Hold You Against Me (Stripped 4)

“Get in,” one of the men says, gesturing to the van.

When neither Maria nor I move quickly enough, he shoves the butt of a gun into my back. Pain shoots through my spine, and my knees threaten to buckle. I force my lips together, determined not to make a sound. I accused Giovanni of being like my father, but he wasn’t. He’d never hurt me.

These men are like my father—ruthless and cruel.

I climb into the van and help Maria, who looks like she might be going into shock. Her face is extremely pale, her eyes not focusing on anything. I squeeze her cold hands in mine and whisper, “It will be okay.”

Juliette steps into the back of the van with us, still holding the gun she used in the house.

No silencer. So why didn’t Giovanni come running? Clearly this is a well-executed takeover. I just hope Gio got distracted—and that he isn’t hurt. My mind flashes to Romero’s bleeding body. God.

The van rumbles as it turns on, but we idle there.

“Why?” I whisper to Juliette.

She looks despairing, helpless. “It was supposed to be Romero. He would be the head of the family, and he would marry me. My family would get the status we deserve.”

I stare at her, shocked. He would have been her husband. “You shot him.”

“I didn’t want to do that,” she says, hands trembling. “I didn’t have a choice.”

Fairy tales were for girls who didn’t have a choice, ones bent over desks and locked in rooms. Stories we could believe in, when real life let us down. We didn’t have a choice, but Juliette did. And I had seen the way he looked at her. She had written her own tragedy.

“Did you ever call Candy?”

Her eyes fill with tears. “Yes. And they were taping it the whole time.”

I don’t understand why she would betray both Giovanni and Romero. They were the two possible leaders of the Vegas operation. The New York family would back one of them or the other. “Who’s behind this?”

Juliette’s pretty eyes flicker toward the limo in front of us. “Javier Markam is going to bring the family into the twenty-first century.”

So that’s who is behind this. She’s on crack if she thought the family would accept an outsider. “And he’s going to repay you for your loyalty.”

Fury flashes in her eyes. “Go ahead and judge me. You got to grow up the daughter of a capo, the biggest house, the best cars, the clothes. You have no idea what it’s like to be me.”

I never had flashy clothes or cars before Giovanni. And a big house feels very small when your door is locked. My birthright has always been more of a curse than a blessing, but I don’t bother to explain that to her.

“The family will never accept Markam,” I say instead. “Especially once they learn he planned an attack on the mansion.”

“They won’t ever know,” she says fiercely. “You and Giovanni will run away together while stealing the family’s money. You’ll never be found, but Markam will step in to save the operation.”

“And Romero?”

Her lower lip trembles. “Oh God.”

The gun she’s holding shakes so badly. She’s going to drop it. It could hit the metal floor and go off, shooting any one of us.

One of the suits steps into the back with us and shuts the door. He mostly ignores us. As the van pulls away, he focuses on the mansion through the high tinted windows.

“I won’t go back,” Maria whispers, holding my hands so tightly they ache.

She must be remembering her time in that horrible brothel. I actually suspect there’s a worse fate planned for us, to make sure we’re truly never found. But I doubt that would be reassuring.

I squeeze back. “We need to get out of this van before it goes too far. On my mark?”

She stares at me blankly.

Shit. I know it’s asking a lot of her, considering she seems close to a breakdown, but I need all the help I can get. I don’t have any special skill with fighting or a gun, and we’re working against trained killers here. Part of me wonders whether we should wait and see if Giovanni can find us, my fairy-tale white knight. Except I can’t be sure that he’s still conscious at the moment or even alive. The farther away from the mansion we get, the worse our chances.