Luca would need more than twenty minutes even with a helicopter and he wouldn’t be able to take as many of his men with him, so there was no saying how long it would take him to fight his way into the mansion. There was the possibility that he would fail.
Gianna came running toward me, eyes wide.
“I can’t talk anymore,” I whispered.
“Aria—”
“What’s happening?” Gianna asked, as she stumbled against me.
“The Bratva.” I pulled her toward the dock where the boat was anchored. It would be safer to hide there than to go back inside and look for the panic room. The boards of the dock groaned under our weight as we walked toward the boat. But then Lily’s scream pierced the night and I froze. Gianna and I exchanged a glance. Without a word, we turned around and hurried back toward the house.
My heart hammered in my chest when we arrived on the loggia. The living room was deserted. I knelt beside Umberto and took his knives even as I shuddered. I handed one of them to Gianna and put the switchblade into my back pocket.
“Come on,” I whispered. I wasn’t even sure what Gianna and I were going to do once we got inside. I’d shot a gun once, and I had handled a knife only when I’d sparred with Luca; that didn’t bode well in a fight against Russian mobsters. Yet I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t find Lily and Fabi.
Gianna and I crept inside. It was dark. Someone must have turned the lights off in the entire house. I held my breath, but it was terrifyingly quiet. I approached the door that led into the lobby when an arm shot out and wrapped around my waist. I cried out, struggled, tried to angle the gun toward my attacker, but he twisted my wrist. Pain shot through my arm and the gun tumbled from my fingers. Gianna gasped behind me. I kicked out. A deep voice snarled at me in Russian. Oh God. My foot collided with his shin. He pushed me away but before I could catch my balance, his fist collided with my lips. My vision turned black and I dropped to my knees as blood filled my mouth and trickled over my chin, the warm, salty taste making bile rise into my throat.
Fingers twisted into my hair and I was wrenched to my feet, crying out from the pain in my scalp. My attacker didn’t care. The lights came on as he dragged me into the lobby by my hair. I could see Gianna in the arms of another tall man. Her body was limp, a bruise already forming on her forehead.
I was thrown to the ground in front of jeans-clad legs and quickly peered up into a pockmarked face and cold blue eyes. “What’s your name, whore?” he asked in heavily accented English. Didn’t he recognize me? I supposed I looked different with blood all over my face. I stared back at him defiantly. He kicked me in the stomach and I toppled over, gasping for breath. “What’s your name?”
My eyes darted to a body to my right. Cesare. He was making gurgling noises, clutching at a bleeding wound in his stomach. I didn’t see Lily, Fabi or Romero anywhere, and I hoped they’d made it to the panic room. At least they would survive.
A hand gripped my chin and wrenched my head up. “Will you tell me your name, or do I have to make Igor hurt her?” He nodded toward Gianna, who lay on her side on the marble floor, blinking dazedly.
“Aria,” I said quietly.
“As in Aria Vitiello?” the man asked with a cruel smile.
I nodded. There was no use denying it. He said something in Russian and the men guffawed. My skin crawled from the way they were looking at me.
“Where are the others? Your shadow and the children?”
It took me a moment to realize whom he meant by shadow. “I don’t know,” I said.
Igor kicked Gianna. She screamed. Her eyes met mine and I could see she didn’t want me to say anything, but how could I watch them hurt her?
Voices and shooting carried over to us from outside. The leader of the Russians grabbed me and pulled my back flush against his chest before pressing a blade against my throat.
Fear paralyzed my body as I listened to the sound of fighting. I was dragged backwards closer to the living room. Igor was yanking Gianna by her hair. She didn’t seem capable of standing. Another Russian mobster was flung back as a bullet tore through his throat. “We have your wife, Vitiello. If you want to see her in one piece, you’d better stop fighting and drop your weapons.”
Luca walked in, a gun in each hand. Matteo was a step behind him.
“So this is your wife, Vitiello?” the man said, his breath hot against my neck. I squirmed, but he held me in a death grip. The blade sliced into my skin and I became still.
Luca’s face was a mask of fury as he stared at my captor. Matteo twisted the knives in his hands over and over again, his eyes flickering to Gianna’s trembling form on the ground. Cesare had stopped gurgling. This night could very well end with all of us drowning in our own blood.
“Let her go, Vitali,” Luca snarled.
Vitali grabbed my throat. “I don’t think so.”
I could barely breathe in his hold, but all I could think about was that I could lose everyone I loved tonight. I hoped they’d kill me first. I couldn’t bear the thought of watching everyone die.
“You took something that belongs to us, Vitiello, and now I have something that belongs to you.” Vitali licked my cheek and I almost threw up. “I want to know where it is.”
Luca took a step forward, then froze as Vitali raised the knife to my throat again. “Put your guns down or I’ll cut her throat.”
Vitali was stupid to think Luca would do that, but then I watched in horror as Luca dropped his guns on the floor.
“Your wife tastes delicious. I wonder if she tastes this delicious everywhere.” He turned me around so I was facing him. His foul breath hit my face. From the corner of my eye, I could see Luca watching me, but I wished he’d look away. I didn’t want him to see this. Vitali’s lips came closer. I was sure I’d throw up.
I tried to lean back. He laughed nastily and gripped my hip but I barely noticed, because my shifting had made the switchblade dig into my butt. As Vitali trailed his tongue over my chin, I slipped my hand into my back pocket, pulled the knife out, released the blade and rammed it into his thigh.
He cried out, stumbling back, and then all hell broke loose. Luca practically flew through the room and pulled me against him as he sliced Vitali’s throat open from one ear to the other. The man’s head tilted back, blood spurting out, then he toppled over. Bullets tore through the air, and screaming filled the room. The ground was slippery with blood and only Luca’s firm grasp on my arm kept me upright. He must have dropped the knife at some point, because he was shooting bullet after bullet out of a sleek black gun with a silencer. I picked up a gun lying in a pool of blood. It was slippery in my hand but its weight felt good. Suddenly Romero was there too. My eyes tried to find Gianna, but she was gone from her spot on the floor.
Luca shot another enemy and reached down for the gun of the dead guy as his own appeared to be out of bullets, when one of the Russian mobsters to our right pointed his gun at Luca. I cried out in warning, and at the same time stumbled forward and aimed my gun at the guy and fired. I didn’t even think about it. I’d sworn to myself I wouldn’t watch anyone I loved die tonight, even if meant I had to die first.
The bullet hit my shoulder and my world exploded with pain. My shot hit the guy in the head and he dropped to the ground, dead. Luca ripped me to the side, but my vision turned black.