“The fuck, Angel? I really don’t have time for this.” I grabbed her and threw her over my shoulder. She banged her little fists on my back, but I silenced her with a spank or two. “You’ll thank me later. As always.”
I threw the towel over her body and grabbed her clothes and my guns on the way before I dashed down the stairs, yelling for my men and Arancia.
A roar of a motor came crashing from outside. I looked through the curtains and saw a speedboat darting to my shore. Merda. That couldn’t be Leo, but he’d sent some of his crew to delay us.
My men rushed in to protect me. I told two of them to take Angel and Arancia, who had just rushed in, too, to the plane. I gave Arancia Angel’s clothes and told her to get her dressed once they boarded.
“What about you?” Arancia panted as Angel squirmed and yelled when the men took hold of her.
“Don’t worry about me.” I looked at one of my men. “If I don’t get back in ten minutes, you fly that plane and get them out of here, understood?”
“Si, Don Bellomo.”
“No!” Angel suddenly shouted, and her eyes reached out to mine. “We can’t leave without you.”
Didn’t she want to stay for Leo to save her from me? Now she couldn’t leave without me? “Just go, Angel.” I unlocked my gun and nodded for the men to go.
Chapter 54
Lina
We ran through the lush side of the island away from the beach, bullets echoing, my brain jumbled.
I’d totally surrendered to Tino as I realized I had deep feelings for him that would never go away, but then a chance to get out of his prison erupted, and I had to take it. After all, he kidnapped me and was planning on keeping me hidden forever. He couldn’t blame me for fighting for my freedom.
But he told me his son’s darkest secret, and everything changed. If what Tino said was true, it only meant one thing. Tino, in his twisted ways, had been trying to protect me from Leo all this time, not just trying to own me and take me away from him.
Tino killed my father to save me. He interfered before Leo and I hooked up to save me. He punched his son when he proposed to me to save me. He kidnapped me before I married Leo to save me.
But if Tino was lying, I would have every right to try to escape. Our relationship was toxic, to say the least. Even if I loved him, I was better off without him, far away from all the Bellomos.
I knew I should run for my life without looking back. I should be grateful that I was leaving here without him where there might be a bigger chance to escape everything and never having to be a prisoner, a slave at his mercy again.
The idea of Tino in danger, though, tore at me, and—I hated myself for this—toxic or not, leaving here alone without him terrified me more than anything.
What the fuck is happening to me?
The plane appeared in a walking distance, a couple of minutes away from the trail we followed. It wasn’t easy to advance among the thick trees with only a towel wrapped around your body, and the sun diving west. A chill ran through me at the approaching night cold and the bellowing gunfight that wouldn’t cease.
Another bellowing sound cracked in, this time coming from above. I looked up and I saw it.
A plane.
Leo’s plane.
The bodyguards started to swear and urge us to speed.
“No! We can’t leave now!” I screamed, my heart racing. “What if they hurt each other?”
The two men and Arancia cursed again and practically dragged me to the plane and shoved me inside.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? He’s your brother. He’s your boss.”
“We have to follow his orders, signora,” one of his bodyguards said as Arancia guided me to the bathroom so I could put on my clothes.
The bullets rained in the background as I finally got dressed. My heart squeezed with every shot. I heard the man talking outside. It was all Italian, but I could gather they were getting ready to fly as there were only two minutes left to Tino’s deadline.
I listened for the gunshots. They weren’t getting closer. If anything, they were getting farther. Tino wasn’t coming to the plane. There was no way he could make it in time.
A knock on the bathroom door interrupted my thoughts. “Signora, are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m coming out now.”
The bullets suddenly died. There were no sounds coming from outside except for those of the wind and the distant beach. What did that mean? Was the fight over?
Or was it over?
No. Tino would never hurt Leo. Could I say the same about Leo?
My heart shrank. This couldn’t be happening.
A second knock on the door disrupted me. I took a deep breath and opened the door. One of the men gestured for me to take my seat as we were about to take off.
“Can you please wait another five minutes?” I urged.
“Mi dispiace, signora. Don Bellomo said ten minutes only.”
“At least, go look outside the plane door and fucking check if he’s anywhere close.” I was done being polite.
The second bodyguard popped his head out of the door, and then he glanced at me and shook his head.
“Please take your seat,” the first one said.
I stared at Arancia, who was already in her seat waving for me to join her. Okay. I can do this.
I took one step, and with the next I faked a fall. When one of the men bent to help me up, I stole the gun in his belt and aimed at both of them. “I’m not leaving without Tino. You wanna stay here, fine, but don’t try to stop me from going back.”
They mumbled a few curses and threats. I didn’t care about them or Arancia’s pleas as she jumped off her seat. I just backed up slowly, my hands firm on the gun, the wind clashing against my back, ruffling my hair. Then I wheeled out of the plane and ran as fast as I could back to the beach.
Thank God the guards didn’t try to stop me. They could have easily. I didn’t know why they let me leave. Maybe they were afraid to hurt me, afraid I’d hurt them if I recklessly pulled the trigger without prior training, afraid I’d put a bullet in the plane body and break it or—I hoped—wanted me to go so it’d be an excuse for them to come back for me and Tino without being at fault.
Whatever it was, I was thankful. I couldn’t let a father and son kill each other because of me. I couldn’t let Tino die because of me.
When I arrived, it was getting darker, but I could still see the bodies and the blood scattered on the sand. All the men were dead, Leo’s and Tino’s. No sign of Tino or Leo themselves, though.
Voices in a heated argument and sounds of struggle streamed from inside the house all of a sudden. I rushed toward the front door, my breath catching, my heart hammering.
“You took her from me!”
“She was never yours. She’s mine! Six years I’ve been taking care of her, waiting for her to grow, and you just—”
“I love her, and she loves me. She wants me!”
“She never wanted you. It was only when you lied to her that she agreed to be with you, thinking you saved her from Marciano when you faked the whole thing to make it look as if you did, thinking I’d been using her to get you made.”
What? Oh my God.
“Isn’t that the truth? You did use her to get me in the family business. Isn’t that the only reason you agreed to bring her to the mansion?”