by AA Lee
Angelo closed his mouth and looked at her. He glanced at the watch and then at the door. He looked frustrated or worried. It would be a hard decision to make; however, he had to make the choice. He shook his head and glanced at her hand. His expression looked softer, almost like he was giving up his position.
“You win,” he said simply and grabbed her hand. “You realize that you will be the death of me,” he added.
Ella slowly shook her head. “No, I won’t let you die. I think that I have proven that to you.”
Angelo closed his eyes and let out a remorseful breath. “I’m sorry about that woman. Looking at your eyes while that happened was one of the hardest things I have ever had to face. That’s why I got mad. There was nothing I could do to stop it.”
“At times I am going to hate you. That’s what you said, isn’t it? But that’s not true, though. At times, I will hate this life, but not you. We will deal with it as it comes. When I didn’t leave your room that night I agreed to be a part of what you do – to work together to make it work for both of us.”
Angelo lifted his hand and wiped off his face. It could have been to deflect any possible tears or just because he was tired. She made no mention of his reason and wrapped her arms around his head instead.
“I love you,” he said. “You are the only woman I have ever loved. You are probably the only woman that would put up with me, too. I would die before letting anything happen to you, so don’t ever tell me to leave again.”
“I don’t think that’s a problem anymore, Angelo,” she said and pushed him back to one of the sofas in the room. As he dropped to the cushion, she immediately went for the buckle on his belt.
“Did you miss me that much?” he asked.
“Are you refusing?” She slid down his zipper.
“Your dress will get wrinkled,” he smirked and slid down his pants as she raised her dress to her hips.
“My dress is supposed to be wrinkle free.” She lifted one knee around him and hovered until he positioned that part of him that she missed so much. She raised her other knee and closed her eyes as she lowered her body to fit. They were perfect for each other. Her head hung forward as she moved against his length. Now she felt like crying. The connection was overwhelming her emotions.
“I know I missed you,” he said and jerked her forward. His movements felt amazing, pleasing her as he always did. An instant heat spread throughout her body as his drives quenched her needs. Then, he kissed her. His mouth was greedy and his lips interlocked with hers as if making sure she was real.
“I love you, Angelo,” she assured just in case there was any doubt. He did not say anything else. There was nothing else to add. Their bodies could speak what they felt without having to say another word.
After enjoying each other’s company, Ella knew they must get off the sofa but neither attempted to move. She certainly did not desire to leave his arms for the commotion they would face outside of the door. Hundreds of guests probably waited to ask questions about the marriage.
When a few more minutes passed, she finally lifted her chest off his. She wrapped her hands around his cheeks and kissed him gently. “There’s something I wanted to tell you,” she said.
“Yes?” He returned her kiss.
She never had the chance to respond. The lights in the room flickered on and off several times, followed by absolute darkness. They heard guests screaming from beyond the door, and Angelo quickly scooted her off.
“Oh my god,” she said as he turned on his phone for light.
“Come on,” he whispered in a panicked tone as he held out his hand. The power outage concerned him too. “Be ready to pull your gun if you have to and stay right behind me. Don’t get lost.” She nodded and grabbed the back of his coat.
Angelo unlocked the door and cautiously opened it. The soft lights from the generator turned on as they started down the hall. She had no idea what they would find but had her gun ready to shoot just as he had said.
CHAPTER 63
He led Ella through the bewildered crowd. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary except for the lights being off. Angelo started to breathe easier. He turned around to tell that to Ella when Brett ran up to him. He did not like the worried look in Brett’s eyes. It meant that something was wrong.
“Follow me,” said Brett. Brett opened the door to the stairwell and had his gun pointing up as he did. He peeked out of the door when they reached the lobby floor; then he waved them to come. An Escalade waited for them outside of the hotel. Sammy sat behind the wheel. Where was Thomas? Angelo often had his members work in pairs, but Thomas was not there.
“What the hell is going on?” He leaned forward from the back seat to the front as the vehicle sped away.
“They took Rafa, Jim, Ray, Thomas. Rafa was on the phone with me when they were checking on a disturbance out front. They wanted you, but he told them you weren’t here. By the time I got out there, they were gone. Rafa told them you were at the warehouse. He’s leading them there, but they’re going to kill him if you aren’t.”
“Fuck,” Angelo muttered. “Rafa is smart, though. He will take them to our main warehouse, the one with the balcony. We have to stop by my house first and grab some guns.”
“There’s one more thing,” Brett added, though his tone sounded matter-of-factly. He must have already accepted the worst. “Sullivan was with the men that took Rafa.”
“How do you know?” Angelo asked.
“Rafa made a point to say his name before our call was ended.”
“Sullivan,” Angelo said. Sullivan had agreed to help him. Did he change his mind? Angelo did not know Sullivan that well. He had never worked with him before. The only one he really seemed loyal to was Ella.
“He’s tricking them,” Ella said. “Sullivan would never work with Bonadio.”
