“I will,” I reply, and I step out of the van and close the door behind me before Ricardo can stop me.
I know what I’m doing is reckless.
But so is my love for Marcello.
And I’ll be damned if I let him die out there just because he wanted to protect me.
So with my head held high, I march straight toward the two guards standing in front of the building.
Marcello
I’ve endured so much torture that everything hurts. Not just my cracked skin or the open wounds, but my insides. My organs. My bones. I feel like I’ve been pulled through the wringer, and that’s not putting it lightly.
Still, I have not given them a single clue on the whereabouts of Harper. Not that I would know, as they probably escaped the mansion by now. It’s either the safe house or someplace else if it was overrun.
But I know in my heart she’s safe. Ricardo would’ve taken care of that, and that’s all that matters in the end. At least I’ll die for something that’s worth it all.
What are you talking about, Marcello? You want to see Harper again!
My eyes burst open at the thought. I must not give up. Harper wouldn’t want me to. She needs me. Our baby needs us.
With renewed energy, I wake up Claudio, who’s been in a deep slumber ever since the guard finally stopped beating us and left us alone. “Hey. Psst. Claudio. You awake?”
“Hmm … what do you want, Marcello?” he murmurs, clearly out of it.
“Can you do something when he comes back?”
“Like what?” He coughs loudly. It doesn’t sound good at all.
We’re running out of options. “I don’t know. Anything.”
“Anything …?” he repeats. He sounds like he’s about to pass out. Maybe I should ask for help. It could be the one thing I need to act out my plan. A flimsy plan, but a plan nonetheless.
“Guard! GUARD!” I yell, looking at the camera. “He needs water! Bring some water, or he’ll die! You don’t want either of us to die, believe me. Molly will kill you if she finds out!”
I wait and wait, sweat pooling on the small of my back. This has to work. It just has to. “GUARD!”
After a few more yells, the guard finally bursts through the door. “What the fuck are you yelling about?!”
“He’s lost consciousness. He needs water,” I say, nodding at Claudio, who doesn’t even respond.
The guard turns his back to me and goes to his knees in front of Claudio, inspecting him. This is my only chance.
I lean forward as far as I can while making as little noise as possible, straining the muscles in my arms, pushing myself to the limit. And with the last bit of energy I have left, I jump and wrap my legs around the guard’s neck.
“ARGH!” he roars as I squeeze as tight as I can. “FFFF—”
He can’t even tell me to fuck off. That’s how much I’m strangling him.
He punches my legs, but I’ve endured far worse pain than that. Not even as he digs his fingernails into my skin and claws and rakes at me do I give up. After a few seconds, his strength is wiped out, and his body flops down to the floor.
“Fucking deserved that,” I say, spitting on him for good measure. “Claudio, wake up.”
“Hmmrr …” Claudio murmurs.
“CLAUDIO!”
His eyes finally burst open, and he shakes his head like he was dreaming of some amazing sex with one or a few beautiful women, and the sight makes me shake my head.
“What, what?” he mutters.
“Grab his key,” I say, nodding at the keys dangling from the guard’s waistband.
Claudio’s eyes widen. “Whoa, did you do this—?”
“Ask questions later.”
“Right.”
He crawls up from the floor and quickly fetches the keys, first unlocking his own feet that were bound to the floor before getting up to help me. When I’m finally released from my constraints, I rub my wrists and do some muscle exercises on my shoulders which have been locked in the wrong place for too long.
“Good call, sir,” Claudio says, swallowing. “But I don’t know if we can make it out with just the two of us and no weapons.”
“We should at least try,” I reply, and I look around to see if I can find anything to defend myself with, but all we have are the chains still hooked to the wall. I grab one of them and tug hard, but no matter what I do, it won’t come off.
I sigh out loud. “Prepare for using a little muscle, mi consigliere.”
Claudio balls his fists. “Got it.”
“What the fuck is happening here?!” I can hear the guard yelling up ahead.
“Incoming,” I hiss at Claudio.
Within seconds, another one bursts through the door, and I dropkick him right away. Of course, the second I do, more of them come pouring in from the hallway up ahead. Someone must’ve been watching us through the monitor and sent a signal that we were trying to escape.