A Million Different Ways (A Horn Novel Book 1)

by Dangelico, P.

  “If the border police asks, you’re my sister, understood?” Etienne stated in a hard tone. I met his gaze in the rear view mirror and nodded once. “Do you speak French?”

  “Parfaitement,” I answered.

  “That should make things easier.”

  “Maybe it would be easier if you didn’t speed and bring unnecessary attention to us.” I couldn’t help it. I was hungry, irritable, and pregnant.

  His heavy eyelids lowered over dark eyes. “I make this trip on a weekly basis. I would appreciate it if you would leave the driving to me. As a matter of fact, leave everything to me and keep your mouth shut,” he cautioned, his voice descending into a growl.

  “Vera.”

  “What?”

  “My name is Vera,” I repeated.

  “That means truth in Italian. Well, Vera, keep your fucking truth to yourself until we get to Milan.”

  I turned my eyes towards the passing scenery. With every stoplight we passed, every building behind us, Geneva faded away from me. Once a shining city upon a hill––now a reminder of broken dreams.

  “Can you turn the music up?” I asked Sergio. He granted my request and started bobbing his head to the discordant sound of punk rock. The music gave me a headache, but anything was better than the sound of my thoughts.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck! Motherfuckers. Pezzi di merda, cazzo. Putain!!” Etienne shouted while he pounded the steering wheel with the heel of his hand.

  I grimaced. “You’ve managed to include them all…in every language imaginable outside of Sorani.”

  “What?!”

  “You’re cursing. Sorani is a dialect of Kurdish.” His shifty eyes connected with mine in the rearview mirror. Nothing––just a vacant expression. “Never mind,” I added, and turned to stare out the window.

  A Christmas tree of taillights snaked across the Mars black night. The line of cars waiting to be inspected by Swiss border patrol stretched for miles. The heavy thump of Sergio’s leg nervously beating against the floor of the car kept pace with the sound blasting from the speakers; I dare not call it music.

  We had been driving for two hours already and waiting in traffic for three more. A dull ache had slowly developed below my navel. Rubbing it didn’t help. I needed food and a bathroom badly. “Etienne, maybe we should find a gas station and get something to eat. This line hasn’t moved in an hour,” I suggested.

  He turned to look at Sergio and found him cupping his privates like a five year old desperate for a toilet. I rolled my eyes. Directing my annoyance at Sergio, I said, “I told you not to drink three cans of Red Bull. Caffeine and B-12 are diuretics.”

  My critical gaze was met by another blank expression.

  “What??” Sergio asked.

  My patience finally snapped as the dull ache in my stomach spiked. “It makes you piss!!”

  “She’s right, Etienne. Might as well eat and piss,” Sergio agreed, shrugging off my anger as if it were commonplace for people to speak to him in that manner.

  Etienne pursed his lips, and soon after, began to make a jarring, three point turn that had half the cars around us honking their horns. Driving onto the grassy shoulder of the highway, we zipped by the rest of the traffic and made an incredibly illegal maneuver to get back onto the northbound lane. Not too far down the road, we found an Agip station and pulled into the parking lot.

  The food court was filled with travelers waiting for the traffic to thin out. We stood in line and ordered. I picked up a vacuum-sealed ham sandwich from the display; something I wouldn’t be caught dead eating under normal circumstances, but at least I knew it hadn’t been handled by anyone.

  As we sat down to eat, Etienne stiffened slightly, his brows lowering over narrowed eyes. My gaze followed the direction of his glare, and discovered three Swiss police officers walking in with a German Shepard.

  “What is it?” I asked Etienne. He completely ignored me and leaned across the table towards Sergio instead.

  “Are you sure you locked the trunk?”

  Sergio stopped chewing his charred hamburger. His eyes glazed with indecision. “I think so,” he answered, food spilling out from the side of his mouth.

  “Why? What’s in the trunk?” I asked, anxiety making my voice sharp and high. I was afraid something like this might happen, even though Emilia had assured me that they were driving to Milan for a pick up, not a delivery.

  Etienne’s already thin lips disappeared off his face, his eye twitched nervously. His voice was eerily quiet when he spoke, “You think so, motherfucker?”

  Sergio’s gaze widened. Under the table, his leg began tapping rapidly. “I’m sure I did,” he replied.