“Let’s hope you’re right.” Angelo looked at her. “Every man has his limit, though, and I don’t know Sullivan well enough to give him my trust.”
“I do,” she muttered. “He wouldn’t join them.”
“Maybe true, but that does not make him loyal to me.” He looked at her as she frowned. It may have been hard for her to understand; at the same time, she did. He was glad she did not try to argue.
When they arrived at his house, he started walking to his room but stopped and pointed at Brett. “You and Sammy grab the ammo out of my safe in the garage. I’m going to grab the guns.”
Ella followed him to their room. He opened the closet door and shoved the hanging clothes to both sides as she watched. Behind them was a safe. He punched in the code and pulled the lever, opening the door to a large hidden space in the wall.
“Clever,” she said. He smirked as he grabbed a black duffle bag and set it behind. Then he grabbed another.
“I will have to show you all my hidden cubbies some time. There’s one that even Rafa doesn’t know about.”
“How can I help?” she asked.
“Unzip that one. Put all of the guns on the bed,” he replied as he took out a third bag.
“What are you planning?” Ella looked up as she reached for another gun.
“To save my men,” he said and lifted the other two bags to the bed. “My father and yours might have ignored their men to save themselves, but my men trust me. I lead by example. They are more loyal that way. It leaves little room for resentment. That’s why none of my men turn on me. It makes us unstoppable.”
Just then, his phone rang. He had only called the number once—Sullivan. He almost dreaded to answer the call. “Yeah,” he said.
“Come to your warehouse on the north side of town within the hour or all four of your men will die.” Angelo started to open his mouth when the phone call ended after those words. He looked at the clock. It was half past nine. The drive took at least twenty-five minutes with no traffic. He had to rush.
“Ella, help me make sure these guns are loaded. I don’t have time for ammo this time.”
“Who was that?” She
looked at his phone but started ejecting the cartridges and clicking them back.
“It was Sullivan. He said I have thirty minutes or they will kill Rafa and the others.”
Ella shook her head as if that would prevent his men from dying. He knew better. Bonadio was not one to give loose threats. The thought made him zip up the second bag fast. Ella was through with the first and started to unzip the third bag as his phone beeped again—a message.
Bring Ella, Sullivan wrote. Angelo glared at the words. Sullivan must have been out of his damn mind. Then he looked at her. Ella was unloading and loading the guns again like a professional gun handler. Maybe Sullivan knew what he was talking about but still.
Angelo thought about it further. They must have been in a situation that needed a long-distance shot. He was good and Rafa was good. They were also unavailable, and he did not have a minute to spare to wait for other members of his group to arrive.
He took a deep breath and zipped up the last bag. “Sullivan wants me to bring you with me.”
“You mentioned a balcony,” she said and ran to the restroom. Angelo saw her beautiful dress discarded to the floor and her heels tossed on top.
“Yes,” he picked up all three bags and toted them to the kitchen. “Get these in the Escalade,” he ordered Brett and Sammy and then returned to Ella. She was already wearing something more comfortable.
“They won’t know I’m there. That’s why he told you to bring me. Let me shoot them while they’re focused on you.”
Angelo held his head for a moment. This was such a bad idea that he wanted to punch himself for even considering it. He hated that Sullivan thought she gave them the upper hand. He also hated Sullivan’s indifferent personality in it all. There was one important factor, though. Sullivan would not put Ella in danger. Angelo would have to put his trust in that, and he had no more time.
“Okay,” he said before he could change his mind. Then he grabbed her hand and closed his hands around her face. “If something goes wrong, you only need to worry about taking care of yourself, understood? That’s the only way I will bring you. Promise me.” He looked straight in her eyes but she hesitated. “I said promise me.”
“Okay.”
“What?”
“I promise.”
He could not believe he was involving his wife in one of the most dangerous situations he ever faced. He felt like a terrible man. What kind of husband was he? She should be safe at home, not going with him to some metal warehouse in the middle of the woods. This was going to eat at him no matter how the situation turned out. It went against everything he ever wanted for her.
“All right,” he said and grabbed a bulletproof vest out of the closet. “Let’s go. You can put this vest on in the car while I explain what you can do.”
CHAPTER 64
Ella waited quietly in the bushes a hundred yards back and watched them walk away. Her life was handing himself over to Bonadio’s men at the front door. One of the guards rammed a gun at his back and led him inside. Angelo was many things, but a coward was not one of them. It did not matter how hopeless the situation seemed. He was always in the front. Now he relied on her to save him and the others. Going against his normal ways must have been the hardest thing he ever had to do. She admired him for that more.
With the strap of a rifle wrapped around her chest, a pistol in her hand, and another gun attached to her waist, Ella stood and scoped out the place. She watched the entrance and quietly secured the duffle bags from the ground to her shoulder, waiting for the perfect time to move.
She walked between some parked cars and made it to the end of the line. One man walked back outside, but she was more concerned with the number of men that were inside. She raised her pistol and aimed. As soon as she pulled the trigger, the second man emerged. When he saw the first, he swiftly turned back around. She could not let him tell the others. She had to fire quickly. He did not give her a choice.
