“You were… you were at the party,” I murmur, my words slurring. Wow, I must have really hit my head pretty hard. His face swims in front of me and I have to blink a few times to focus again. He nods and gently sets me aside, but with one hand still locked around my upper arm, as though I’m a wild animal he needs to keep on a leash.
“Si. Yeah, I was there, Serena. We met briefly,” he admits, exhaling slowly. He stares at the ground for a second, then looks back up at me with mournful eyes. “I cannot even imagine what’s going through your mind right now.”
I can feel my bottom lip trembling, my cheeks burning, my eyes itching. This guy seems to know how crushed I am. And it starts to make some sense. If he was at that party, then he’s got to be an old friend of Bruno’s or something. Maybe he’s hurting, too. But then… why the hell would he have intercepted my escape?
My heart skips a beat and I feel nauseous again all of a sudden. I whip around to look at the carnage behind us in the car. Glass shattered all over. The engine smoking profusely under the hood. Two men shot dead. Blood everywhere.
Instinctively I try to rip out of the guy’s grasp, clapping a hand over my mouth and turning away.
But he doesn’t let me go.
I give him a furious glare and snap, “If you don’t let me go right now I am going to vomit all over your shoes.”
He immediately releases his grip, but stays close behind me as I break away, running deeper into woods to throw up again. When I stand back up and turn around, I nearly bump smack into him. To his credit, he doesn’t seem at all fazed by my sickness. But if he’s the kind of dude who goes around shooting men in cars then, yeah, he’s probably got a stronger stomach than most.
“A little space would be nice,” I grumble, elbowing past him. He takes my arm again and I stamp my foot in annoyance. I do not like being manhandled.
“Okay, what’s up with this? You better tell me why you just assassinated my... my getaway!” I demand.
He runs his other hand back through his curly black hair.
“My apologies. I have not slept much since… since what happened after the party.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not the only one,” I retort, putting my free hand on my hip.
He nods slowly.
“I know. I know. It has been more difficult for you, I’m sure.”
“So, any particular reason why you decided to smash up my getaway car and murder two guys in front of me?” I ask, surprised at my own bluntness. I’m usually a little more reserved than this, but it’s like that numbness I was feeling earlier has gone away and left pure, righteous anger in its place. I’m finding it hard to give a shit about anything beyond getting some straight answers.
“Those men weren’t Costa. Somewhere along the way, the Cleaners intercepted your route. Those two used to work for the Costa family, but they left. Went to the Cleaners. Fairly recently, too. Recent enough that the Costa brothers who passed you off to them just saw familiar faces in the dark and trusted them. They made a mistake. They’ll be punished for that transgression,” the guy says calmly, as though he’s merely discussing the weather.
I, on the other hand, am terrified by what he’s telling me.
“What?” I hiss, my eyes going wide. “You mean those guys—they weren’t taking me to safety? They were going to hurt me? And-and my baby?”
“Kill you or ransom you both, most likely,” he replies.
“Jesus,” I mutter, wrapping an arm over my belly. I look up at him confusedly.
“Then how… how the hell did you find me?”
“Your phone,” he says simply. “It was off for some time, but then it came back on. We followed the GPS tracker Bru—an associate installed a while back.”
“You can say his name, you know,” I tell him quietly. “You don’t have to pretend like he never existed.”
We stare at each in silence for a few intense moments, and I can feel the combined sadness between us. It hits me that the dark circles under his eyes probably have more to do with what happened to Bruno than this multi-state car chase he’s been on to catch me.
I break the silence. I have to, before it can swallow us both whole. “Speaking of names—you said we met at the party but I have to admit, I was a little overwhelmed there. I don’t remember your name, I’m sorry.”
“Giovanni,” he says. “Bruno and I are—were—very old friends.”
There it is. The past tense. Out in the air, hanging there between us. I have to fight the urge to cry. Just break down, fall on my knees, and cry. But I can’t. Not now. Not here. I have to stay strong. I just need to survive this day, and then...
