Chapter 15 #2
“At first, I thought it would be easy to kill you because even if I messed up somewhere, you’d each let the other die,” Dave said, looking right through me. “But you kept saving each other. I couldn’t figure out why in the beginning. Then at the wedding shootout, it hit me.”
“We love each other,” I said.
“Yeah.” Dave smiled. Actually smiled. His eyes lit up and everything. “Such a touching romance. Two enemies finding love. Real shame that you two lovebirds have to die.”
“No. No.” I shook my head, refusing to believe that this would be Enzo’s reward for loving me. His reward for extending forgiveness to my father, even though Papa didn’t deserve it. “Do what you want with me but you leave Enzo out of this. Let him be!”
“No can do, Valentina,” the driver said, dropping what remained of his cigarette. “That’s why you’re here.”
Dread clawed its way down my spine. I could very well guess what he meant, but I couldn’t bear to face it. “What are you saying?”
“Thing is, the only way to get rid of you two is to separate you,” he responded. “Instead of relying on you to turn on each other, I do the opposite. Get one of you to try to save the other. Set a trap.”
“No. Don’t hurt him!” I cried out.
“You’re the bait,” Dave said with a gleeful laugh that chilled me down to the bone.
“I make a call, tell him you’re in trouble, and give him directions to the warehouse to come save you.
And you know he will because he can’t help it, even though it’s an obvious trap.
Love makes people do irrational things.”
“Don’t tell him where I am,” I pleaded in anguish. “Just kill me. Leave him be. Let him live. Let him finally live.”
Violence had been all Enzo had ever known. Once he’d risked everything to try to leave the mafia. Once he had dreamed of freedom.
Together, we would have had a chance at really living.
At making his dream a reality. Rather than cling to the shadows, we could have finally stepped into the light.
But that wasn’t meant to be for me. Despite my abject terror, I would face my own end with dignity if I had to.
What I refused to accept was that Enzo would never know true freedom.
How dare this man try to take that from my husband. How dare this man try to steal my husband’s life before it really got started.
I had originally wished I could use my phone to contact Enzo for help, but now, I was grateful that I hadn’t been able to make that phone call. Somehow, I had to stop him from getting in touch with Enzo. I just had to.
“It’s nice to have you finally begging,” Dave said with a sneer. “After everything, I have the power now.”
That was what this was about. As much as Dave wanted revenge for his wife’s death, for his heartbreaking circumstances, what he truly wanted was power.
Now, after all this time, I could see how corrupting power could be.
It blinded people from the truth. The truth right in front of them.
The truth of their fragility. The truth of their own mistakes.
After all, it had blinded my father, making him think he could never be wrong.
Papa had refused to trust what I was telling him.
Now lust for power was corrupting Dave. Blinding him to the truth that all this destruction wasn’t going to set things right.
Dave had started out wanting justice, somewhere along the way it had turned into doling out the very violence he had originally condemned.
An innocent bystander was turning into us.
Hardhearted, cruel, vengeful, misguided.
He was making the exact same mistakes I had made until I learned to love Enzo.
I’d never be able to make up for Dave’s loss. But there had to be a way to restore his life without any more bloodshed and destruction. First, I would save Enzo, and then maybe, I could get Dave to accept an olive branch. For all our sakes.
The wheels in my head turned as I tried to think of a way to save my husband. It took me a moment to realize that the best way to do that was to keep the focus on me.
“I was the one with the power, Dave,” I said, nodding. “Most of what went on in New York was my doing. My decisions. You were shot in New York, right?”
Dave narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Yes.”
“I was the head of family’s New York operation,” I said. Even though my father was in charge and Enzo was also probably involved in the shooting, if I took full responsibility, the focus would be on me. Dave could have his revenge on me without hurting anyone else. “It was my fault.”
He studied me with a frown. “You’re not the only one in the family. You two are married now, you’re one and the same.”
“Listen to me,” I said urgently. “Forget about anyone else. It’s me you want. You have me already. There’s no need to do any more. You’ve won, Dave.”
“You’re trying to trick me,” he hissed.
My heart pounded as I saw his expression darken to raw hatred. The sight of his hate was so ugly and frightening. Hatred had twisted his heart. Just like it had twisted mine once. Dave had been right when he’d said that love could make a person do irrational things. So could hate.
“I’m not trying to trick you,” I insisted, hoping that I sounded sure of myself in spite of my fear.
“Enough of your games!” Dave barked, the hand holding the gun suddenly unsteady.
I swallowed hard then, trembling in terror. How I wished I could get out of this chair, but I knew if I made one false move, Dave would shoot me and I’d have no way to save or protect Enzo. Brains were all I had against Dave.
“Whatever it is you want, Dave, just name it and I can make it happen,” I said. “We can pay for rehab. All your medical care. We can give you a house. You’ll never have to pay for anything ever again. We can give you a better life than the one you have now.”
“I don’t want a better life,” he ground out. “I want you to pay.”
I shut my eyes then, fear taking over again, numbing me and turning my thoughts to a dull roar in my head. “This is going to catch up with you. Someone will come after you. If not law enforcement, then one of our own. You’ll be starting the cycle of violence all over again.”
“Do you know how I plan on making you pay?” he asked then.
All the air in the storage room seemed to escape. I couldn’t breathe.
“This entire place is rigged to blow up on my say so,” Dave continued sounding proud of himself. “That’s what the bank bombing was. That’s why I set those fires. Sure, they scared you, but they were really practice in case my other attempts on you failed.”
My eyes snapped open. “You’ve rigged this place with explosives?”
“Yup. Your husband shows up, I’ll be out of the way by then and all I have to do to finally be rid of you is press a button.
There’s no way you’re going to survive getting blown to pieces.
Your families will blame each other, the war starts up again, and they’ll probably be a whole lot more deaths in your family when they’re back to fighting each other,” Dave said.
“As for getting away with it, well, I figure faking my own death with the blast will take all the heat off me. There’s a fresh corpse of some homeless guy I snuffed out that will get blown up with the two of you—the cops will think it’s me.
Just some unfortunate driver caught up in your war. Poetic, don’t you think?”
My heart sank. Shit! He was a killer through and through. Dave was going to win. He’d had the element of surprise this whole time. Planning while we had no idea what was in store for us. Never in my life had I felt so powerless. The despair washed over me with the force of a tidal wave.
Dave stepped on the smoldering cigarette butt on the floor, snuffing it out. He glanced at this watch. “Let’s see, if I call your husband now, he’ll be here in about forty-five minutes. Plenty of time for me to get into position so that I can blow the bastard to bits when he arrives.”
“No. Please, no.” I started sobbing, the thought of Enzo dying because of me too much to take. Regret at a life unlived broke me.
Ignoring my anguished pleas, Dave reached into my bag to retrieve my cell phone. With a smug smirk in my direction, he woke up my phone, swiped at the screen and pressed it to his ear. “Hello, Enzo. I’m calling with some very unfortunate news about your wife. I have her.”