paused. It wasn’t confirmation, but it wasn’t denial either. Just acknowledgment.
“She would have compromised everything eventually,” he said simply. “People like her always do. Money and drugs were her only priorities.”
“So you brutally murdered her, then left her dismembered body for me to find?” I accused, overwhelmed by his casualness. He truly was a monster.
“I prevented a leak. The method was not my choice.”
Something in me went very still. This man shared blood with me and yet he didn’t give a single fuck.
“And me?” I asked. “What was I?”
His eyes met mine without hesitation, almost as if he’d been waiting for that very question.
“A contingency.”
The word made my stomach turn and I fought not to erupt at him. He continued, almost conversationally, like we were father and daughter, just catching up.
“When I became ill, I needed stability. Continuity. You were the remaining variable that secured it.”
I stared at him, disgust rising sharp and clean.
“And before that? When you sent those men after me in Chicago? Were they going to kill me? Do you know what they did to me?” I cried.
“I didn’t need you then. You were a loose end. I didn’t tell them to kill you unless it was the only option,” he shrugged.
“The only option?” I scoffed. “You didn’t even see me as a person.”
“You’re a means to an end I have been planning for over a decade,” he said. “Your blood will secure my empire.”
My throat tightened.
“Daniel?” I said, not looking away from Adamian, “Is that all I am to you? A place for you to stick your dick, in order to secure your legacy?”
“No,” he answered flatly.
That made me look at him. His expression was controlled, unreadable - but not dismissive. It set me aback that he even seemed to put any thought into his answer.
“You’re leverage too,” he corrected calmly. “That’s different. You have more value than the name that comes with your blood. I will use you to expand business too, in time.”
Adamian gave a faint cough of laughter, clearly proud of the stone cold protégé he had created.
“He learns quickly,” he said approvingly. “You see why things had to be this way.”
I was shaking with rage when I turned back to him. I glared hard, hoping looks really would kill on this occasion.
“You’re dying,” I reminded him as calmly as I could. “And you’re still like this.”
“I don’t need longevity to finish what matters,” he replied.
Something dark twisted inside me. Did I share any of this dark, twisted DNA with this monster? Was that what brought trouble to me constantly? Was I giving off some sick energy that made people want to hurt me?
“You don’t care about anyone.”
“I didn’t care about your mother, nor do I care much for you beyond what I can use you for,” he admitted easily. “I care about the family. The business, and my legacy.”
“I’m your blood. Doesn’t that mean a thing to you?”
“You’re a girl. No use to the family except for making an advantageous marriage. Remember that. You mean nothing to me, other than securing my family with my chosen heir.”
“Good luck with that,” I scoffed. “You might think you’re winning right now, but my brother will never sit back and let what you’ve done to his family go. You’ll all be dead soon enough.”
“Rafe De Santis is weak. He can’t even keep hold of the business he has. No one’s coming to save you now, daughter. The best thing you can do is shut that pretty little mouth and do as you’re told. Maybe then you can save yourself.”
Silence settled heavily in the SUV. Inside I was boiling, determined to save myself, but I’d be damned if I’d do it by playing the dutiful daughter and wife.
Outside, the landscape had shifted. Open grounds and lush fields of grass. A distant structure rose through rain and I quickly realised it was a chapel. My stomach dropped. I was running out of time.
“No,” I uttered, the word slipping from me.
Daniel looked out the window as we pulled up before it. It was a small and ancient looking building, obviously the private chapel for the family occupying the big manor house. We weren’t even leaving the estate, which meant escape was becoming more and more unlikely.
Daniel opened the door and stepped out first, then he looked to me.
“Out,” he ordered and I froze.
Everything after that happened too fast. Daniel grabbed the top of my arm and wrenched me from the back of the car. I lost my footing instantly and fell on the cold, wet gravel.
“Cara!” The grunted shout made me look up instantly from where I was sprawled on the ground in the rain.
Dante’s eyes were open and he was looking right at me as two men dragged him between them toward the chapel.
Even in the state he was in, there was no misreading the murder written all over his face.
He was struggling between the men holding him, clearly causing himself agony in his stubborn determination to help me.
It was a relief to see that anger in him, because it was a part of him I recognised, and I knew he was still in there, still Dante. My Dante.
“I’m okay!” I called to him as I forced my uncooperative body to rise to my feet. Daniel grabbed my arm again and pulled me alongside him, right after Dante and those fuckers, into the chapel.
“Wait!” I growled when I went over on the right side of my foot painfully, for at least the third time that morning.
I was shocked when Daniel actually slowed a little, but didn’t hesitate to use the moment to lean down and rip off the nightmarish footwear.
I threw them violently across the lawn behind us, one after the other, determined no level of threat would persuade me to endure the things again.
I was also aware I could fight and run a hell of a lot more easily in my bare feet, and I hadn’t given up yet.
“Try anything in here and he dies.” Daniel’s voice, calm as ever, right near my ear, as though he had read my thoughts.
He didn’t need to scare me with the words. The threat of Dante even being there was enough. I didn’t want to stop trying to escape, but I couldn’t watch them kill him. I couldn’t be the cause of his end.
I looked at Dante. The men holding him were struggling to get him into the chapel.
He was still fighting hard, despite his obvious injuries, and how weak I knew he had to be after so much weight loss.
His head was turning to see where I was the whole time we moved.
I saw the rage on his face, the fire in his eyes.
His own demons were right at the surface, pushing him to fight, but his battle to get free was weakening, his struggles more easily being subdued, until he was barely staying conscious.
His eyes met mine and I forced a smile, wanting him to see it and know I was alright. I’d survive. I needed him to stop pushing himself because it was going to get him killed. He stumbled and I thought he’d passed out again when his eyes dropped from mine.
His fight was gone for the moment, as was mine.
Sense had to prevail. I had to bide my time and hope beyond hope they would keep the both of us alive long enough for another opportunity for escape to present itself.
I wasn’t giving up, but just for that moment I was relenting. Regrouping. I had to be smart.
I took a deep breath and kept walking at Daniel’s insistent guidance.
My anxiety was trying to take over and despair was close on its heels, but it had no place right then and I knew it.
It wasn’t going to get me anywhere to give into any of my fears and doubts.
Standing up straight, I walked with my head high into that dimly lit chapel, determined to hold back my weaknesses, and use my strengths.
I had to keep my head, play the game, and stay watchful and ready for the chance to flip the whole fucking board.