“Mo? Talk to me, Mo. What the hell’s happening out there? Get moving. Just drive through the gates. Blow them if you have to,” Angelo commanded.
There was no answer. No vehicle moved. Emme scanned under the SUV, looking for the last man. There was no sound to give him away. The blast had been loud, and now a fire was roaring in the distance, but she kept her entire attention on the one hunting her. She stayed on her belly, ignoring the pain pounding through her body where Mo had repeatedly punched her. Something moved behind the SUV, but she didn’t see legs or feet. He had to be on the bumper. She hadn’t seen the vehicle move, which it would have when his weight had been added to it. He’d used the distraction of the helicopter and Mo’s fight to plan out his attack.
She kept wiggling her leg, inching it out from under Mo’s heavy body. It took patience to keep slowly working the leg as if she had all the time in the world and any minute someone wasn’t going to be shooting at her, possibly with an automatic weapon. She kept her breathing slow and even. Breathing in and out. Letting her body, her training, take over the way it had done for years. She relied on that discipline, that training, had confidence in it.
A boot slowly dropped down to the ground right next to the end of the SUV. The leg came into view as the man wholly committed to climbing off the vehicle. He took one step forward to allow his other leg to drop down. She could see the partial end of a gun as he planted the second boot on the ground. Two-handed, Emmanuelle fired three shots into the exposed calf and knee, going right up the leg with each bullet. The man screamed.
She yanked her leg free and rolled under the SUV to the other side and was up, crouching low, searching for any shadow she might slide into, even as she checked the truck to see the status of the enemies there. Both the back passenger and driver’s-side doors were open. A body hung out of the back passenger door.
“Pull back,” Miceli’s voice ordered. “Now. All of you. Pull back immediately.”
“We can still do this,” Angelo countered.
“Be quiet,” Miceli snapped. “Pull back now, everyone. This is that girl, Angelo. Emmanuelle. I know you’re here, sweetheart. You’re defending him. Valentino. He isn’t worth it. He’s been playing you since day one. I thought you knew that. I thought you found his true character out.”
His voice had gone from a whip of menace, of complete command, to that of a sweet older man talking gently to a young, mixed-up girl. Emmanuelle could clearly hear him over the several radios on the men lying dead on the ground.
“It must have been so difficult for you to grow up like you did. A mother who doesn’t love you, never wanted you and is so ugly to you, abusing you every chance she gets. How humiliating for you. It’s no wonder you were ripe at such a young age for a grown man like Val, who was experienced in seducing women, to take advantage of you.”
There were no shadows for her to disappear into. Nowhere she could go to escape the voice that was telling not only every one of his men her story, but her family and cousins as well. Miceli was doing so deliberately to provide a distraction so his men could safely pull out. He knew the Ferraro family was helping Val, Dario and Giuseppi. He knew their reputation. He didn’t know how they did what they did, but like everyone else, he both respected and feared them. He wasn’t willing to lose more men to them.
“I always have a place for you, Emmanuelle. You’re a beautiful woman. Angelo and Tommaso both have long wanted to ask you out, but Val had made it plain that he had a claim on you. They would treat you with the respect you are due. They wouldn’t cheat with other women the way he does. They wouldn’t lie to you. You wouldn’t have to put up with your own family calling you names and disrespecting you. We would protect you from all that. Come to us, Emmanuelle. Val is pure poison. He will turn on Giuseppi. He is out only for himself. I tried to tell my brother, but he looks at Val through the eyes of a loving father. I can’t save him, no matter how hard I try.”
The man she shot in the leg crawled to the truck and hauled himself into the driver’s seat. He closed the door and wrenched the steering wheel, turning so the truck lurched forward awkwardly. The body hanging out the door of the back cab slid farther so the head, the torso and even the hips were out. The tips of the fingers dragged macabrely on the ground. The dead man’s boots seemed to be hung up on something inside the truck, or he would have been ripped out.