Switching camera feeds came as naturally as breathing, giving me a view of the back alley where Jason’s personal vehicle waited. When they got close to the car, Calla struggled finally.
She hadn’t left me.
Not really, and the way Jason dared to put his hands on my woman as he shoved her into the passenger seat made my fury grow.
I called Celio and Marco to tell them to be on the alert.
No answer.
I called again.
Nothing.
Jason was a fucking dead man.
Fifty
Calla
With Axel still suspended, picking up the kids was easier than it would have been otherwise. Just one stop at Dad’s shop, and I’d have them back with me and be able to think more clearly. I was early to pick them up, but my Dad never followed my work schedule enough to notice. He just knew I'd get them as soon as I was done, so when I made my way outside and buckled them into the spare car seat in the back of Jason's car, I regretted not saying goodbye to him. With everything up in the air, I didn't know how or when I'd see him again.
Ryker would know I could never stay away from my father, and he'd try to use that to contact me again. Ines was just as happy as ever, not caring that we were in an unfamiliar car or that Jason was with us. She’d never been as fond of him as Axel was, too young to see him for the connection to her father that he was.
But such was the life of a two-year-old who was as happy as my girl. Aside from her mostly random tantrums, nothing bothered her.
Axel was less unperturbed. “Where’s Dante?” he asked.
“He had some stuff to take care of, so Uncle Jason offered to hang out with us for a bit. To make you and Ryker more comfortable,” I said with a fake smile. The lie felt unnatural, but I didn’t have a choice. Until I made up my mind, I couldn’t tell him the truth.
“Okay, Mommy,” he said, and despite his hesitation he didn’t question me.
I didn't know how I'd gotten so lucky with such amazing kids, but as Jason drove outside of town to his house, all I could feel was immense gratitude for it.
I didn't know where we would go or what we would do. How we'd survive or if we'd find a way to be free at all.
But I knew wherever we ended up, we'd do it together.
As the shock wore off, I finally caught my breath. I could finally get enough air to just stop and think. I let out a deep breath, trying to calm the erratic beat of my heart as it warned me that something big was coming.
I couldn’t do it.
I couldn’t walk away from the only man I’d ever loved. There had to be an explanation.
I might not know his name, but I knew him.
Glancing down at the phone somehow still clutched in my hands, I discreetly called Ryker. “I made a mistake,” I whispered when Jason’s head snapped to me and he glared at the phone that I lifted to my ear.
“Sunshine?” Ryker said when he answered. “Where are you?” He tried to keep his voice gentle, tried not to do anything to push me over the ledge I knew he probably thought I’d walked to. But I hadn’t. I never wanted to leave him.
I’d just needed space to think.
“Ryker,” I whispered. “We’re with Jason. He’s taking us to his house—”
“Give me the fucking phone, Calla. Do not fuck this up for me,” Jason warned. He reached across my body to snatch it from my hands, but I jerked away. Slapping his hand away from me, I called out to Ryker.
“Ryker, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
My voice drowned out in the next second when the entire world narrowed down to the crash of metal on metal.
To the screeching sound of a car's brakes, piercing the air.
Fifty-One
Ryker
“Calla!”
The crash that came through the phone rang through my ears as I pushed the junk car to the limit. I’d never longed for the Maserati more than I did at that moment.
Matteo and the others were behind me, catching up quickly in the vehicles that could outperform mine. I didn’t even care if they passed me. I just wanted Calla and the kids to be safe.
“Calla!” I roared again as the other end of the line went silent for a moment in the aftermath of what had to be an accident. Pain thumped through my body while I waited. The thought I might lose them so soon, in an accident no less, making my body tremble with the flashbacks of all that I’d lost once before. In the same way.
She didn’t speak, but I heard a door open.
And then, miraculously, I heard her voice as she spoke to the kids.
She was alive.
They were alive.
And that was all that mattered. I’d get to her soon enough, and we’d go home. I’d spank her fucking ass for letting Jason pull this shit. But they were okay.