Then what?
I honestly don’t know. I just have to focus on one step at a time. I just have to focus on the present mess I find myself in.
“What are we going to do about… all that?” I ask, gesturing back toward the wreckage behind us. Giovanni shrugs.
“We don’t do anything. Our tidying-up team will be out here any second now to make this look more accidental than it was. You’re very lucky,” he adds as he leads me back to where his car is parked, a few hundred yards down the highway. “This time of early morning, there aren’t many other cars around. And those guys were taking you down a very secluded route. Probably trying to avoid the cops. Kind of bit them in the ass in the end, though.”
“Uh, yeah. I’d say so,” I answer, raising an eyebrow.
Giovanni almost smiles for a moment, but it vanishes as quickly as it appeared. Once we get close to his car, the passenger-side door opens and a butch-looking woman comes hurrying over with a little white kit in her hand. There’s a look of motherly concern on her face as she comes up to me.
“Serena, this is Orsina. She’s a medic with the Costa family,” Giovanni explains. Then to her, he adds, “Make it quick, if you can. The sun’s up now and there will be traffic out here before too long. We need to get out of dodge.”
Orsina nods at him and then gives me a kind, reassuring smile. “How are you feeling?” she asks. “Did you sustain any major injuries in the crash? How’s the little one doing in there?”
I shake my head. “I-I don’t think I’m hurt, really. I did hit my head a little bit.”
A flash of worry crosses her face, but the smile comes back quickly. “Okay, sweetheart, let’s get you into the car. I’ll tend to you in the back seat while Giovanni drives. He’s right, we do need to get going. Are you feeling nauseous at all?”
I almost have to laugh at this question. Instead, I just nod as she helps me into the back seat of the car.
“Yeah, lots of nausea. But I was having that long before the car crashed.”
Giovanni slides behind the wheel and starts the engine. The car quickly peels out and does a sharp U-turn, cutting across the grassy median and speeding off down the highway in the opposite direction of how I got here.
Orsina touches my arm softly.
“Serena, when was the last time you ate something?”
I have to wrack my brain for an answer to that. Truthfully, I don’t remember much beyond the past hour or so. It’s like my mind is desperately trying to cut out all the painful pieces so I don’t have to think about them. I know I had to have eaten something at the party, but I can’t remember.
“I-I don’t know,” I tell her honestly. And now, with this woman gazing concernedly into my face, the tears reemerge. My eyes tingle and my chin trembles. Before long, I’m full-on sobbing, and Orsina wraps her arms around me in a maternal hug, patting my back.
“I know, sweetheart. Just let it all out. If anybody on the planet has the right to a good cry right now, it’s definitely you,” she assures me. I weep on her shoulder for several minutes, all my emotions rushing back to me in a swarm of overwhelming feeling. Images flash to the forefront of my mind. Rafaela dancing and singing drunkenly in Spanish on the sidewalk. The streetlights casting fuzzy light over the street. The smile Bruno gave me just before he walked away to get the car. The sky-high flames destro
ying the car with the love of my life trapped inside the inferno.
It’s too much to bear. It’s all too much. But I let the tears fall without trying to stop them. I take Orsina’s advice and let it all out, not caring about how my tears are staining her shirt, how ugly my sobs sound, how weak I must look to both of them. It doesn’t matter. I need this.
And when the tears subside, Orsina gently starts to dab a clean rag dampened with hydrogen peroxide at my left temple, near my hairline. It stings, to my surprise, and I let out a little yelp of pain.
“Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie,” Orsina says, clucking her tongue. “You just have a little wound here from the impact. Nothing too awful, just a relatively shallow laceration. Could be much, much worse. I know you don’t feel too lucky right now, but you are.”
“People keep telling me that,” I murmur, the dizziness rushing back and mingling with the pain in my head. A throbbing ache settles in and I close my eyes, leaning back against the seat. As soon as I do, my whole body relaxes, like one big sigh. It hits me how tense I’ve been all this time, how tired I feel underneath all the stress.
