Then it hit me, if I killed him, it wouldn’t bring her back. The hit was one thing but it wasn’t enough. Those long years of seeking vengeance and it wouldn’t bring her back, or any of the others. Not my team or the children in the orphanage. It wouldn’t change the past.
It was my bad for losing focus because he jabbed me straight in my chest with the end of his gun and something cracked.
Once again I folded and he slipped from under me.
In the split second that he moved he whipped out his gun and aimed it Jia.
I grabbed my gun and shot him but the fucker didn’t go down. The bullet caught his other shoulder and the bastard was still hell bent on going for her.
Then it was like time stood still. I watched him growl like some kind of hell beast, blood dripping from the side of his face, he pulled back the trigger and let it go.
The bullet flew straight at her. Just like Claire. I could have been back there, back in the past and not the present. Distance apart, not close enough.
Jia looked to me, then Giovanni was in front of her.
He’d jumped down from where he was and he was in front of her. In the split of the second I watched the bullet pierce through him stopping the bullet from getting her.
I was sure it went straight into his chest but it didn’t take him down.
Balthazar screamed making a hellish sound that reverberated from his fiendish appearance and reached for the remote for the platform.
I shot it out of his hand and didn’t give him the chance to come for me again.
As he turned to face me I sent two shots straight into his head.
His mouth opened.
That was it…
He then dropped dead before me.
I killed him.
It’s funny I always thought I’d feel better when I did that.
Now that I’d done it, I just wanted to put the past behind me.
I looked over to Jia and Giovanni and realized straight away that this nightmare wasn’t over yet.
The platform they were on had started to jerk and was slowly making its way down into the pit of crocs.
Panic filled me and I looked around for the remote only to see it smashed up on the ground across from me.
Chapter Sixty-Four
Jia
As soon as Pa removed the gag from my mouth I screamed out.
The scream poured from me in response not only to the nightmarish creatures surrounding us but Pa too…
The bullet got him. It did. I was sure it hit him.
For a moment I thought maybe it didn’t get him. I’d thought maybe he was okay because he was moving around and hadn’t fallen. He’d taken the gag away from my mouth and started undoing the ropes securing my feet to the pole.
It was when he stood up to undo the ropes binding my body and my hands together that I saw the red, red path of blood seeping through his clothes. He’d had on full black with a white t-shirt underneath the black jacket. The shirt couldn’t hardly be classed as white anymore.
“Papa, you’ve been shot,” I wailed. Tears poured from my eyes when his hands shook and I could see that he was barely keeping himself together.
“Don’t worry about me my bellezza.” He stumbled and pulled a knife from his back pocket to slice at the ropes.
Damn it the platform jerked again and I screamed from deep within me as a massive, monstrous crocodile leapt up on to the edge.
That was how close we were now to them.
I hated these creatures so much. I was so terrified my skin crawled and it looked like we were going to be eaten by them.
Pa pulled his gun and shot the one that came up in its head. It flopped back into the water. He fired a few more shots and took out some more.
Once we had a little clearing he returned to undoing the ropes securing me.
Terror made me look around for Xander.
I couldn’t see him.
Pa bit down hard on his back teeth, looking pale. My arms loosened on the last cut of the knife and he pulled the rest of the rope away, picking me up like I weighed nothing, but the pain got to him and made him tremble. Still he held me to him and tried to move to the edge of the bridge where he’d come from.
“Pa let me go. I’ll help you,” I insisted .
“No, Jia, for once in your life listen to me,” he balked.
“Pa you’ve been shot,” I shrieked.
He took a moment to look at me and I saw something I’d never seen in him before. It was the end.
I didn’t know how to explain it other than that.
It was final and filled with sorrow, regret, deep sadness.
“I’m sorry. This happened because of me. Please remember me cooking for you, and maybe remember this part. All the parts where I was just your father and not the mafia boss. Not the Vegas King. Just your father, bellezza.”
“Papa please, don’t talk like that. Come I’ll help you get up the bridge and we can go to the hospital.”
When the platform jerked again and lowered, his face returned to the usual sternness I was used to.
A loud clank made us look up. It was Xander. He’d jumped from a height I didn’t know was humanly possible and landed on the suspension bridge. Then he came charging down it towards us, moving lightning fast across the bridge. The damn bridge that was just a little better than walking a tight rope. The little wooden path made into it was just to secure your footing but it still swung like it would just give at any moment.
When Balthazar had brought me out here I didn’t know how I didn’t die from the sight of the crocodiles and being on the bridge. When I realized his intention was to tied me to the fucking pole in prelude to them eating me, I knew I had bigger problems.
“It’s about fucking time,” Pa shouted when Xander got to us.
Xander hooked his leg in between one of the wooden wrongs and lowered his body down.
Neither he nor Pa spared any time to say anything further. As Pa hoisted me up to him, Xander reached for me and picked me up, lifting me to safety.
That left Pa though.
Xander set me down next to him and turned around to get Pa who had doubled over.
“Giovanni get here,” Xander cried.
My eyes widened as two crocs started making their way up the platform.
Pa slumped, took out his gun and shot them. They flipped over, back into the water but the platform was so low now that the water had started to drift onto it.
“Paaaa, come on please,” I cried.
“Xander Cage, remember what I said to you. Take care of my little girl. Make sure she’s safe,” Pa replied, glancing at Xander.
Xander wasn’t listening. As two more crocs started making their way up to Pa he shot them and fired several more shots at the ones coming.
“Giovanni, you fucking bastard! You think I want my girl to remember her father getting eaten by crocodiles. Get the fuck up now!” Xander wailed and lowered himself even more.
I was crying so much I couldn’t see, but something sparked inside me when Pa stood up, turned to us and reached up.
Hope filled me and Xander grabbed his hands with what looked like all his strength and pulled Pa up. He pulled him up and dragged him the rest of the way up on to the bridge.
Just as he did so the platform went straight down into the water and the remaining crocs just swam around it. Another second and that would have been it we wouldn’t have had a choice.