Shaking my head, I don’t say anything. Instead, I take a step backward and just stare at him a moment. This doesn’t make sense, but I supposed that it does. Courtney is related to the Ramos family somewhere, someone that we didn’t know existed.
“Valentina,” I state, turning to Gavino. “Call her here.”
Ermanno clears his throat, stepping forward. “I will go and get her,” he murmurs.
I arch a brow, wondering if she’s received the divorce papers yet and curious as to how she feels about being led here by him. But I don’t mention any of it. I am not going to tell his business to anyone. I’m not even sure who knows about the paperwork yet.
“So how do I find this Courtney?” Gavino asks, arching a brow.
Miguel clears his throat, then wiggles around, causing his binds to move. I don’t say a word, none of us does. Instead, we watch him and wait. There is no getting out of this, he will tell us. He can’t hide, he can’t slink away. He has no choices. He fucked those away when he fucked with the famiglia.
“She is at my place, waiting. She wanted to see Rosana when we finished the meet with you,” he admits.
“Put him back,” Gavino barks.
Two men take off, and I already know where they’re going. We know exactly where Miguel lives and they’re going to bring the bitch here.
Honestly, I knew women were cruel, but I had no clue that this involved so many, and that it was as fucking warped as it is. I have a feeling it’s about to get really fucked up. Gavino jerks his chin at one of his men and clears his throat.
“I want Juarez,” he booms.
Gavino turns to me. His face is grim, set in stone, and he clears his throat. “I don’t know what this is truly about, but I have a feeling that Rosana was nothing more than a convenient pawn,” he murmurs.
“I’m starting to feel the same way. There is no way this Courtney is the daughter of the Colombian drug lord we ended years ago. Between us and the Savage Beast MC, we did our due diligence on them.”
Gavino shakes his head. “He had children here in the US before he fled to Colombia. He could have had a whole other family here that we didn’t ever know about. I would not put it past him, seems the man loved to produce children.”
“He at least liked to fuck,” I grumble.
“Who doesn’t?” Gavino barks.
We all chuckle as Juarez is brought out and our laughter dies when he’s tied up in front of us. Miguel is stored away to be used at a later date. As soon as the women are all here, then we’ll get what we need from Miguel because he seems to be the one at the center of the drama.
Juarez may not be in the middle of the shit, but he definitely knows more than he’s letting on. Honestly, I want to see what he has to say. I want to know what is fucking reasoning for all of this is. It can’t be that he wants to see a girl fucked, impregnated, and murdered.
There has got to be more.
ROSANA
The ride to the middle of nowhere is quiet. I don’t mind. I stare at my fingers in my lap as I twist them nervously. I don’t know what is going to happen, but there is a huge possibility that I won’t be walking out of this place alive.
Licking my lips, I lift my eyes and watch as the city passes me by. Valerius doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t joke around, he doesn’t attempt to reassure me, and all of that makes this seem really freaking bad.
He drives into a commercial area and I’m surprised that it’s all metal warehouse types of buildings. I have no clue where we are at all. Valerius stops in front of one of them and pushes the button to turn off the car.
We sit together in silence, neither of us moving, and I feel that impending doom filling me. It consumes me completely. Then Valerius speaks.
“I like you a lot, Rosana. If something happens, I will have your back as much as I can.”
“Valerius?” I ask, turning to look at him.
He gives me a sad attempt at a smile and nods his head once. “I don’t think anything will happen, but if it does, I’m going to try to protect you.”
Then, before I can respond to him, my car door is opened and I am gently, but firmly, tugged out of the vehicle. My body is turned around and I tilt my head back, looking up and into my husband’s eyes.
I expect to come into contact with his kind gaze, but instead, I am met with deep, black cold eyes. A shiver breaks out down my spine and I press my lips together. I don’t know what to say and even if I did, he doesn’t look like he is in the mood to invite a conversation.
