“Brother,” he growls. “The fuckers have got us pinned down a few streets over.”
I cock my head, listening. “I don’t hear any gunshots.”
“Not pinned down exactly… they’ve taken civilian hostages. Flavio’s really lost his fucking mind. They’re saying if we come to the limo, they’re going to execute them. Bro… its women, kids. These bastards look serious. What do you want us to do?”
“Don’t risk innocent lives,” I snarl at once. “Whatever happens, we can’t have a massacre in this city.”
“I can’t believe he’d pull a rat move like this.”
“I can,” I snap. “Luca’s taken control of his Family. Maybe he got wind we were going to set him up to be arrested. It’s exactly the sort of desperate shit he’d pull. I’m calling my boys in the police force. Not even Flavio is stupid enough to go through with something like this when they turn up.”
“You’re in the armored car, right?”
“Yeah, the limo.”
He lets out a relieved breath. “Okay, bro. Fuck. Okay. Just sit tight. I’ll try to work things out on my end.”
“Alright, brother.”
I hang up and then navigate to my police contacts, glancing at Daniella to find her twisted in her chair, looking out the back window.
I follow her gaze to find several men approaching, hulking cold looking, bastards. I can tell at a glance they’ve been injecting shit into their bodies to gain their muscles. They look swollen, unnatural, the sort of men who take the easy road in life.
Flavio must have promised them the world to make them do this.
They’ll be lucky if they get a fucking funeral at this rate.
“Dom,” Daniella whimpers.
I reach over and squeeze her hand. “I know. But I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“I’m so happy Lucky is safe at home,” she breathes.
Something like a smile spreads across my face… not a smirk, not a wolfish grin, but a smile.
I love you, I want to roar. I love how you’re always thinking of our family first, how selfless you are, how affectionate. I love every little thing about you.
But I can’t muddy this situation with that, not yet.
When I tell my woman I love her, it’s going to be at the right time, when I’m ready to ask her the most important question of my life.
The leader of the gang walks right up behind the car with a pistol in his hand.
He’s a tall Italian – maybe even taller than me – filling his suit jacket with swollen muscles. His hair is slicked back and he wears a crumpled blue suit.
When he grins at us, a silver tooth flashes.
Chapter Eighteen
Daniella
The man with the silver tooth grins at us coldly, the smile not even close to reaching his eyes.
My gaze flits over the men behind him, all of them burly, all of them with slicked-back hair and guns and cruelty in their eyes.
Including the man with the silver tooth, there are five of them, spreading out and walking around the car.
I try to listen to what Dom is saying on the phone – barking down it at the police – but his words come as if from very far away, drifting over to me like there’s a mile between us instead of a few inches.
I force myself to take slow breaths, the fear pounding through me, my heartbeat getting so loud it’s a chorus between my ears, beating heavily and making it impossible for me to think with anything approaching clarity.
My mind floods with all the gruesome things these men could to do us, to Dom, torturing him in front of me.
They’re going to take this wonderful thing we’re building together and crush it under their boots before its had a chance to fully develop and flourish.
After the sex last night – and the two times today – I’ve felt so much closer to him like we’re sinking into the close warmth that’s going to characterize our relationship for the rest of our lives. I can’t stand the idea of somebody stealing that away before it’s had a chance to properly thrive.
Silver Tooth walks over to my side of the car, tapping his gun against the window.
Dom hangs up, letting out a savage growl.
“Backup is on the way, but Flavio has fucked us with this hostage-taking shit. Motherfucker.”
Tap-tap-tap, he keeps rapping against the glass.
I glance at him, flinching at the sight of his glimmering eyes and his shaky smile. He looks like he’s drunk or high on something, his eyes are hazy in a way that makes me think he’d find it pretty easy to do terrible things to us and not think much of it.
“Ignore him,” Dom snarls.
“That isn’t very nice, is it?” the man calls, his voice distorted through the glass.
But not distorted enough.
His gruff growl sends hateful shivers moving over my body, a caricature of the shivers Dom sends over me, as though he’s already taking the most perfect parts of us and turned them into pain.