A loud bang reverberated over the line, and then I heard her scream.
Fifty-Two
Calla
The impact of the black SUV that came barreling through the intersection to hit the driver's side sent my head crashing into the passenger window and both the kids screamed in the back seat. I prayed that the car seats were as reliable as they seemed, and as soon as the car settled in the middle of the intersection, I unbuckled my seat belt in a daze and threw open my door. Smoke drifted up from the front tires of Jason's car, and I had Axel's door open when a bang sounded and glass shattered.
"Fuck!" Jason groaned. I snapped my head to the front, shocked to see him cradling his bleeding shoulder. "Calla, run!" he yelled, but I couldn't get Axel's seat undone. My hands shook too much in my terror, and a scream tore from my throat as arms wrapped around my waist.
"Mommy!" Axel yelled, his arms reaching for me as whoever had grabbed me dragged me away from the car while I kicked and screamed.
"Let her fucking go!" Jason yelled, and he finally shoved his door open despite the massive dent from the impact. The only thing that reassured me Ines was okay was the sound of her sharp cries through the air. It killed me I hadn’t even been able to check on her before being ripped away.
When Jason moved to step toward me, I yelled at the top of my lungs. "The kids!" He hesitated in his steps, glancing back at the car in confliction. I saw the moment he realized he couldn't leave them, that he couldn't be in two places at once.
He couldn't save all three of us.
"Relax. We're under orders not to hurt you, sweet thing. Tiernan just wants to talk to your husband," the man behind me rasped in my ear. I rewarded him with a stomp of my foot on his as hard as I could. He grunted, but continued moving us backward. As we got closer and closer to a second black SUV, I glanced over his shoulder at the woman holding the door open.
Betrayal stung in a weightless feeling. A denial so instant it shocked even me. I couldn’t have been so blind.
We hadn't been the best of friends, but I could never have suspected her to be capable of this.
"Ness?" I asked. My eyes landed on the woman standing next to her, immediately recognizing her as the woman from the photos in the garage the day after Ryker and I had been married. The blond mark he'd said he would stop stalking because it made me uncomfortable.
"Not her name," the blond sneered cruelly. Ness stayed silent, bowing her head and refusing to look me in the eye as the lackey tried to shove me into the SUV.
I caught a foot on either side of the frame and pushed back in my desperation to get away. I knew I couldn’t get into that car.
I’d never come back.
We went tumbling to the ground: me landing on his chest with all my weight so that the man groaned, but another hand caught me by the hair and yanked me to my feet.
"Get in the fuckin' car," the second man rasped, dragging me over as the blond watched in fascination. I couldn't see his face, but I recognized the voice as the man who went to my yoga classes with her. Ness’s eyes finally met mine, and I clawed at his hand gripping my hair, trying to get him to release me. But he held on tight, making my eyes water in pain as Ness turned away again
.
“No!” I screamed.
"Shit!" the blond screamed suddenly, and she and Ness dove into the car, closing the door behind her as the driver took off.
Tires squealed.
I knew, even without looking, that Ryker had come, that the sound of doors flinging open was him coming to help.
The kids would be safe. Even if I wasn’t.
Behind me there was a grunt, and the sound of a thump as something fell to the ground. With his hand still in my hair, my captor spun me to face where his comrade had climbed to his feet only a moment before.
He lay on the ground, immobile, and blood leaked from the gaping hole in his throat as if it had been torn out. Ryker stood over him, some kind of hatchet in his hand.
It dripped blood onto the pavement in a steady staccato that reverberated through the intersection. It shouldn’t have been loud. Not with my captors' harsh breathing in my ear.
But I fixated on that sound until Ryker spoke. "Let. Go. Of. My. Wife," he warned, but the man holding me doubled down. He pulled a gun from his pocket and lifted it to press it to my temple. I whimpered, closing my eyes so I wouldn't have to see what came next.
So I wouldn't have to look at Ryker when I died. I wouldn't have to see the pain I knew I'd find there.
