He yanked me and pulled me out of the room. The guy followed behind.
“They crossed me.” Balthazar scuffed as we walked down the corridor. “That’s fine. I’ll shit all over them. They really have another thing coming if they think they can just come in here on some crazy rescue mission. Get Ethan.”
“Yes boss,” the man said and diverted down the path in the opposite direction.
Balthazar snapped is gaze to me and scowled deep. “This just got more interesting, sugar. It sure did. But good for you, you get to watch your boyfriend and your father die.”
“No!” I cried trying to shake him off me.
“Yes, yes, yes.” He sang loud on top of his voice.
He dragged me to a control room where there was several TV screens. A guard sat in front of them.
The eight screens that were in a row all had the same thing. It was footage of some offices. There was one screen however that had something different.
When Xander and Pa came into view I sucked in a sharp breath.
Balthazar saw my reaction and laughed.
“Wonderful, I’m gonna enjoy this. Let’s spice it up with some fun. Release the poison gas,” Balthazar ordered. “We can start with that and see who dies first.”
I looked to the screen wishing I could warn them.
Instead I was going to watch then die.
They came for me.
They came…
Chapter Sixty-Two
Xander
“Can I at least have a fucking gun?” Giovanni snapped, glaring at me as he stopped in his tracks.
We’d been walking down a dark corridor. It was off route to where we’d originally wanted to go, but now our new route.
I stopped too and returned the seething look he was giving me.
It was understandable as fuck why I wouldn’t trust him with any kind of weapon around me. Realistically though, he did actually need to protect himself, given what just happened.
Frowning, I pulled out a long reach knife and held it out to him. At least, if he got any bright ideas and went rogue on me I’d be able to handle him better with a knife than a gun.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he barked and glared at me.
“Take it or leave it pal, you’re the one who fucking tortured me.” I wasn’t about to just forget that, not for a second. “Want me to trust you with a gun?”
He bared his teeth like a wild animal and took the knife. He looked it over with disdain and shook his head.
Ignoring him, I started walking again and he caught up.
As we’d proceeded down the path some little lights came on. It was all very ominous and tension grew with every step I took. I’d been waiting for something more to happen and nothing had. It was ten minutes ago that we’d gotten separated from the others and three of our marines killed. Just like that.
What else was going to happen?
“It’s too quiet,” Giovanni observed.
I couldn’t even give him the cold front of silence I’d been sporting since he’d come on the scene. He was right.
“I know,” I agreed.
He stopped again and looked around. “Something’s wrong. Something doesn’t feel right. It’s like we’re going and it feels like a damn trap. They must know we’re here.”
I gazed at him. maybe the tension was screwing with my abilities. Yes I could sense that something was off and agreed that they must have known something was wrong, but I didn’t get the sensation of the trap.
“What are you thinking?” I asked him.
“This is the trap, where’s the bait? We’re in the mouth of hell, where are the demons? Even with your … whatever it was you did with the security and surveillance cameras someone would have checked out the stair well and seen the dead marines. But there’s no one looking around. Nobody checking things out.”
As he spoke it dawned on me why that could be. Why it was that nobody might be checking things out.
“They can see us,” I breathed. A jolt of panic rushed through my body.
He nodded. “I believe so and we’re heading to God knows.”
I tapped my wire to speak to Wes. “Wes are you there? Can you see what’s up ahead?”
I narrowed my eyes when there was no answer.
Giovanni widened his.
I looked at the wire clipped to my collar and checked the connection. It seemed fine.
“Wes, come in Wes. Come in.”
“EMP. They’ve sent some kind of electromagnetic pulse to fry the connection.” Giovanni growled. “I use something similar when I suspect undercover cops and feds at the Marchesi.”
“Fuck.”
“Yes, we are fucked. What the hell are we supposed to do now?”
My God, we were fucked.
I closed my eyes and thought. This required raw skill. It required raw balls to the wall skill and it meant I had to focus above the fucking rim. It meant I had to push Jia out of my mind and get the damn job done.
Giovanni rested a heavy hand on my shoulder and my eyes snapped open.
He moved his hand away but continued to stare at me.
“All things aside … if none of this shit had happened, I would have chosen you for her. It means nothing for me to say that to you now, and I still would have killed you because that’s who I am, but if none of this had happened and I was thinking straight things would have turned out different. This was what I feared and when it comes to my daughter I can’t think straight.” He pulled in a haggard breath. “When my wife was killed Jia was seconds away from death too, that stayed in my mind. It stayed there and I never forgot that a few seconds could have taken her from me. It was what I had in the forefront of my mind when shit hit the fucking fan with the Ra. It’s why I treated you the way I did.”
All I could do was stare at him. I didn’t know what he expected me to say to any of that. I understood it, but I wasn’t about to brush all that happened under the rug.