“Here,” the medic says, “hold this rag to the spot for a minute while I get a bandage ready. Can you do that for me, Serena?”
I nod and obediently hold the rag to my temple. There’s a plasticky sound of something being unwrapped, and then Orsina takes the rag away, replacing it with a big bandage. She presses it down carefully, obviously trying her best not to hurt me, but every little feather-light touch stings like hell. Still, I almost welcome the sting. Physical pain is a lot easier to understand, to handle, than the ache in my heart.
“There ya go,” Orsina says. “Now just leave that alone and it should heal up okay. Probably won’t even leave a scar, if your luck holds out.”
“Thank you,” I mumble, suddenly feeling very sleepy. It’s like the tidal wave of emotions has crashed over me and exhausted every last little fiber of my strength. I’m worn out, down to the very bone, with fear and sadness and confusion.
Then Giovanni speaks up and I open my eyes one at a time. “We had planned on sending you to a safehouse in backwoods Virginia. Somewhere out of the way and secure. But if your getaway was already compromised so early in the game… well, it’s probably best to scrap Plan A and just move on to Plan B.”
I can feel myself dozing off. “What’s… what’s Plan B?” I manage to whisper.
But I drift off to sleep before I can hear the answer.
I wake up to the sensation of being jostled forward, and my eyes fly open and wide. I sit up with a start, blinking blearily in the bright light of day. I’m still in the back seat of the car, with Orsina the medic sitting next to me. But the car isn’t moving anymore. We’ve stopped.
The driver’s seat is empty, and then the door to my left opens up and Giovanni extends a hand for me to take. Orsina gets out of the car and comes around to help him help me. I squint around, trying to make sense of my environment. My body is so tired, and that familiar nausea is prickling back up again, warning me that any sudden movement might send me hurling.
We’re in the middle of what looks like deep woods. I remember vaguely Giovanni mentioning something about the backwoods of Virginia, but then I put together what he said: Virginia was Plan A, and we weren’t going to do Plan A anymore. Unless he changed his mind?
“Where... where the hell are we?” I ask, the words jumbling in my mouth.
There isn’t an immediate answer. Orsina and Giovanni are helping me down a long wooded path through the trees. My paranoia kicks back in and I plant my feet hard in the ground, refusing to take another step.
“Where. The hell. Are we?” I repeat emphatically, looking back and forth between the two of them. They exchange a worrisome expression, and I know something is up. Something I am not going to like one bit. “Enough with the secrecy! What’s going on? I thought you said we were ditching the Virginia plan!” I exclaim.
“Yes. You’re right. We’re on to Plan B,” Giovanni relents.
“Okay. Cool. Great. So what is Plan B?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest.
Orsina steps closer to me and puts a steadying hand on my shoulder. “Sweetheart, you’re going to overexert yourself. It’s okay. You can trust us. You know that, right? You’re not with the Cleaners anymore. You’re with us. You’re with family.”
“Family?” I repeat, a little indignant. After all, I don’t really know these people. Maybe Bruno knew them, but he’s gone now, and it’s up to me to stay level-headed and cautious for the sake of our baby. They don’t want me asking questions, clearly, and that scares me.
Giovanni sighs.
“Yes, Serena. I know you have been through so much in the past day or so. It’s a lot to take in. But you have to trust us. From the second Bruno fell in love with you, we became your family. If he trusted you, if he swore to protect you, then so do we. There is no safer place in the world for you to be than with us. Especially now that Bruno’s… gone. We want nothing more than to continue the work Bruno was doing, and that involves you. And the baby. You’re safe with us. I can promise you that.”
“Everything is up in the air right now. I know it’s hard. This time has been difficult for all of us. Bruno was well-loved,” Orsina interjects, her voice soft and emotional compared to Giovanni’s powerful baritone. “But Serena… you have to trust us. We have to move quickly. Plan B is very time-sensitive. There isn’t time to explain at the moment, but I promise we’re not going to send you into the lion’s den unarmed, so to speak. You’re going to be okay. Just come with us.”
