Fuck!
Another bullet pierced his side and he dropped to the ground.
I shuffled away from Ethan’s flapping arms as Jack rushed over to us and sent a kick to his head snapping it backwards, knocking him to the ground.
I jumped to my feet and joined him.
Jack held the gun down at Ethan who was spurting blood and bleeding out. He lifted his head to look at the both of us.
“Xander go rescue your girl. I have to talk to this dog about Claire,” Jack said to me.
As I looked at him I was so glad he’d come with me. This was his fight too. He’d been friends with Ethan for years before he’d known me.
It was right that he got to finish this with him.
My fight was with Balthazar Kane.
I nodded and ran to leave them.
With each step I knew that what I’d just gone through was just the prep. I hadn’t gotten the big boss yet. I hadn’t gotten to the big boss in this game.
I was on my way to him, running and gathering strength. Blocking out the pain in my side.
Jack had said that Jia was over some pit. It didn’t sound good when he’d said it and looking around where I was I knew there was no part of this that I was going to like. Not one damn bit whatsoever.
It would be all fucked up just like Balthazar. That was his style.
Bizarre and outrageous.
I reached another set of double doors. It was the only place left for me to go.
The only path left to follow.
I went in and cursed myself when I saw just how damn right I was.
I experienced what I could only express as a gamut and tumult of clashing emotions.
My heart had lifted at the sight of Jia ahead of me, then in the same second, everything crushed inside when I saw what that evil bastard had done to her.
Jia was gagged and tied to a pole.
This was some sort of refinery room or hall. The place was massive and yes there was a fucking pit.
The pole Jia was tied to was attached to a platform and it hovered over the pit.
There were two suspension bridges that led to where she was.
It looked like there was water below her because I saw a splash of it.
I held my gun up getting ready and moved out, closer, closer then I stopped as shock number two presented itself.
Yes, the pit was full of water.
And crocodiles!
Fucking crocodiles.
It looked like a seen from some kind of horror movie.
Jia cried and made a muffled scream as the platform she was on lowered by a few inches.
My God… it was remote controlled.
And who was controlling the remote?
Balthazar stepped out from my left and held up the remote.
He smiled at me like we were old friends who hadn’t seen each other in years.
“Xander, wow. So good to see you,” he bubbled.
“Wish I could say the same about you,” I yelled. “Actually, I don’t wish that. Not one fucking bit. You mother fucking dog. You fucking prick of an asshole. Let her go. Let her go right the fuck now.”
He laughed and pretended to shiver. “Ohhhhh awwwwww I’m so scared. Big Bad Xander’s come to get me. Wowwwwwwww.”
The prick of an asshole knew how to get me worked up the fucking wrong way.
“Don’t fuck with me.”
“No, I know not to do that. The thing about you though my good man is this… you wear your heart on your sleeve for all to see your damn weakness.” He waved the remote over to Jia, pressed it and the platform lowered an inch more. The crocs swam closer to her and she let out another muffled scream.
“Nooooo!” I shouted. “Fuck you. No!!!”
“Put the gun down,” he said in a cool voice that carried an edge of sharpness.
I set the gun down. I had no choice. If he pressed that damn remote one more time one of the crocs would get to her. They’d be able to climb up on the platform.
I couldn’t let that happen.
“So, here’s the four one, one. You give me the blueprints.”
“I give you the prints and you let her go,” I demanded.
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He glanced down at his watch. “By my records of time you people shouldn’t even be here so that deal is out the window. It’s null and void, no negotiation where she is released to you. However…” He held up his hands and the smile on his horrible face widened. “I will allow you to decide how she dies and the rate too. I was trying to work out which was best. Method, or rate of acceleration. So I decided on both.”
“You evil prick, just let her go. I’m here with the fucking prints.” At this point I didn’t care about the blueprints. I’d already calculated in my head that I needed to save Jia and to do that I’d have to give him what he wanted.
“Yes, you are here with the prints. The prints that I still need to check but that’s not really the point. I don’t work like that. I don’t like you Xander Cage. I don’t think that’s a secret. I was furious to hear you were still alive but saw you as an advantage to play nice with Ethan. Play nice with Ethan and get the prints nice and smooth. Then you fucked up and we ended up wasting so much damn time when we could have played dirty in the first place by taking the girl. You need to pay for that. so this is it. So, tell me how should I kill her? A bullet to the hell like your previous lady love, or should I just release the control and give her a good dip in the croc pool?” He laughed.
