Chapter 56
Lily
Fight, flight, or freeze.
Without a weapon, fighting wasn’t an option. With a blade to my throat, neither was fleeing. I was stuck with the third option and did so involuntarily as the surviving Gimello sister shoved me through a deep purple, velvet curtain that blocked off a section of the basement’s mezzanine.
I had a cut on my shin from being dragged up the metal staircase, where I banged it. It should’ve hurt more, but I couldn’t feel anything beyond my fear.
“Keep quiet,” the woman hissed with a thick Italian accent and a dark glare. “Or I slit your pretty neck.”
I didn’t dare argue or scream, as she steered me to the middle of the room, scanning it for something. For a moment, she left me standing alone, and I contemplated running, but my body refused to move, and soon she was with me again.
Using a curtain sash, she bound my hands behind my back and tied another one across my mouth. She then pushed me onto one of the plush sofas.
I didn’t know if she was Lucia or Beatrice; Dean had only mentioned names, but whichever one she was, she was upset and desperate for an escape. So desperate she began using her sister’s knife to peel back sections of the mirrored perspex that lined the back wall, revealing a hidden window.
But I was also desperate to escape and had no intention of going with her.
Heart pounding, I shot off the sofa.
She saw and swiped her hand out in my direction, missing me by inches before I slipped through the velvet fabric again.
And slammed into someone coming the other way.
They gripped my upper arms, their fingertips digging into my skin, and forced me back through the curtain.
The push knocked me off my feet, but I couldn’t catch myself with my hands behind my back.
I landed on the floor, gasping as the wind was momentarily knocked from my lungs and pain rippled through my hip and elbow.
I didn’t have time to process if something was broken as Gabriele stepped through the curtain.
Fear lanced through my insides, and I dragged myself backward, helplessly trying to create distance between us.
“A ransom is looking lovely right now,” he smirked as he strode closer, looming over me. His eyes went to his sister. “Hurry up, Beatrice!”
“I’m fucking trying!” Beatrice pulled at the rest of the perspex with sheer frustration.
I shook my head as Gabriele got closer.
He nudged my legs apart with his shoes.
I kicked and kicked at him, connecting with his shin once before he grabbed my ankle and dragged me closer. I screamed against the sash in my mouth, ripping my throat raw.
He tutted, fighting to catch my other ankle as I aimed my foot at his crotch. “We’re going to have so much time getting to know one another.”
My foot slipped from his grasp, and I kicked harder than I had before. It landed where I wanted, right between his legs, and he dropped to his knees as he clutched his groin.
I swiveled on my lower back, using my legs to get up until he grabbed my arm and threw me back down.
I groaned, struggling to breathe in before he flipped me onto my back. His hand was already raised to strike my face as he placed the other on my throat and straddled my stomach.
“You little bi—”
I flinched as a loud bang rang through the room.
Gabriele reeled back with an agonized cry. He reached for his ankle, where the back had exploded in a mess of blood and flesh.
Just as he turned to look at the velvet curtain, another shot rang out.
Warm specks of blood sprayed across my face, and Gabriele fell limp to the floor beside me with a gaping hole in his cheek.
I scooted away from him as Beatrice screamed.
Movement at the curtain pulled my attention off the growing pool of blood around Gabriele’s head, and hope swelled in my chest as Dean stepped into the space with a gun already locked on Beatrice. The intention in his eyes was clear.
Beatrice scrambled off the couch and pulled me up.
I tugged against her grasp until she held a gun to my temple and ducked behind me, making me her human shield.
Dean moved steadily, keeping the gun trained on the small parts of Beatrice that weren’t hidden by me. Blood continued to drip from his wounded hand, but he didn’t care. There was a deadly calm about him.
“Gun down, or she dies,” Beatrice demanded. She mentioned something else in Italian. I didn’t understand the words, but the feeling behind them was anger and frustration. “Gun down and back away!”
Dean didn’t move. His arm was straight, and that gun wasn’t lowering any time soon.
I winced as Beatrice dug hers into my skin. “I will fucking kill her!”
“Do you trust me?” His voice was deep and calm.
I dipped my chin, whimpering, and slowly shut my eyes, waiting for the sharp sting of a bullet. I knew how it would feel, but I wasn’t prepared.
“I don’t have time for your games.” Beatrice snapped, right before another gunshot blasted through the air.
My eyes remained shut. I didn’t want to look. Not when I felt Beatrice leave my side and heard someone fall.
Suddenly, I was standing alone, shaking and unable to form a full breath as I listened.
She shot him. She shot him. She shot him.
Quiet, slow steps approached me.
I barely had time to flinch before a strong pair of arms pulled me close.
“I’ve got you, Lily,” Dean whispered, cradling the back of my head in his hand. “I’ve got you.”
I shuddered and sobbed, and collapsed against him all at once, opening my eyes as tears flooded my vision.
He quickly removed the sash from my mouth, all the while scanning every inch of the cuts and bruises that must’ve decorated my face, and then he unbound my wrists.
Before he could discard the sash, I took his wrist and wrapped his hand with it. “So, you don’t lose any more blood.” My voice felt foreign in a scene so violent.
He cupped my face and kissed my forehead, my cheek, and my lips before he took my hand and led the way through the curtain, mindful of the broken glass from the shattered windows above.