Salvatore takes a step back. He wraps his fingers around my bicep and pulls me behind him as he makes his way into the warehouse. My thighs shake with each step that I take. Even though he is being firm, he isn’t being rough, and I’m glad that he is holding me upright.
Juarez is tied up in the middle of the room, his face is swollen and bloody, his knees don’t look quite right either. I don’t show a reaction to the way he looks or what I’m seeing. Instead, I bite the inside of my cheek and I stand as straight as possible.
Show them nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
“Juarez, you have an audience. Care to tell me exactly why you think you could get away with stealing my money and killing one of my own?” Gavino asks.
Juarez flicks his gaze to me, then shifts it back to Gavino’s. “It was easy,” he says.
“No, it wasn’t. Tell me the truth. The more you try to fuck with me, the more painful your death will be. But you will die, so you can choose whether you want it to be more painful or not.”
“Courtney told us who you were,” Juarez whispers.
I gasp, taking a step backward. Lifting my hand to my mouth, I try to cover my surprise. It’s impossible though. Valerius was right. She targeted me. I don’t understand why though? Why would she want me to die?
“She wanted to hurt the Zanetti famiglia and Rosana was the way in the door.”
Salvatore is still holding on to my arm, and at those words, he flexes his grip. He doesn’t say anything though, he is otherwise stock still. Pressing my lips together, I try really, really hard not to say anything.
I don’t want to fuck this up, I need to know as much as possible, and I want to make sure Gavino and Salvatore know without a doubt that I didn’t do any of this on purpose. I hold my breath, waiting for what is going to come out of Juarez’s mouth next.
“Why Rosana? She sought her out, yes?” Gavino asks.
Juarez shrugs his shoulder. “She wasn’t so involved that anyone would look into who she was around, who was fucking her, who she partied with. And Courtney could get information as she needed it, seeing how far she could go. She gave a lot of names, not much else.”
Gavino picks up a knife, and I watch as he walks up to Juarez and slits his throat. Blood sprays everywhere and I gasp, taking a step backward, but Salvatore doesn’t allow me to go far. Gavino turns to me, completely covered in blood, and smiles.
“We have a bit of a mess here, Rosana. I hope that you weren’t more involved than Juarez claims.”
Shaking my head, I lift my eyes to meet Gavino’s. “I didn’t know, Gavino. I swear I didn’t know. But I know that we partied, I got drunk, and I said more than I ever should have. So, I’m not innocent,” I admit on a whisper as tears fall from my eyes.
Gavino nods his head once, but he doesn’t say anything, and neither does Salvatore. The door to the warehouse opens, light spilling inside, and I turn my head to see Courtney being dragged through the door, and Valentina walking in with her husband, Ermanno, behind them.
“Oh good, the whole gang is here,” Gavino mutters.
Chapter Twenty-Three
SALVATORE
I should be angry with Rosana for not telling me what the fuck is going on. She could have told me her part in all of this weeks ago, but I’m not mad. There’s no reason to be. Courtney played her, it’s obvious that Rosana had no clue about her involvement in this, hell, we don’t even truly know yet.
Gavino flicks his
gaze around the room, switching between Rosana, Courtney, and Valentina. Then he lifts his hand and extends his finger to Valentina. “You,” he begins. “I want to talk to you.”
Valentina knows her place, she knows that when the boss calls on you, you fucking talk to him. Without hesitation, she makes her way toward us. She stops directly in front of him, and we all hold our breath for a moment until Gavino gets his question out.
“Who is that woman?” he demands.
Valentina doesn’t even have to turn around. She clears her throat, then licks her lips. “She’s Angel’s daughter.”
I watch as Gavino’s face turns purple he’s so fucking angry. I don’t blame him at all. We had all of the children, all of them. She licks her lips, then focuses on Gavino before she speaks again. She takes one step closer toward us, whispering her next words.
