Chapter Thirty-Seven #2
“Zahra, you have given me no reason to trust you but more reasons to question everything you do. Casmiro informed me about the conversation you two had yesterday.”
The air was leaving my lungs. “I can’t believe this is happening right now.”
“It is. You were so desperate to go out there. Your friend might not see it, but I see it. I see all your lies and all your tells. Every question I asked you tonight, every response you gave was fucking bullshit.”
“What?” His words shot through my chest. “They were not.”
“Maybe they aren’t, but you weren’t completely honest with me,” he stated confidently.
“I went bare for you today.” He lowered his voice, looking me right in the eye.
“I told you things I never thought I would ever tell anyone; I confided in you and took your advice; I have shown you more of myself than I have ever shown anyone. I trusted you with my feelings; all I’m asking …
is that you be honest with me for once tonight.
Do you have anything to do with Casmiro lying in that room on the brink of death? ”
A small, humorless laugh left my throat. “Wow…” I said, almost out of breath. “The first time I actually opened up to someone about Manuel, and this is what I get—an absurd accusation.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t try to manipulate me.”
My frown deepened. “I’m not trying to—your claims are beyond wrong.”
“Zahra.”
I stepped closer to him, my eyes fixed on his. “You say I wasn’t completely honest with you. You’re right, I wasn’t. That part of my life is hard for me to talk about, and I opened up to you about something I have spent years of my life trying to forget.”
His brows drew down in confusion.
“Street has no fucking idea about Manuel. I don’t even plan to ever let them know, but you—just like you showed me a part of yourself, I did too. Because I thought maybe as we got to know each other, I might finally have someone I could talk to about this stuff.”
“Zahra, I know you weren’t sincere.”
“Of course I wasn’t sincere; you don’t expect me to bring down my walls completely just because you told me you didn’t kill your family.”
He frowned. “Don’t bring my family into this.”
“You are the one accusing me of attempting to kill Cassie; he might be an asshole, and yes, I might have wanted to push him out of the car on our way to the airport, but I would never just wake up one morning and hire assassins to finish him off.”
He sighed. “Zahra—”
“I don’t know what you think you see, but remember, you were the one who invited me here. I don’t know anyone in Turin but you. I didn’t even know Casmiro would be here. Upper never told me shit; you can ask him if that’s what you’re thinking. I don’t know who those men are.”
He looked away from me, eyes moving around; I mirrored his action to see some eyes on us, including Upper’s.
I looked away at the same time Elio’s gaze locked with mine. “I am giving you one pass, Zahra. Come clean, and I promise I won’t hurt you. I won’t let anyone harm a hair on your head. I need to know—”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Elio, you were with me throughout—I can’t even believe you’re falsely accusing me without any proof—”
“My gut is all the proof I need.”
I blinked at him. “You’re pinning this on me because of a gut feeling?”
“Yes.”
I locked my jaw, a breathy scoff leaving my chest as I stepped back from him. “Well, you’re wrong. You couldn’t even be more wrong—and we don’t have time for this. I’m going down there.”
He straightened. “No, you’re not. It might be dangerous.”
“You know more than anyone here that I can fend for myself. And maybe when I shoot a man or two, you will be convinced I had nothing to do with this.” I turned to leave, but he grabbed my arm almost immediately.
“Zahra—”
A ground-shaking explosion shocked the building, and screams and loud gunshots quickly followed the sound.
I looked back at him, my gaze flickering to his grip on my arm and then his heated eyes. “Are you gonna let me go? Or are we waiting for the next explosion to take us all under?” I asked.
Elio cursed, letting go of me, grabbing a weapon from the table, and gesturing to the elevator. “Stay by my side, always.”
“Why? So you can see if I’m giving the shooters eye signals?”
“We’ll talk about this later.”
“Fuck you.”
I had something to prove.
So I didn’t exactly stay by his side, always.
It was chaotic when we got down. Bullets ricocheting, bystanders running to leave the building, most getting caught in the crossfire or being used as human shields for the assassins, but I was prepared, managing to take down one of them in two missed shots and one hit.
At first, we were a little outnumbered. But thankfully backup had rushed into the evacuating building, and Angelo had pulled Elio over to some of the new soldiers, who were now working towards securing the building’s perimeter.