The noise in the basement, a continuous cluster of bangs and yelling, seemed to come back into focus now that the threat of kidnapping no longer hung above my life. It was as if I had blocked it out earlier, and suddenly it had all rushed back.
Dean ducked behind the mezzanine handrail, and I followed, squatting right beside him. It was then that I noticed the sweat on his brow and slightly labored breaths as he focused on a plan to get out without being shot.
“We’re gonna go straight down the stairs and to the exit. Stay low and close to me, alright?” He pressed his good hand to my cheek. “You’re gonna see some things—”
“I know,” I said with a nod, taking his wrist. “Low and close. We’ve got this.”
His half smile was tired but adoring, and then we were moving, quick and steady, down the stairs.
Men shouted at each other, while other voices were cut short by another round of bullets.
I kept my eyes on the stairs and the exit, while Dean kept an eye on the others until the door was mere inches away and he steered me in front of him.
I tried not to pay too much attention to the body in the doorway as I stepped over it hastily, avoiding the blood as the cold floor bit into my feet.
A bullet pinged off the door frame above us, cascading drywall across Dean’s hair right as we escaped into the stairwell.
Almost there.
We went up the stairs together, but Dean stumbled and caught himself, closing his eyes for a second as he hung his head. The purple sash on his hand was already covered in blood.
“Shit,” he breathed.
“Dean, come on.” I looped his arm around my shoulder, took the gun from him, and held his waist. “I’m going to support you as much as I can, but I still need some help. We have to keep moving.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re meant to sit still when you’re bleeding out,” he muttered sarcastically.
Good. Sarcasm was a good sign.
“Yes, but you aren’t bleeding out.” I was in denial, but still, I pulled him to the next step. And the next flight of stairs.
He managed the climb to the top, but the way he swayed on his feet wasn’t exactly reassuring.
We passed two more bodies at the door that went into the strip club. This door was propped open, revealing a darkened room on the other side where glass from the black mirrors littered the floor.
“Careful,” Dean said, nodding to my feet. “I would carry you but—”
A pair of bright lights suddenly flashed in our faces, and we stopped inside the door.
“Put the weapon down!” shouted a man, followed by the click of a gun.
Police.
“We were the hostages, you dumb fucks,” Dean muttered sharply.
I hastily put the gun down anyway as the officers lowered their flashlights and guns.
They didn’t quite apologize for the mistake, but they were quick to escort us out, carefully guiding me around the broken glass that littered the entire floor.
It caught the light of the flashlights like a floor of diamonds.
Antonio’s men had come in earlier with their guns blazing, and it showed. Every mirror was broken, and the front windows were smashed in.
Outside, the street was cordoned off and filled with flashing red and blue lights.
Police vehicles, two large black vans, and ambulances were parked a safe distance from the club’s entrance in case the fight spilled onto the street, but still close enough that Dean and I were whisked away to the paramedics.
Well away from the front line of it all.
Dean was seen first. Initially, he refused and told them to check me first, but when he stumbled, they guided him quickly to sit in the back of the ambulance.
They checked me over too, but all of my injuries were bruises and superficial cuts that would heal on their own.
I was suspected of having a concussion, not that I could recall when or how it happened.
Wrapped in one of the blankets from the ambulance, I stood beside Dean as they cleaned and treated his hand. I could feel the adrenaline subsiding as I came to terms with what happened.
“Lily!”
I turned, searching the sea of police cars for the owner of that familiar voice, and found Dad walking right to us. With his arms out wide, I could see the bulletproof vest under his coat before he wrapped me in a tight hug.
He noted the blood on my clothes and in my hair, glanced at Dean, and then held me at arm’s length for a better look.
“How did you know to come?” I asked.
“Kira called us from your apartment. She said it looked like you’d been robbed.
There were also reports of multiple gunshots in this area.
So when we tracked Dean’s phone here, we knew something was off.
And since the triplets figured out who Dean was a few weeks ago, I thought it was odd he might willingly come here again on the day of his mother’s funeral…
” He glanced at Dean, who was doing his best to look like he wasn’t listening as he watched the paramedic begin wrapping his hand in gauze. “I’m just happy you’re both safe.”
“You know Antonio’s down there,” Dean said.
Dad pressed his lips together. “I do… The entire investigation has been shot to pieces.”
The realization that I might not ever see Antonio again struck me harder than I thought it would.
“Someone tipped him off,” Dean added.
The paramedic finished wrapping his hand and began strapping it across his chest to keep it elevated. Dean’s eyes remained on Dad, who had paused to process what he was saying. He looked like he was reevaluating who on his team he could trust.
Dad didn’t share these concerns out loud. Instead, he inhaled and put his arm around me.
“You two should get to the hospital. I will feel a lot better once I know you’re both as far away from this place as possible. And he needs to have that looked at properly.” He pointed at Dean’s hand.
Dean gave him a lazy, two-fingered salute with his other hand. “Yes, sarge.”
With Dean taking the stretcher, under strict instruction by the paramedic in case he felt dizzy from the blood loss, I sat in the spare seat beside him in the back of the ambulance.
I allowed myself to relax in the seat. My body was tired and ached all over, but I was alive.
Dean reached across and squeezed my knee gently to get my attention, half smiling.
We were alive.