“She is his daughter. She is a Ramos, but she was not raised with us. I only met her a couple of times. When she was a baby her mother brought her to our compound, then again when she was an early teen, and one last time right before everything went down. I didn’t think that she knew anything. She was raised in the states, not Colombia. Her mother wasn’t ever married to Angel. I don’t know how she even uses his last name, to be honest.”
Valentina is a wealth of information, and I flick my gaze from her to Courtney. The girl has her spine straight, her chest puffed up, and her chin jutted straight up in the air. She is without a doubt full of false bravado, or maybe she’s just that stupid to think that we won’t take her down.
She will go down for it. And it will be messy and ugly because she started all of this shit, all of it. And she thought that she could fuck with the Zanetti famiglia. Granted, nobody will blame her too much for her feeble attempt at revenge, but still.
“Courtney,” Gavino shouts. Valentina takes a step to the side, and I watch as Gavino walks toward Courtney. “What did you truly think you would accomplish with this little plan of yours? You were caught before you even got half of it completed,” he announces.
She’s quiet for a long moment, then she dips her chin slightly, her gaze finding his. “Was I?” she asks.
“Your men got about a penny out of my offshore account. Rosana is pregnant, but she’s happily married and alive. My territories are very much still under my control. Tell me, what am I missing?”
Her lips slowly curve up into a smile and her gaze finds his, holding it for a moment before she takes a step forward. She’s dressed in a short, low-cut dress, makeup and hair done, high heels on her feet as she presses her tits against his chest.
Gavino doesn’t move an inch. Instead, he holds her gaze with his, his hands in fists at her side.
“Money is being transferred out of your accounts as we speak. If you think any of these yahoos could have hacked your systems, you were mistaken. If you think they were nothing more than an annoyance or distraction, also wrong.”
“Excuse me?” Gavino murmurs.
Her lips curve up into a grin, and I have to take a step backward. It’s the most evil-looking fucking grin on the planet. Something demonic is inside of her. That’s when I realize that we underestimated her. She’s been planning this.
I open my mouth to warn Gavino that something isn’t right when he lets out a growl, stumbling backward. His hand covers his belly, and he looks to Arlo, then back to Courtney.
“Stop. Her,” he rasps right before his knees buckle and his entire body goes down to the cement floor.
Valentina lets out a scream at the same time Rosana’s knees go out from beneath her as well. Rushing to her, I’m able to catch her before she hits the floor.
Ermanno tries to run to Valentina’s side, but she pushes him away. She lifts her hands and tries to mask her screams, but it doesn’t work.
We can all hear her. Gavino has several men around him. Arlo thankfully took his orders and acted quickly, grabbing Courtney. I’m holding my wife, who is shaking so hard that I’m afraid she’s going to go into some kind of shock.
It’s mass chaos.
Then it happens.
Courtney lets out a laugh just as a huge explosion sounds around us. Dropping both me and Rosana to the floor, I try to shield her from slamming against the hard concrete as much as possible. Covering her with my body, I ignore everything else around me but her.
When the sound is gone, I roll her over, my body still over hers, and I look into her eyes. Thankfully, they’re wide open and focused on me with terror.
“Are you okay?” I ask, shouting above the noise of men’s shouts around me.
She nods her head, then licks her lips. “I think so,” she says, her voice trembling. “What happened?”
Shaking my head, I rest my forehead against hers and close my eyes. “I don’t know,” I admit.
This is not my normal part in the famiglia. I am without a doubt out of my element here. We stay there for longer than we probably should, but I just need to feel her beneath me and her breath on my face, knowing she’s alive.
Unable to hide in plain sight any longer, I push off of Rosana and look around. Men are still shouting and running around, guns drawn. Courtney is on the ground, a gun pointed at her head. Ermanno has Valentina in his arms and they’re sitting on the ground.
Gavino looks pale as fuck as Massimo holds his hands against his wound. He looks up at me and clenches his jaw, shaking his head slowly.
“We can’t get out. The men are trying to find a way out, but we’re fucking barricaded in here. Gavino needs medical attention, or he’s going to bleed out.”
