by Brook Wilder
Scared, Sharon scrambled to find her clothing and threw it on. What was going on?
Once she was dressed, Vittorio grabbed her hand and pushed her out of the bedroom. It was then that she noticed the gun in his left hand and her fear notched up a level. Something bad was about to happen and she was right in the middle of it. He took her to the end of the hall and into a bedroom she had not been in since her earlier days in the penthouse. Vittorio hauled her over to the closet and pressed a hand against the wall, a panel popping out. “This is a safe room,” he explained his voice low. “The code is 4572.”
“Why are you doing this?” she begged as he typed in the code and the entire closet door opened, showing a small room beyond the door.
“They are coming,” he answered harshly, spinning her in the room. “There’s some supplies in the corner. Don’t come out unless myself or Marcello comes to get you out. You understand?”
“Vittorio, please,” she begged, tears streaming down her cheeks as she grabbed a hold of his arm. “Come in with me. Don’t leave me here.”
He took her face into his hands, his eyes colliding with hers.
“I’m going to end this Sharon, so we can have our lives back. They won’t stop until I’m dead or I kill them. There’s no in between. I-I can’t have them finding you in case something…”
She didn’t let him finish.
“Stay.”
He shook his head, pressing his lips briefly to hers before shoving her into the room.
“I love you. You are everything in my life.”
“Vittorio!” she cried out as he slammed shut the door, the lock falling into place before she could reach it. She beat on the door, begging him to open it so she could help. “Please don’t do this!”
There was no answer.
Sharon let out a sob and fell against the door, wrapping her arms around her. How had they gone from making love in his bed to her fearing for his life?
This wasn’t real.
This wasn’t really happening.
She could not lose him now, not when they had just reconnected. She hadn’t had much time with him, nowhere near enough time with him to show Vittorio how she felt, how deep her love for him ran.
Sharon buried her face in her hands, the tears flowing in earnest now. Oh god, he could not die! If he died, her life was over with. She would prefer to die right alongside of him.
She could not live without Vittorio.
Chapter 16
Vittorio
Vittorio cautiously exited the room, grinding his teeth as he swept the hallway with his gun. Fuck. This could not be happening right now. He wanted more time with Sharon, more time to show her how much she truly meant to him.
But now that was in jeopardy, along with both of their lives. He would protect her at all costs, but what was coming… well, he would fucking fight until the end.
Vittorio heard the front door splinter as it was pushed in, probably by some fucking heavy object, and he swallowed, wishing that he had gotten to his stash in time. Sharon had been his priority, the safe room finally coming in handy for the first time since he’d had it installed.
But he could not stay in there with her, hiding like a coward. She didn’t understand, but that was not his nature. He was a fucking fighter and this was going to end here, today, if he could help it.
If he could survive.
Letting out a slow breath, Vittorio managed to slide into the hall bathroom before he heard the voices. He braced himself on the counter so he could watch them walk down the hall. He had a full clip, enough to take out a few before he would have to use his fists.
“Where are you, Contarini!?”
Rocco Anafesto himself had come. Vittorio cocked his gun and peered out into the hall, waiting until the shadows came closer before he unloaded a few shots. The screams that followed told him the bullets had found their mark, but he had nowhere near enough to take them all down. A volley of bullets sprayed down the hall and into the bathroom door, near his head. Vittorio was forced to abandon his post.
Shit. This was going to be bad.
“Don’t fucking kill him!” Anafesto shouted above the hail of gunfire. “Stupid fuckers! I want to do it.”
Vittorio let out a slow breath before he aimed for the hallway once more, but they were much too close. A bullet clipped his calf muscle. The searing pain caused his knee to buckle and he went down hard. Before he could get back on his feet, they were at the doorway.
“There he is,” Anafesto grinned, stepping on Vittorio’s wrist before he could aim at him.
The pain was blinding as he crushed the bones under his heel, but Vittorio refused to let out a single sound. He took a wild swing with his free hand before he was subdued and dragged out into the living room, his body colliding with the dead goons in the hallway he had been able to take down.
“Well now, this is going to be fun.”
“Why don’t you call off your dogs,” Vittorio said as he was held up by two of Rocco’s men, blood trickling out of his leg wound and onto the pristine carpeting. “And fight me like a man.”
Rocco laughed, his entire body jiggling with the movement.
“Are you fucking serious? What fun would that be? You’ve been taunting me for days now, begging me to come and do damage to you. Well, I’m here and I’m ready to do so.” He looked over at one of the men with him, snapping his fingers. “Go and search the damn place. Make sure we don’t have anyone hiding.”