Finally, I give in. There’s no point in fighting it. What other choice do I have? Once again, I’m just a grieving pregnant woman with nowhere to go and no one to go to. My heart aches and my head is pounding. Not long ago, my life revolved around the Bathing Beauty and trying to help my mom through her sorrow.
How long has it been since I spoke with her? Not long, I remind myself. The party was only last night. But so much has happened since. I wish I could just return home, curl up in her lap, and lament my heartbreak. I think about how she was when she lost dad, and I almost start crying all over again.
But that’s a luxury for later. I’ll tell her where I am once I know it’s safe. Until then, it’d be more dangerous for her—for anyone—to know where I am.
Giovanni and Orsina are offering a lifeline, whatever it may entail, and it would be stupid of me not to take it. So I follow them down the trail, listening to the insects chirping, the underbrush shaking with small animals just out of sight. Being surrounded by nature like this takes me back to those glorious, lazy days in the cabin with Bruno, just the two of us with no distractions. Just loving each other in the calm woods, the outside world a distant memory.
It was all just a fantasy we’d concocted, though. We were hiding from the harsh reality, from the fact that he was a fugitive, from the fact that there were dangerous men hunting us down and wanting us dead.
I’d give anything to live that fantasy with him again, though.
With every thought of Bruno, I can feel my heart breaking just a little more. But I can’t help it. As much as it hurts me, I can’t stop thinking about him. About how we were together. A perfect fit. I thought it was fate. Destiny. We overcame obstacles I never would have imagined possible. We’ve been through hell together, and we were finally on our way to the good part, the safe part.
Or so I thought.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Who would have guessed it? Who could have ever seen this coming? Certainly not me. I was blinded by love, and I never expected the world to be so cruel as to snatch Bruno away from me again. It’s not fair. It’s not right. We were supposed to be together forever, and we would have been. I know it. We were meant to be. I’ll never love anyone the way I loved him. The way I still love him, and always will.
I’m so lost in my bittersweet memories that I zone out completely until we come to a stop suddenly, walking out of the shady
woods and into a broad clearing. The sharp glare of sunlight on metal blinds me for a moment and I shade my eyes with my hand, blinking. There’s a flurry of quick activity around me: Orsina taking my hand and pulling me toward the source of metallic light, Giovanni breaking away to speak in rapid Italian with another man, who is speaking Italian, too. I can only catch a word every now and then.
Biglietto.
Volo.
Prezzo.
And then Giovanni is helping me up a staircase. And my vision stops swimming, becomes clear and sharp. I finally realize what is happening. But by now, it’s too late. I turn around, trying to run back down the stairs, but Giovanni is right behind me, keeping me there, stopping me from getting back down. My heart pounds, panic taking over my muddled mind.
“No! What are you doing? I’m not going! You can’t do this!” I scream, slapping at Giovanni, trying to push past him. But he’s like a brick wall. I glance down at the pavement below and see Orsina looking up at me with a pained expression.
“Orsina! Don’t let them take me! I can’t—I won’t go!” I cry out. She shakes her head and looks away, refusing to get involved. All the while, Giovanni is marching me backwards up the boarding ramp toward the open door of the jet plane.
“Calm down, calm down,” he’s telling me. “It’s going to be okay. Serena! You’re going somewhere safe, somewhere they can’t get to you.”
Tears course down my cheeks.
“I don’t want to go—I can’t leave. What if—what if Bruno needs me? I can’t leave him here.”
I know I’m not making sense, but I can’t stop crying. Being in a different state from everything I ever knew was one thing. Getting on a plane and flying to who knows where?
I can’t. I can’t leave. I can’t be so far away from him.
Giovanni pulls me into his arms in a hug suddenly, and after a moment I stop struggling, my tears dampening the front of his black shirt.
Bound in Love Page 2