“Fuck,” I hiss.
Gathering Rosana from the ground, I hold her against me, not wanting her to see the state of Gavino or anyone else.
Pinching my eyes closed, I try to think of what to do. There is only one door in and out of here, then there is the large rolling door that allows the delivery trucks to drive straight through.
There is no other way out.
Unless…
ROSANA
I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but I wish that I were back at Salvatore’s condo. Turning to him, I lift my hands and grab ahold of his shirt, gripping him tightly as I look up into his eyes, silently pleading for what I don’t know—for salvation, maybe.
“Please,” I whimper when he just looks down at me, his eyes wide and full of horror.
He nods once, then scoops me up in his arms. I gasp in surprise as he carries me to the back of the room. There is a small door, and he pushes it open, walking us both inside. Licking my lips, I look to the side and scream, seeing Miguel sitting on the floor.
Salvatore snorts as he takes a step toward Miguel. “What the fuck is going on?” Miguel demands.
Wordlessly, Salvatore picks him up by the back of his neck and literally tosses him out of the room. I hear his body hit the floor with a thud right before Salvatore slams and locks the door behind him.
“Is he tied up?” I ask.
Salvatore doesn’t answer me. Shifting my gaze toward him, I freeze in my place. He stalks me. He moves slowly toward me, one panther-like step at a time until his chest is touching mine. I gasp when he reaches down, wrapping his hands around the backs of my thighs, and picks me up.
He turns us around, his intense gaze on mine. Then I feel it. Heat fills my body from the inside out as his intensity fills up the room. I can taste the desire, the animalistic need inside of him spilling out.
When his lips touch mine, the kiss is hard and wet, my entire body melting as he moves us throughout the tiny space. Until he sets me down on my feet and breaks the kiss, our breaths coming out in pants, filling the otherwise quiet room.
Lifting my eyes to his, I open my mouth to speak, but he beats me to it. “Take your pants off, now,” he demands on a growl.
My thighs tremble at his demand, and I do it. It doesn’t matter that it’s chaos outside, it doesn’t matter about anything else at all. The only thing that matters right now is us—him and me.
Once my bottom half
is completely naked, he flicks his gaze down. I watch as he slowly licks his bottom lip. I squeeze my trembling thighs together as he lifts his gaze to meet mine, his nostrils flaring before he takes a step backward and slowly unbuttons and unbuckles his pants, shoving them down, along with his underwear.
His length juts forward, long and thick. It’s my turn to lick my lips at the sight of him. He chuckles. “Turn around, ass out, bambola,” he purrs.
My body does exactly what he demands of it—what he commands of it. Turning around, I bend over the desk, my chest pressing against the wood. Then, before I can place my hands on the desk to brace myself, he reaches for them. Salvatore wraps his fingers around my wrists, holding them together in one hand.
“Salvatore,” I breathe.
“Cheek on the desk,” he growls.
I do as he says, my breath hitching when I feel the head of his cock against my center. He removes himself, then I feel his wet fingers between my legs. He moves them, circling my clit featherlight before rubbing it harder, alternating between moves and it causes my heart to speed up.
Keeping my eyes open, I watch the door, wondering if at any time someone will burst into the room. The thought excites me. I’ve never been one for being a voyeur or anything like that, but this is dangerous and exciting and I really get why people are into it.
I climb higher, thinking about the door opening becomes the last thing on my mind as my body gets closer and closer to a release just from his fingers, then without warning his fingers are gone and he thrusts hard, once, burying himself inside of me to the root.
“Fuck,” Salvatore hisses. “I will miss this.”
My torso jerks slightly, but his hold on my wrists tightens and then he pulls out of me before slamming back inside and I forget everything that he’s said. He fucks me. There is no other way to put it and I like it—I crave it. I want more of it before it’s even over.
Becoming her Salvation (Zanetti Famiglia Book 7) Page 16