Vittorio forced himself not to show emotion as the goon scurried off, hoping like hell that he wouldn’t even notice the false closet. While safe, it wasn’t impenetrable, and all they needed was his thumb print to open the damn thing.
Rocco shrugged off his coat, rolling up his sleeves as he leered at Vittorio.
“You know, Contarini, you are a pain in my ass, burning my establishments down and freeing my women. What the fuck is wrong with you? Don’t you know this is how you and I should be?”
“I’m nothing like you,” Vittorio growled, straining against the men that held him.
His fucking wrist was limp, and his leg felt like it was on fire, but he could still fight. He would go down fighting.
Rocco laughed harshly, grabbing Vittorio’s hair and forcing his head back.
“You’re right. You are nothing like me. You’re weak, nothing like you should be with that name attached to your ass.”
“Better mine than yours, you sick fuck.”
Rocco’s gaze hardened and he hit Vittorio across the face.
“You are gonna hurt for that one.”
“You hit like a bitch.”
Rocco nodded and one of his muscles stepped up, punching Vittorio hard in the face. Vittorio felt blood explode from his nose, the pain following. The man hit him again, splitting his lip and nearly breaking his jaw. Stars exploded in his eyes as he fought to catch his breath, the pain so intense that he was glad he was being held up or else he would have been on the floor in a heap. The next blow landed in his gut and he lost his breath, gasping as he felt a sharp pain in his side.
Fucking broken ribs.
“Again.”
The fucker landed another punch to the side of his head and Vittorio fought against the wave of blackness.
He could not pass out.
He could not give up.
There were lives at stake.
“You see? There’s a difference between you and I,” Rocco started as Vittorio spit blood onto the carpet, barely able to see the man in front of him. “I always have a plan. You fucking burn down my buildings? Fine, go on ahead. I got fifty more to replace what I lost. Kill my men, burn them alive? Fine. I have one hundred more fuckers to take their place.”
“All fucking idiots,” Vittorio forced out, attempting to smile at him.
Rocco laughed as Vittorio earned himself another fist to his side.
“We could have been good together, you and I, taking over this fucking city.”
Vittorio gritted his te
eth against the pain in his side. Hell, he had pain all over.
“You’re not my type, sorry.”
“Smart ass,” the goon doing the beating sneered, slapping him across the face. “Show some respect.”
“Now, now,” Rocco tsked, holding his hand up. “We don’t wanna kill him, just yet. I want him to hurt as I have hurt over this last week. I want him to feel my pain.”
Chapter 17
Vittorio
Vittorio felt the blood well up inside his mouth before he spit it out onto the carpet. He hoped that his men weren’t too far away, or he might be dead by the time they arrived. The alarm that had been triggered by Rocco and his men had been a silent one to them, one that Vittorio had set the night before to give him and Sharon some privacy. But an alert had blasted onto Vittorio’s men’s cells the minute it had been triggered.
The installation of the silent alarm was the best fucking thing he had done lately.
Now, he just had to wait and survive until they got there.
“Let him go.”
Vittorio was dropped onto the carpet. The movement jarred his body and doubled his pain, but he didn’t let it show. He rested on his knees to catch his breath. His side fucking hurt. The ribs he knew had to be broken dug into his lung in excruciating agony. The bullet wound in his leg had gone numb and he couldn’t feel his fucking face any longer. He knew he was in bad shape.
“You see, Contarini? This is how it feels to be on the bottom, always looking up. My family has always been second rate to yours and I am fucking tired of it. You meddled into my business too much, interrupting my profits by letting those women go. I never once cost you a dime.”
Vittorio looked up at his captor, fashioning what could only be a bloody grin at him.
“Worst way to piss a man off is to mess with his money.”
“Or his woman,” Rocco mused, tapping his finger to his chin. “Whatever happened to your whore, Vit? You know, I found one of my men dead in an alley yesterday. Had your name written all over it.”
“I did what I had to do,” Vittorio responded carefully. “She’s off limits to you, even if you kill me.”
“Huh,” Rocco said.
The man who had been scoping out the penthouse wandered back into the living room.
“There’s no one here boss.”
Rocco turned to him.
“Did you find signs of a woman here?”
The man scratched his head.
“Now that you mentioned it, I found these on the floor. Was gonna keep em.”
Vittorio schooled his emotions as the man held up the lacy scrap of underwear that Sharon had put on for him only a few hours earlier. In her haste to get dressed, she must have missed them.
Shit. That was the last thing he needed Rocco to focus on.