At the little distraction, I took the opportunity to chase down two of the shooters I’d spotted taking the stairs to get to the emergency elevator, seeing as Marino’s people had secured the main elevator.
It was foolish to disappear alone with these guys scattered around the building—but I saw an opportunity to end this, and I took it.
I spotted both guys coming off the stairs and approaching the elevator, their backs to me.
I had an advantage because while the guns outstretched in their hands moved this way and that as if someone would pop out and jump them, I held a gun in each hand.
Aiming one barrel at the calf of the guy on the left, and pointing the other to the top shoulder of the guy on the right, I calculated my next moves in my head.
Then I pulled the triggers as I ran towards them, my feet slamming into the calf of the guy on the left.
He went down sharply with a loud grunt, turning swiftly to shoot at the same time the other one collected himself, holding his wounded shoulder as he snapped back, aiming the gun at me, but I already had my gun aimed at him.
He shot the same time I pulled the trigger, but I’d anticipated his move and dodged as my bullet pierced through his hand, his gun falling the moment my feet swung, knocking the gun from the guy whose calf I had shot.
It all happened in an adrenaline rush as I quickly kicked the guns far away from their reach, standing where I could face them, my weapons aimed directly at them.
The one whose hand I’d shot bared his teeth in a groan, about to charge forward.
“I would hold off if I were you.” I kept my guns aimed at them, looking up around the top corners of the hallway and then back at them. They made no further move to attack. “Who sent you?”
They were alert, faces hard in pain.
“We are not here for you,” one of them said with a thick Italian accent.
“Obviously, but you almost killed my friend, you fucking idiot, so here’s how we’re going to do it.” My grip tightened on the gun. “I will kill one of you and hand the other over to Marino’s people. Who is willing to die? Discuss amongst yourselves; make it snappy.”
“Go to hell,” the one whose shoulder I had shot spat at me.
“Nice choice.”
I aimed my gun at the guy I had shot in the calf, pulling the trigger.
His body dropped to the ground.
“Zahra!” Elio’s voice rang into the space, and I turned to see one of the assassins right behind me, a barrel pointed right to my head just before a loud bang pierced through the air. My whole body shook, and I stared wide-eyed as the assassin’s gun clattered to the ground before his body followed.
Elio stood there, fuming, gun pointed right at me before he lowered it.
I swallowed. “Well, that could have been bad.”
He rushed to me. “What part of staying by my side don’t you fucking understand?” he gritted as his men rushed upstairs.
“I thought I’d bring you your man for questioning; you can ask him if he’s seen me before.”
“Right, because you didn’t spend enough time disarming and killing one of them. Many words could have been exchanged.”
My heart dropped. “Are you—”
“Shut up,” he said before turning to his men. “Clean this up,” he ordered before gesturing to the other man. “Take this one in. Inform Angelo that I’ll contact him.”
Elio took the guns from me, handing them to one of his men, and then he grabbed my hand. “You could have been killed just now.”
“Better that than being in the same space with you at this point.”
His jaw clenched as he pulled me back down the stairs with him.
“Let go of me.” I tried to wrench my hand out of his hold, but he held firm as he pulled me past a back room, out of the building, and towards the parking lot where he had left the car earlier.
He opened the door and finally let go of me. “Get in.”
“And what about the others?”
“We have the building secured, get in.”
“No.”
“Get the fuck in the car, Zahra, or I’ll force you into it.”
I ground my teeth, glaring at his unwavering stare. I knew he would do it, so I got into the car and bottled my pride, clenching my jaw hard.
He slammed the door beside me and rounded the car.
My eyes followed his movements as he entered; he looked at me while he started the engine and then looked away when he drove out of the parking lot to the private road twenty minutes away from the main road, I’m guessing to avoid any of our lingering attackers.
I let out a sharp breath and shook my head, looking out the window, the anger in my stomach spiking at intervals.
The frown I had worn before entering the car didn’t let up.
I needed to let it out, yell, bash his head against the steering wheel.
“I shouldn’t have told you anything about myself.
If I’d known you’d treat me like this afterward… ”
“Don’t play the victim.”
I snapped my head to him. “I am the victim! I’m the one getting accused of attempting to kill your underboss. If anything, he was the one who threatened to kill me before dropping me off yesterday.”
“Casmiro would never threaten you unless he had a good reason to. You knew he was on to you, so you ordered the hit.”