She looked at both of the men, lying on the ground in a puddle of their own blood. It was gruesome. She understood why Angelo wanted to leave her out of all this. It was hard to accept that she was the reason they no longer lived. She briefly closed her eyes. The world was so much different from what she ever thought when she was young. She put the thoughts out of her mind as she walked past them to the side of the building, glad that Angelo had given her the code to the secret door.
A large hallway met her. It looked as though it wrapped around the entire building much like an auditorium or a theater. She left the duffle bag by the door and took a right as Angelo had instructed; then she walked about fifty feet. Just as she had been instructed, the door to the left showed a stairway picture. She turned the knob, careful not to make a sound, and closed it behind her in exactly the same way.
Voices from the main part of the building echoed in the empty stairway as she ascended toward the top. She was careful with her steps. She hoped the wood would not creak or worse—fall through. There were holes where nails used to hold down carpet, and broken bulbs in the fixtures on the walls. The stairway did not look sturdy, but since Angelo had instructed her to ascend the stairs, she knew it was.
She climbed three sets of stairs and hoped there were no more. She was already out of breath. She could hear some of the words the men said, but she still could not make out full sentences. Then she looked over the last few steps. She made it to the top. The balcony rails started halfway down and ended at the floor. She would have to get low if she wanted to avoid being seen. Staying close to the floor would be the only way to stay out of sight and get to the edge.
Ella half slid and half crawled to the edge. She looked at the rails and then at the flakes of rust that speckled the floor. It was likely to fall if she touched it at all. She really had to be careful not to bump the rails with the rifle’s barrel as she raised it to her eye.
All six of Angelo’s members were sitting on the stage. Their hands were bound in front. Angelo stood. Blood dripped from a cut by his eye and the right side of his nose. They must have punched him or hit him with something hard.
A dozen men she had never seen before stood behind him and his other members. It looked like they formed a half circle from this high in the air. Two of them pointed guns at Angelo and one waved a gun back and forth at his men.
Ella breathed out and in at the sight as she tried to relax her mind. All of the tension in the room and the heat of the balcony were making her nauseous. This was the worst time of all to have morning sickness. She put her willpower to work and willed herself not to get sick.
“Tomassi, you have been hindering our efforts from the beginning,” a man said. Ella looked at him. He did not look like anyone she had ever seen. He was probably about forty with dark hair and a short beard. His voice was nothing she wanted to hear as he continued. “You have refused to cooperate with us. I am tired of hearing your name.”
Angelo sneered at the man. “I thought you would be happy to see me, Bonadio. You abducted my men just to see my face.”
He laughed. Ella loathed the sound as he started to speak again. “Shoot him,” he pointed at the man behind Angelo. She never let the man pull the trigger as she pulled her own. She heard a thud on the stage and another as she fired the rifle again. “What the hell?” Bonadio looked to the back of the room, past rows of seats that Ella expected to find in a movie theater. What did this place used to be?
She could not think about it. She aimed straight at the third man holding a gun and saw him fall down flat on his back. Next, she fired at Bonadio. He did not go down as she wished. He must have known it was coming, and he shoved one of his men in the way of the bullet instead, killing him on the spot. Ella scooted back fast as Bonadio looked up.
“Find them!” he pointed above. Ella peeked back down. “Oh shit,” she mouthed. Bonadio and the others were gone, but Angelo raised his hands in the air. Did he really want her to shoot the ropes off, that close to his head? He either really trusted her or prayed hard. She aimed her rifl
e again before she heard any steps in the stairway. It would probably take them a few minutes to find the way to the top. She was sure they had never been there before.
Ella looked through both sights and lined them up with the middle of the ropes around Angelo’s hands. She let out a small breath and fired. The millisecond it took for the bullet to reach his hands seemed like minutes of endless waiting. She sighed with relief when she saw him throw the rope. She was about to free Rafa too, but Bonadio’s men found the stairway quicker than she thought.
Ella jumped up. She looked around fast and spotted the second set of stairs on the opposite end. Then she got a better idea as the heavy boots stomped up. She sat against the wall and faced the first set of stairs. As a man barged through the door, Ella pulled the trigger on her pistol. She struck another right behind the first and then a third. She heard no more movement and swung the door open to the second set of stairs.
She jumped and skipped steps. From the second to the first flight, she dropped her pistol with one of her jumps. It was too late. She was already running back around the circular hallway and to where she thought Angelo might be. She yanked up the bag with guns on her way. The stage should be just a few steps ahead and she barged into the auditorium.
She was wrong. She was in the back of the room. She raced down the aisle and past the seats as a man stood out of the shadows. Ella grabbed her second pistol and shot—nothing. She forgot that she had put on the safety when he shot back. She did not know they wanted her dead. Maybe he did not know who she was. She clicked off the safety this time and fired again. It was not a perfect shot, but it hit the man in the stomach. He groaned out in pain as his body crashed in one of the seats.