“So what?” he said lightly, shrugging. “I get some and, unlike your boss here, I don’t have to pay for it.”
Rocco’s grin was feral as he looked away from the panties and focused his attention back on Vittorio.
“You got her, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Oh, but I think you do,” he answered, almost giddy now. “Where did you hide her, Vittorio? Surely she didn’t climb out of a window.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Vittorio repeated, rolling his shoulders to ease the pain.
He had to protect her. If Rocco found Sharon, there was no telling what he might make her do, what he might do to torture Vittorio.
“That chick from the club,” Rocco continued on, turning toward his men. “Go find her. She’s here, I bet you.”
He then turned toward the man who had been searching the penthouse and raised his gun.
“As for you, you are an idiot.”
“Boss,” the man said, holding up his hands. “I did what you wanted.”
“Yeah you did,” Rocco responded coldly, shooting him in the head. “But you fucking sucked at it.”
The rest of the men scattered and Vittorio listened to them tear apart his penthouse.
“They are wasting their time.”
“Maybe,” Rocco said, his eyes on the dead man before him. “But I guess we will see, won’t we?”
Vittorio sucked in a breath, turning his attention on the man next to him, his gun trained on Vittorio in case he tried something stupid. He couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t protect himself, nor could he protect Sharon any longer. The only thing he could hope for was that his men would get there before the others found Sharon.
“You want to know why I buy my women?” Rocco asked after a moment, his eyes back on Vittorio. “Because if you let them get too close to you, then you become weak. Just look at you. Lara made you soft, made you not want to get involved in this nasty business. So, I eliminated her, just like I am gonna eliminate this chick for you as well.”
Vittorio growled, but said nothing. That was where Rocco was wrong. Sharon had made him stronger, made him realize that there was something else to this life, other than his family business. She had shown him compassion, love.
“Boss! I found something!”
“Watch him,” Rocco stated as he walked from the room.
Vittorio’s stomach rolled as he watched him walk down the hall, toward the safe room. There was no doubt in his mind that he had found Sharon. It wasn’t more than a minute later that Rocco walked back into the room with another one of his men, motioning for them to bring Vittorio. Vittorio attempted to fight them but was rewarded with a few more punches that left him dizzy, gasping for breath.
They dragged him toward the room and ice ran in his veins as he saw they had the keypad out, the one that would take his thumb print to open the door.
“Get his thumb,” Rocco commanded.
Vittorio fought as hard as he could, but they grabbed the wrist that was likely broken, forced the limp hand open, and brought it up to the scanner.
Shit. This was about to be bad and he couldn’t stop it.
He had failed.
Chapter 18
Sharon
Sharon backed up against the wall as she heard the voices on the other side of the door. Her heart was racing. She had cried out when she’d heard the gunshots, worried about Vittorio and if he was going to survive.
If he didn’t, she didn’t know what she would do.
But the gunfire had died away and, for a while, she thought that no one was out there. She waited for someone to open the door and let her out. Now, however, she could feel the danger on the other side of the door. The door lock whirled, and she crouched by the bag, rifling through it to find a weapon, anything she could use to defend herself. There was no doubt in her mind that Vittorio was not on the other side of that door.
Her hands brushed across something sharp and Sharon pulled it out. It was a retractable knife, like the ones used to open boxes. Quickly, she pushed the blade all the way up and tucked it into her palm as the door started to open.
She was right. It was not Vittorio coming to rescue her.
“Come on out,” Rocco Anafesto called from the opening. “I know you are in here. Clever, Cortarini, hiding her in here.”
Vittorio was still alive.
Relief momentarily flooded Sharon’s body as two men entered the space, their leering grins making her feel sick to her stomach.
“Come on slut,” one of them said, reaching for her arm and pulling her roughly to her feet. “The boss wants to see you.”
“No,” Sharon shouted as his fingers dug into the skin on her upper arm, pulling her across the floor.
He ignored her and soon Sharon was in the bedroom once more, a small cry escaping her mouth as her eyes laid on Vittorio. He looked nothing like the cocky mob boss that had kissed her so tenderly earlier.
In his place was a lump of blood, his face swollen behind recognition.
“Come on,” Rocco said, motioning to his men. “Let’s go back into the living room. There’s more room in there an
yway.”
Sharon was dragged down the hall by her hair, her scalp on fire as she fought to get out of the strong hold they had her in, tears in her eyes. They were going to kill them both, though Vittorio looked almost there. Her poor, proud mafia man. He had done so much to protect her.
She was thrown on the floor not far from Vittorio, against the back of the couch. Rocco came into her vision.