“What’s the point of telling me this now?”
“It’s not an apology Xander. I’m not saying sorry because if I had another chance I would do the same thing. All over again. What it is, is an explanation. And it’s to let you know that Jia needs you. You must have been damn good at whatever it is you do for the Ra to get you to steal from me. Maybe you need to be that person now.”
I agreed wholeheartedly with that.
Fuck… I absolutely had to be that person.
“Yeah,” I answered and I had a really bad idea. “I need you to cover me. I need you to be you too.”
“Well Ace, I’m gonna need something a little better than this.” He held up the knife.
I handed him a Berretta and he smiled.
“Better?” I asked.
“Much.” He positioned it.
“Let’s go.”
We started walking again and that was when I saw a mist ahead. Instinct made me stop. I’d seen that before on one of my missions in the Middle East.
It was absolute confirmation that they could fucking see us, because since when did the inside corridor that separated meeting rooms mist up like we were in the middle of the forest on a dark night?
“Back this way,” I shouted. “It’s poison. We have to go up.”
As in up on the next level up.
Giovanni was on the move. I was surprised how fast he could run.
Those motherfuckers really knew how to drop shit.
Fuck.
We ran back the way we came looking for a way up .
There was nowhere. The only other way was to keep going until we got to the stair well and that was a big no. There was no elevator nearby either.
And fucking hell the damn mist of shit was starting to pour out now like someone turned it up. Going in one of the rooms we passed wasn’t even an option. That was perhaps what they wanted us to do, then get marooned inside unable to do anything about it then die like vermin or the pests they thought we were.
Fucking bastards.
Fu
ck them.
Giovanni stood back and started shooting at the ceiling. When it gave, I started shooting up too in the same spot. The only way was up.
Up.
A small crack formed and Giovanni stepped back lacing his fingers together so I could step on to his hands.
“You’re lighter, move quickly,” he bellowed.
I didn’t argue. I was lighter than him and more agile. I moved, hoisting myself up to the ceiling by stepping on to his hands. I tore away at the plaster in the ceiling , coming in contact with all the wooden beams. Latching on to one I grabbed on to it and pulled myself up, then rebounded to lower down and reach for him.
The mist was just nearing him now. a few seconds and it would surround him.
He looked to it as if contemplating to stay. Then I realized he actually was.
“Go, get her and get out of here,” he cried looking back to me.
“Giovanni, don’t you fucking tell me shit like that. Get here now,” I balked talking to him like we were out on the battlefield and he was in my command.
When the mist started surrounding his legs that was when the bastard decided to reach up.
I was still weak from his torture but I homed in on all my strength and pulled him up. Once he got to a height he grabbed on to the wooden beam too and lifted himself the rest of the way.
We both moved away from the mist as it started rising and ran to a safer distance away from it. The floor we were on was similar to the one we’d just come from but had wider corridors.
I glanced across at Giovanni and noted the stern expression on his face.
He was serious back there. He got me first and would have stayed there and died. He may have been one evil bastard but when it came to Jia no one had to guess that the man would do anything for his daughter.
Anything, anything at all.
“Xander,” Giovanni called out when we turned the next corner. He grabbed my arm, pulling me to a stop.
“What? We have to keep moving,” I urged.
The wildness in his eyes got to me. “If I don’t make it out of here, and you get to her, you take care of her. Just make sure she’s safe. That’s all I’m asking. You don’t owe me anything, but you love her so I’m asking to just make sure she’s safe.” His eyes pleaded with mine. It felt like and extension of his previous talk. But with more heart since he nearly did just die.
I leaned in close and wrenched my arm free of his grasp.
“You know I will,” I told him.
“Thank you.”
I nearly told him he didn’t have to thank me but I let it go. I humored him because I knew what it meant to him to have my word. It was just like when I started working for him. He’d told me Jia was the most important thing to him and if anything happened I was to protect her.
We continued out to the atrium an there we were greeted by the company we were expecting.
At a glance I counted about fifty men all armed and ready to end us.
Yes, it had been quiet.
Now it was time to make noise.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Xander
Bullets started flying.
They didn’t give us any warning.
Why the fuck would they?
I pulled my two Berettas and started firing forward.
Just like I asked Giovanni had my back.
As the first bullet came our way he slipped behind me and we were back to back, shooting at the men that surrounded us as if we planned it that way.
“Yes, come for me you fuckers. This is how we deal with pests in Italy,” Giovanni cried.
I just heard bullets then a thump. I was too occupied with the guys in front of me who were shooting. To shoot like this it required precision and tact to make sure you didn’t get hit. And, with bullets flying from everywhere it was near impossible.
Near, but not.
“I’m moving forward, take care of the guys behind,” I called to Giovanni.
Cool as it was that we were so synced, we couldn’t stay like that. There were too many of them.