Wind grazed my cheek as something whizzed past my ear. Something wet splashed against my cheek and drew a startled gasp from my lungs. I was suddenly grateful I'd closed my eyes as the hand released my hair and the weight of the man behind me fell to the ground.
Gasping, I felt my legs collapse beneath me. I stretched up a hand to furiously scrub at what I knew had to be blood on my face. When I opened my eyes, the blank ones of the man who'd held me stared back at me, his body twisted into the position he’d fallen to. Dead. With Ryker's hatchet embedded right between his eyes.
"Can't you be normal for once?" Lino shouted, and I glanced over to the car where the kids had been. "What have you got against guns?" The car was empty, but Georgio and Matteo were in a car parked behind it, and the kids' heads bobbed in the back seat as Georgio and Matteo distracted them. I had to hope they hadn't seen anything, because it would have been traumatic enough to watch Jason be shot and me dragged off.
Watching Ryker kill the men who did it would be a whole new level.
I blinked, staring up at Ryker where he came to stand in front of me. He tore off a piece of his sleeve, using it to wipe the blood from my face. His face was gentle, though his eyes scalded me with how furious they were.
Shit.
Fifty-Three
Ryker
My wife bled from a wound on the side of her forehead. There was another man's blood splashed on her shirt that I couldn't clean as easily as I wiped it from her pale skin.
Flashbacks to the sight of Lauren crumpled and broken in the car by the time I got to her tried to draw me away from the moment. Only my pure fury could distract me from my relief that Calla stared back at me with wide eyes as I cleaned her face. When Enzo pulled up in his SUV, he jumped out and ran into the fray like only a true badass could do. With his pistol held like the military man he had once been, he heaved a sigh of relief when he saw me hunched over Calla's very alive form.
"Get the fucking cop to the warehouse," I told him, and Enzo only hesitated long enough to get Matteo's nod of approval. Cop or not, nobody fucked with our women. He'd signed his death warrant the moment he tried to take Calla away from me. That he'd almost gotten her killed in the process was just another reason for me to make him hurt before he died.
"No! Ryker, please just think about this. He’s a cop," Calla whimpered, lunging to her feet in front of me. I'd known she'd fight me on it, but it didn't stop me from growing more and more furious that she would defend another man.
That she'd defend the man who tried to take her and the kids from me.
"He shoved you into a fucking car and drove off with you, Calla. I told you what I'd do if he came near you. You didn’t dissuade him well enough. Now I deal with it," I growled at her, staring down at the frenzied look in her eyes. I knew Lino kept the kids occupied the best he could, but Axel made it an almost futile task by constantly trying to turn his head and see his mother.
My little man may have only been six, but I'd been much younger the first time I'd seen a dead body. He was made of more than I was, and he'd walk away knowing that I did whatever it took to protect my family.
Even if it was against Calla herself.
"He showed me your family," she whispered, and I could see the fear in her eyes. I knew part of it was because of the accident, but the knowledge of what I'd done had put distance and distrust between us I had to hope I could fix.
My eyes closed as I reached out and stroked my thumb over her cheekbone delicately, despite my anger. My poor Sunshine. A little of my rage shifted, leaving her and going to the one person I could blame for the situation.
My family had been my first kills, and the ones I enjoyed the most in all my life. I tightened my jaw, my nostrils flaring as my rage returned and I saw red. I turned my attention to where Enzo dragged Jason to his SUV. The man struggled with every bit of strength he had left, given the bullet wound in his shoulder, because he knew that he had fucked up epically.
I'd have his head.
I reached behind Calla, snatching my hatchet out of the man's face. A fresh spurt of blood made Calla gag and cover her mouth, and she turned her eyes away from the gaping gash where his nose should have been.
Turning, I strode for Jason. "Ryker!" Calla screamed, scrambling after me.