I bit down hard on my back teeth and stared at him.
He was sick. Sick and deranged. That is what came to my mind as I listened to him.
“You sick fuck. Give her to me or you don’t get shit!” I roared.
One more press of the remote and Jia’s platform lowered.
“Xander Cage, you are not in a position to be making demands.” He smiled and the asshole shot down the ropes holding the suspension bridge nearest us. As the bridge crashed into the water the crocs went crazy.
The worst part of that was that was my route to her. That was the way to get to her. The other bridge was connected to the other side of the fucking room. I would have had to go out and find the entrance to get there.
I glanced at her, tears glistened her cheeks and her eyes pools of water.
I remembered when I first saw her. The image Ethan had shown me. Not the sight of her in the club. The image.
What I saw in her eyes was desperation. It called to me. It had called to me then and it screamed to me now.
It bellowed and here I was just looking at her. Just watching her.
Unable to help.
Just like Claire.
“Awwww, you should see your face,” Balthazar taunted. I returned my focus to him. “You really should Xander Cage. You’re a pitiful mess. But don’t worry this time when I kill you, I’ll make sure you’re dead.”
I narrowed my gaze at him, and thought long and hard.
Fuck…
Think… I needed to get out of this mess. I needed to save Jia.
How though?
“Come on Xander don’t fight this? Give me the prints.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Her first. Give her to me.”
I was going to try something. Every time I pissed him off he lowered the remote. If I could get it from him or away from him she’d be okay.
I just needed to get it away from him.
This time he made a show of holding it out. He got ready to press that damn button but a bullet sizzled through his arm.
He dropped the remote and yelped. A quick glance to my left showed that Giovanni was just above us on the metal platform.
A quick glance was all you could sacrifice when it came to guys like Balthazar.
I’d just register that Giovanni was on the move and seemed to be heading to a set of metal stairs that led down the platform to Jia.
It took a total of two seconds for my brain to process that.
Then in a heartbeat I char
ged at Balthazar, knocking him to the ground and away from the fucking remote.
My hands on him…
Just touching him gave me a thrill of that sensation of accomplishment. All this time. All these years, all these very long years and I’d never been able to do this.
Just to give him the bone crunching punch I landed straight in his disgusting, fucking face.
All these long years, even before Claire was killed I wanted to do it and as my knuckles connected with his jaw I got the satisfaction I longed for.
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.
“Let’s get out of here,”
Xander said to me. A slight brush of his fingers on my cheek soothed my soul.
A look at Pa though drained me.
He looked paler and weary. So weary and weak.
I nodded and moved forward, while Xander helped Pa.
Pa started coughing when we got to the entrance that took us back to the corridor.
Being on an actual floor allowed us to move faster.
However, when we turned the corridor Pa’s legs gave and he pulled out of Xander’s hold. I stopped my flight and moved back to them.
Pa shook his head at me, grabbed his chest and slumped down to the ground with his back against the wall. There was so much blood now.
I looked to Xander. His face was filled with the doom I felt. As were his eyes.
It was like he knew what was going to happen next. I did too, but I didn’t want it to.
I returned my focus to Pa and he shook his head again.
He reached out to cup my face and pulled me closer to plant a kiss on my forehead.
“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay,” Pa said in a frail voice. “I’m sorry I won’t see you become who you wanted to be. Bellezza, you’ll be a great artist. One of the finest.”
“You gave me my first paint set.” I smiled.
“Yes, and what a good idea that was. Follow your dreams Jia. Follow your heart, bellezza.” He gave me a weak smile and looked to Xander. “Please just get her out of here and make sure she’s safe. She’s the most important thing to me.”
Xander crouched down next to Pa and nodded.
“I will, she’s the most important thing to me too. She will be safe as long as I live.”
Pa’s hands dropped from my face. He reached for Xander’s shirt and nodded.
“That’s more than I could hope for … Ace.”
When he set his head back against the wall, his eyes became glassy and a tear trailed down the corner of is cheek.
“Pa, please don’t leave me. I love you.”
“I love you too, Jia. I will always be here.” He placed his hand on his heart , looked at me and then it was like something switched off inside him.
I sucked in a sharp breath and the tears pour from inside my soul.
As I looked at my father I saw him as my father. not the person who’d done so much wrong. Not that man who terrified me with all the ways he could shock me. It was the first time that he didn’t look like a monster.
Game of Love : A Mafia Romance Page 51