Chapter Six #4
The turnoff appears to be a maintenance road cut into the hillside, the kind utility trucks and road crews use.
It’s unpaved, just a dirt track disappearing around a bend in the rock.
My heart is slamming my ribs as, with a growl, Dante yanks the wheel hard to the right.
The SUV leaves the asphalt and hits the muddy dirt road at full speed.
The transition from pavement to soft ground is brutal.
The tires lose traction and the back end swings wide.
Gravel sprays against the undercarriage like gunfire.
The SUV slides sideways across the muddy surface, tilting sickeningly.
For one horrible second, I tell myself Dante will correct it, that the tires will catch and we’ll straighten out.
We don’t.
The SUV tips past the point of recovery and goes over onto the passenger side. The world rotates in a slow, surreal tumble. I hear glass cracking, metal groaning, shopping bags slamming around the cabin. My seatbelt catches me, wrenching my shoulder, and my head bounces off the side window again.
The rear passenger door across from me, already buckled from the collision with the canyon wall, twists violently as we roll.
The damaged latch partially gives way, and the heavy door half-opens.
Shopping bags are flung through the gap.
In a daze, I watch them hit the muddy ground and burst apart, scattering clothes across puddles, gravel, and tire ruts.
Jeans and T-shirts lie strewn through the mud, and my new boots tumble down a shallow embankment and disappear into the scrub.
The SUV completes the roll and lands back on its wheels with a bone-jarring crash that rattles every joint in my body.
The vehicle comes to rest at an angle, half on the dirt road, half in a shallow drainage ditch.
The engine is still running. Steam or smoke, I can’t tell which, rises from somewhere under the hood.
My ears are ringing, my vision is fuzzy at the edges, and I taste blood where I’ve bitten my tongue.
Dante is moving immediately. He unbuckles his seatbelt with one hand, looks at me over his shoulder. “You okay?”
“I don’t know,” I mutter, my head ringing.
He turns to look out his side window, swears in Italian, and reaches under his jacket and pulls out a handgun. His face is blank. Professional. He could be reaching for a pen. “Stay in the vehicle,” he says. “Stay below the windows. Do not leave the car.”
He opens his door and steps out into the mud, positioning himself behind the engine block, weapon raised toward the main road.
The Hummer appears at the mouth of the turnoff. It’s stopped on the highway, idling, as if the occupants are deciding what to do next. Through the ringing in my ears, I hear doors opening and men shouting.
Then shots. Not at us. From Dante. Multiple controlled rounds fired in rapid succession toward the Hummer. The sound is jarring, sharp flat cracks that echo off the canyon walls, and each one makes me flinch.
Return fire comes almost instantly. Bullets punch into the body of the SUV.
One round hits the rear window, and the armored glass blooms white around the impact.
The whole pane shudders, spiderwebbed but holding, the dark tint fractured into a cloudy burst. I curl into a ball on my seat as much as the seatbelt will allow, arms over my head, making myself as small as possible.
I can’t believe what’s happening. It’s like I’m in a war zone.
Dante fires again. Two more rounds. Then two more. Methodical. Patient.
Then silence. No return fire. Just the ticking of the damaged engine and my own ragged breathing. After a few moments, I hear the Hummer’s engine rev. Tires squeal on asphalt. The sound fades as it accelerates away down the canyon road.
Dante stays in position for a long time. At least a minute, maybe two. Finally he lowers the weapon and scans the road in both directions before coming around to my door. He pulls it open.
“Are you hurt?” he asks. His voice is calm again. Steady. As if having a gunfight on the side of a mountain is just another day at the office.
“Not really sure.” I touch my aching head. “I think I’m okay. My head hit the window, but I think I’m fine.”
He looks me over with quick, practiced eyes. “Can you move everything? Fingers, toes?”
I flex my hands. Wiggle my feet. Everything works, even if everything hurts. “Yeah.”
“Stay here. Backup is four minutes out.”
He moves to the front of the SUV, phone at his ear, speaking rapid Italian.
I sit in my seat and stare through the open door at the muddy turnoff behind us, at my clothes strewn across the ground.
My seatbelt is still too tight and painful, and it occurs to me I can do something about that now.
Even though Dante told me to stay in the car, I need air. I feel like I’m suffocating.
With trembling fingers, I unhook and get out of the SUV on legs that feel boneless.
I gulp the cool air, willing my erratic pulse to slow down.
There’s mud on my sweater and jeans, how it got there I’m not sure.
Maybe through the damaged door. My shoulder feels stiff and the seatbelt rubbed my Band-Aid off.
When I put my fingers to the bite mark, there’s a little blood.
Not much, probably just from the seatbelt disturbing the scabbing.
I lean against the car because I don’t trust my legs can hold me up. During that whole nightmare, one horrible thought kept going round and round in my head. What would happen to Fabio if I died? Because I thought for sure I was going to die. The odds of surviving had seemed impossible.
And all I could think was that I hadn’t provided for Fabio in the event of my death.
But then again, I’d had no idea I was marrying a violent mobster when I signed the contract with Marcello.
And even when I found out who Marcello was, I assumed he’d be the target.
I never actually thought people would try to kill me.
But Kessler knew that was a possibility.
Marcello definitely knew. The more I think about it, the more pissed off I am.
Marcello should have told me upfront who and what he was.
He tricked me and withheld important details so I’d sign the contract.
The secrecy wasn’t to protect Marcello’s privacy.
It was to keep me ignorant until the contract was signed.
Why hadn’t I been angrier when I found out who Marcello really was?
Why had I gone along with everything as if he hadn’t deceived me?
Probably because Marcello and his money had felt like a blessing in disguise.
I’d told myself his world was dangerous in some distant, abstract way.
I hadn’t really believed that danger would touch me.
I hadn’t let myself understand what it meant to belong to a man like him.
And I’d made a colossal mistake.
I should have insisted on a clause in the contract protecting Fabio if anything happened to me.
I should have thought past the surgery, past the money, past the desperate relief of having an answer.
Today was a wake-up call. Today forced me to accept that I might not survive three years as Marcello’s omega.
I might not survive three months.
There’s a bitter taste in my mouth as I try to work out what Marcello would have done if I’d died today.
I haven’t given him his heir yet. Would he have turned his back on Fabio?
Pulled his money and let my brother lose his chance at a life-saving operation?
Would he have felt any compassion for Fabio, or would he decide our agreement died with me?
The fact that I don’t know sends a chill through me.
One thing I know for sure now. Something needs to be put in writing to protect Fabio.
Immediately. If Marcello expects me to move forward with him, he needs to do that for me.
I know he has more money and power than I do.
I’m not stupid. But now that we’re officially married, I’m not powerless either.
I can damage him.
His reputation matters to him. His standing.
The careful image he’s built around his family and his name.
If he refuses to put something in writing to protect Fabio, I’ll use whatever leverage I have.
I’ll undermine him. I’ll tell everyone our marriage is fake.
I’ll work with his damn enemies to bring him down if that’s what it takes.
This is a hill I will happily die on.
I realize confronting Marcello will be dangerous. But if today taught me anything, it’s that being Marcello’s omega might get me killed anyway.
I might as well go out swinging for my brother.