"Do not get in my way," I growled at her. She froze in place, staring at me in horror. I knew my words sounded more like a threat as my anger pulsed through me, more like I'd kill her if she got in my way than the truth. But even then, I wouldn't risk Calla getting hurt in my desire to get revenge on the man who'd taken my life, my history, and twisted it out of context to fuck with Calla's head.
To destroy my marriage and rip away everything I loved.
He tried to squirm away from Enzo when he saw me coming, his movements frantic as I approached with the hatchet in my hand. Grabbing him by the throat, I lifted him off his feet and squeezed. "Please," he begged, so desperate for the pathetic life that didn't amount to much. He had no family of his own, no one who would miss him when he was gone.
"Did you think…" I paused, tossing him until his back crashed against the back of the SUV. "That I would just let you drive off with my wife and kids?" The words came on a growl as I touched the bloodied blade of the hatchet to the side of his neck and watched him whimper.
"You don't deserve her," he spat.
"I'm very aware of that fact, but the best part about being a man like me is that I do not give the first shit if I deserve her. Because I took her, and I will kill every man who tries to get in my way." Calla whimpered behind me as Enzo left my side. I knew she'd disobeyed me again, could feel that she'd taken a few steps closer to me.
"No!" she yelled, and I imagined Enzo restraining her. "Stop him. I can’t lose him, Enzo. Please don’t let him do something that could get him arrested," she sobbed. A startled smile crossed my face with the realization that Calla wasn’t concerned for Jason’s life.
She was worried about losing me.
I glanced over at Matteo when the sound of sirens rang through the air, and Jason looked foolishly relieved.
The police who came wouldn’t help him. I slammed the handle of the hatchet into his nose, enjoying the way it exploded in a spray of blood. "Get him the fuck out of here," I snarled, stepping away and swapping places with Enzo. The moment he released Calla, she ran forward and grabbed my shirt.
"I don’t want to lose you." She gaped as she stared up at me. “Can’t we just walk away from this part of your life?” I had nothing to say to that, because the reality was it was just as much a part of me as the man who loved her unconditionally.
I'd been raised in the shadows and in the shadows a part of me would always stay.
; No matter how Calla tried to shine her light on me.
Enzo peeled out, getting Jason away from the scene of the crime. I led her over to where Lino waited with the kids and Calla broke free from my hold and ran for them. Axel was the first to bolt up, racing into his mother's arms as she collapsed to her knees and flung her arms around him. He cried in her embrace, burrowing into her in a way I hadn't seen him do before.
“It’s okay, Cookie. Mommy’s okay,” she whispered with a sob.
I didn't know what had happened before we arrived or how Calla ended up fighting off her attackers, but Axel had seen bits of it. I suspected all of it. Ines quickly shoved her way in between them, crying in high-pitched sobs that made me question her ability to breathe.
By the time I found the ability to move, I dropped the hatchet on the floor of Lino's car. Then I wrapped myself around the kids' backs, closing them in tightly between us. Calla didn't protest my touching them even though we were both stained with blood. She just trembled as she clung to her children. "You were so brave," she whispered, kissing Axel's cheek.
His breath hitched in his chest, but I knew he'd be okay. I'd make sure of it, because my son would need to slowly become more and more involved in the family. Once we were at peace, I reasoned. By then he'd be old enough to understand that for every bad thing we did, there were three good ones.
I just had to make my wife see that.
"You need us?" I asked Lino.
"Nope. Matteo's got clean up covered," he answered, gesturing to where Matteo stood shaking the Chief of Police's hand. Calla looked at him in shock, no doubt recognizing him as he nodded to her in acknowledgement. I knew the moment she realized that nobody would ever know there'd even been an accident.
"Then let's go home," I told the kids.
And so we did.
Fifty-Four
Calla
The reflection in the mirror didn't look like me. The massive blue eyes were too empty to be mine, too dark against the skin that was too pale—even for me. I thought back to Axel's plea as we tucked him in. It wasn't me that my son reached out to for comfort.
Grieved Loss: A Dark Mafia Romance (Bellandi Crime Syndicate Book 3) Page 35