He ran behind and did as I said. That left me to deal with the men in front.
Someone, however, slammed into me from the side. Came out of nowhere, knocked into me hard and I crashed into the barrier that led over the balcony. The impact made me drop my guns and it fucking felt like I’d broken another rib.
Shit.
I fell to the ground and whirled around to see a goliath sized guy balling his fists to land both into me.
I tried to dodge the blow but couldn’t move fast enough. That hit I’d taken to my chest in the barrier really took it out of me.
Fuck, as his massive fists pounded into me I saw stars then blackness. I had to will myself not to black out. I didn’t even know that was humanly possible but I did it. I couldn’t fuck this up.
Jia needed me. If I got captured we’d all be dead. It wouldn’t just be her. It would be all of us.
The guy went for my bag and I realized he must have known the prints were inside. I flicked myself up and roared through the pain that took me, along with the strength, channeling both to fuel me as I propelled myself forward and knocked him to the ground.
He pulled a gun on me and tried to shoot my head off when he pulled the trigger back.
I’d learned long ago though that with these types of people you had to fight dirty. It was my intention when I pulled my long reach knife from its sheath and gouged his eyes out, then stabbed him to the heart.
I spared no time to check if he was dead. I grabbed my guns again and moved forward looking around for Giovanni but I couldn’t see him anywhere.
I shoot three guys who came at me from the upper level and continued running down the corridor then through the double doors.
Shit there were more guys.
I raised my guns and fired shot after shot taking down as many as I could, but there were too many and now I didn’t have anyone else to back me up.
A group of guys rushed me even though I was shooting. Two went down but the rest got through.
I gave one a round house kick and swooped into a side sweep kick that took out another. Jumping into the air I sent a flying kick down another guy’s throat and fired another three shots at three guys blowing their heads off.
I tucked and rolled only to be faced with more guys coming from the end of the corridor to my left.
Fuck.
There were so many.
Just now took the life out of me. This was wasting my God damn time.
Shit.
I stood up and aimed getting ready to fire again, but they started dropping dead.
Bullets whizzed down from above and I looked around to see Jack, Frankie , the remaining marines that came in with us and five of the marines we’d left outside with rifles.
They had my back.
My whole body sighed with relief.
“Boy, head down the corridor, quick, that bastard has her over some pit,” Jack yelled pointing down the path to my right. He started running too heading down to where I was.
I ran down the path and through another set of double doors. This part looked entirely different. It was more like the factory style set up I’d gone to in Nepal. The place were Claire died. This area looked like that.
I was going full speed ahead until a shot hit the metal piping hovering over me.
I stopped and snapped around to see Ethan coming at me with a shot gun.
Good, it was time to start seeing some of the people I’d wanted to kill the fuck dead the most.
Like an animal I launched myself at the asshole. He thought he was a match for me with that gun.
He was not. But maybe he would be with the machine gun he’d started to use.
I had to jump out of the way to avoid being hit and scuttle over to hide behind another set of pipes. These were large and tubular, almost big enough for me to fit inside.
“Yes, you think you can get me!” He taunted jeering me. “Give me the fucking prints Xan
der. Give them the fuck to me!”
“Go fuck yourself you fucking dog!” I cried back. Word attack, word vomit, whatever anyone wanted to call it, it was just a taste of all I’d wanted to say. There was so much to say to him, yet none of it really mattered.
The result of being betrayed was feeling betrayed.
The emotion coiled through my whole body, being this close to him. Within the vicinity of him.
I wasn’t close enough though. Not to do the damage I wanted.
The aim was just to get to him. If I could get close I could get him.
I would be able to get him and take him down.
I rolled over as he came at me and decided to just go for him using one of my crazy tactics. People innately assumes you’d retreat from danger, not go toward it.
It was built in us to flee at the sign of anything that could kill us.
I flipped that around every time as a surprise attack. This time it worked no less than it always had.
I went straight to him and stunned him. I managed to knock him to the ground even as he fired the shots. He dropped the gun and the two of us rolled over a couple of times from the impact of my attack.
He moved before me to try and get me but I didn’t allow it. I got him first with all the rage inside me.
I’d been building for him and Balthazar.
I’d been building up and ready for them.
I pounded into his face knocking off his eye patch revealing the sealed skin of what used to be his right eye. He’d never told me how he lost it. No matter, he was about to lose the left.
This prick had done so much damage to me. Damage of trust, damage of everything. Made me go against my internal warnings of trusting people and I ended up trusting him out of friendship.
Bastard!
I hit him again in his face and as he howled with pain I really thought I had him. Except a jab to my side right in the fucking rib that was broken made me double over and lose my edge. I lost my momentum and he gained the upper hand.
He flipped me off him and was ready to pulled his hand gun when blood splattered through his shoulder and splashed all over my face.
Game of Love : A Mafia Romance Page 50