And now there might very well be a serious threat, and I was sitting in a closet like it was any sort of protection against an invader bent on hurting the Esposito Family. Maybe even using me to do so.
I mean, sure, I had a gun.
And I was terrified enough to use it.
But even if I did, even if I killed one guy who showed up to hurt me, what were the chances that I could get away?
I mean, like Primo said, if anyone showed up other than him, I needed to shoot my way out. Well, if they got past Primo, that meant he was dead or taken. As were his guards. So even if I killed the one guy who came looking for me, there would be others.
A low whimper escaped me.
I hated myself for it, but I couldn’t seem to keep it in, either.
See, I’d been scared when I’d been taken, when hands grabbed me off the street and shoved me in a van to some unknown fate. I’d been scared of the prospect of being married to a man like Primo.
But those fears paled in comparison to the fear that was gripping my system as I sat in that closet with my mind running away with me.
If something happened to Primo and his guys, even if I managed to get away from the infiltrators, I was all alone in a borough that I knew nothing about, with no friends or family nearby, no cell phone, and no cash or cards since Primo’s brothers usually carried those around until—they claimed—my new one with my name came in the mail.
I mean, sure, I could try to find someone to help me. But I didn’t have a lot of faith in that idea seeing as this neighborhood had witnessed my initial kidnapping and had done nothing to stop it.
And, yes, the tried and true method is to run to the police station. But I had no idea where that was. I had a vague memory of passing it while running errands with Dawson and Dulles, but I couldn’t retrace the streets in my head.
If I survived this, I was going to demand to have a map and to have the guys show me around the area until I could commit some important places to memory.
I placed the gun down on the floor right at my side, drying my sweaty palms on my shirt before reaching for it again.
It felt like it was taking entirely too much time to investigate a little crashing noise.
But then, I heard a horrific sound.
Gunshots.
The steady pop-pop-pop followed by an eerie silence.
And then not a few moments later, footsteps.
Coming up the stairs.
My stomach twisted into a painful knot as my breath seemed to shake through my chest as I pulled my legs in tighter and tighter to my chest, terrified of being seen.
If it was Primo, he would be calling for me, right? So I didn’t accidentally shoot him when he came in?
Shit.
Shit shit shit.
The footsteps came up the stairs at a jog, then moved through the bedroom.
I was pretty sure my entire body was shaking violently at that point before I heard the opening and closing of cabinets.
Cabinets?
Were they looking for something?
What the hell would Primo keep in the bathroom cabinets?
Well, I guess, it was a place most people wouldn’t look, right? Like a children’s bedroom. Or in the pet supplies. No one stores valuables there.
Except, maybe Primo did. And maybe he had some kind of leak in the organization, and someone else found out about it.
If they were in the bathroom, though, it meant that Primo was either dead or incapacitated.
And we were going to go ahead and pretend that the thought of that didn’t make my stomach twist painfully, hard enough that my free hand moved there, pressing against my belly like I could rub away the ache.
I didn’t have time to analyze that right that moment, though. If something had happened to Primo and his brothers and his men, that was out of my hands.
What was in my hands, though, was my own life.
And I was going to do whatever it took to make it out of this situation.
If that meant using the Costa name to garner some fear in Primo’s enemies, or if it meant shooting my way out.
Whatever it took.
I’d been through just enough shit beyond my will. I would be damned if I endured anything else.
Decision made, I rose up slowly, silently, and made my way across the floor of the walk-in.
Taking a slow, deep breath that burned through my chest, I raised my arm, aimed the gun, and stepped into the doorway of the bathroom.
To find freaking Primo standing there, flicking on the water.
My gaze slid to those hands, watching as the blood swirled off of them and into the drain, getting diluted to a pink before it slid down the drain.
My head snapped up again.
He must have seen a movement in the mirror, or simply sensed me there, because his head turned toward me, eyes dark, intense.
“Good girl, lamb,” he said, nodding. “You do what you gotta do,” he added, looking back down at his hands as he scrubbed at the blood.
“You were just going to let me sit in that closet sick to my stomach that I was going to be raped and murdered while you washed your hands?” I hissed, lowering the gun to my side, realizing I was somehow shaking harder than I’d been in the closet when I was scared for my life.
Primo ignored that as he left the water on, but brought his hands to his shirt, flicking the buttons open.
I felt an involuntary spasm of anticipation before he was shrugging off his shirt, tossing it to the side, and I realized what was more pressing than telling me I was safe.
The gaping hole in his side.
“Oh, my God,” I gasped, momentarily frozen as I stared at the bullet hole on his hip just above the waistband of his pants. “OhmyGod,” I hissed, my gaze shooting up to his face, finding his gaze on me.
“It’s fine, lamb. Go on and get to bed.”
“It’s fine?” I said, waving a hand toward his body. “A gaping hole in your body is fine? You need to go to the hospital.”
“Hospitals mean questions. Which I can’t answer right now.”
“Why not? Someone tried to break into your home.”
“My home, Isabella, where we pack meat with drugs and ship them across the country. Committing federal crimes,” he reminded me.
“But… but… don’t you have, I don’t know, doctors?” I asked, putting the gun down, feeling a little queasy as my gaze slid down to the wound again. “Or like vets or something that you blackmail into helping you?”
“Been watching too many mobster movies, baby,” he said, shaking his head.”
“How are you so calm right now? You have a hole in your body, Primo.”
“It’s not the first time I’ve been shot,” he told me, shrugging it off as though past experience with pain meant he couldn’t possibly be in pain currently.
“It still hurts,” I insisted.
“Worried about me, lamb?” he asked with a devilish smirk toying at his lips.
“More worried than you were about me,” I grumbled to myself, forgetting that Primo had the hearing of a dog.
“I took a bullet protecting you tonight, Isabella,” he told me, voice low.
“You took a bullet to protect yourself, your Family, and your drug empire,” I shot back, chin jerking up.
I guess whatever control he had over himself to stay so calm snapped at that moment, because he stormed across the space between us, paying absolutely no mind to the hole in his torso that had to be killing him, coming right up to me, and grabbing the back of my neck hard, yanking me almost up against him by it.