  We fell silent as three sets of eyes followed every move the officers made, from where they picked up their bags of food, to when they stepped outside. I couldn’t eat anymore, suddenly nauseous. The pain was a fist pressing on my abdomen. It made my breath catch and my face twist.

  “I’m going to the restroom.” If either of them heard me, they didn’t acknowledge.

  The bathroom was empty and clean. I washed my hands and stared at my reflection in the mirror. What would my father say if he could see what had become of me? After what had happened with Pascal, I wouldn’t have believed that things could get any worse. And yet, they had. I didn’t want to know what was in that trunk. And I was even more petrified to find out what would happen next. The cold florescent lights made me look sallow, unwell. This was the worst possible time to be feeling sick.

  Another hot stab slashed through me, stronger this time. I doubled over and braced myself against the sink, my legs fighting to support me. Breathe through the pain…breathe through the pain, I repeated to myself. I was getting dangerously close to breaking, my will power slowly ebbing away.

  A heavy-set woman walked in, older, around sixty. She placed a gentle hand on my back and asked,“Scusi signorina, hai bisogno d’aiuto?” I forced myself to stand straight and answered her in the same language, Italian, that I was grateful for her concern, but I didn’t need any help. What I needed was to get back to the car as quickly as possible and lie down. I found Etienne and Sergio waiting for me at the entrance, looking through the glass doors.

  Etienne nodded in the direction of the officers. “They’re right there. Be cool.”

  Be cool???? I was anything but cool!

  We stepped outside and a gust of warm air greeted us, accompanied by a strong smell. The sweet scent of honeysuckle was mixed with the pungent odor of gasoline and cigarette smoke. My olfactory system was on steroids, heightened because of the pregnancy, and as the smell hit me, so did another wave of nausea.

  The police officers were deep in conversation, laughing about something. They flicked the ashes of their almost finished cigarettes on the ground, one of them staring intently at Sergio’s hair as we walked past them. The one handling the dog ground out his cigarette under his boot and turned in the direction we were headed, towards the car. As he passed the BMW, the dog began barking aggressively. All three of us stood frozen.

  The officer tried once to tug the barking dog away, but when the dog persisted, he began circling the car. “Hey you, is this your car?” he asked Etienne in French.

  Etienne hesitated a second too long. The police officer narrowed his eyes at us. Another hot stab of pain and my knees were suddenly unable to support me. A cold sweat swept over me from top to bottom. Between the anxiety and the pain, my breath was shallow, labored, and my heart beat as fast as a percussion instrument.

  “I’m sorry, officer, my sister is not feeling well…yes, this is our car.” Etienne made an attempt at looking concerned and walked me over to the curb. I sat down and hugged my knees, hoping and praying the pain would subside.

  The tips of Sergio’s mohawk danced as he fidgeted nervously with a cigarette. He looked like a nervous rooster and, even to my untrained eye, looked guilty as hell of something. The other officers, having been alerted by the dog’s bark,
walked towards the car. Etienne left me on the curb to stand next to Sergio.

  A crowd began congregating around me on the sidewalk, finding someone else’s misery or misfortune fascinating no doubt. The raucous bark of the police dog drowned out every other sound. I couldn’t hear the conversation transpiring between Etienne and the police but it didn’t seemed to be going well.

  Sergio’s nervous gaze shifted to me, then to the officers, then the trunk. The situation was escalating. I could tell by the policemen’s body language that they were getting ready to search the car.

  A disaster was slowly unfolding before my eyes. I knew that if they opened that trunk, we would all be arrested and I would find myself deported back to Albania to stand trial for grand larceny.

  In a calculated decision, I willed my legs to move. Backing away slowly, I retreated into the crowd and, as I melted away from the scene, watched the officers open all the car doors, cuff Etienne, then Sergio. When I was out of sight, I sprinted to the back of the gas station where it bordered a dense forest.

  …and then I ran. I ran like the devil was at my heels. Until the pain in my lungs and abdomen was a sharp knife skewering me. But this time I had no place to hide, nowhere to go and lick my wounds. Nowhere I would be safe.

  I could barely see a foot in front of me, the area so rural I couldn’t detect any evidence of electricity. I had no idea where I was headed, or in which direction. The adrenaline focused all my energy on making my legs work. I stumbled over tree branches and thick vines of ground covering. My knee banged against a tree trunk, my cheek burned as a tree branch whipped across my face. And still I kept moving, pushing through the pain. The distant sound of shouting, and the bark of a dog finally registered. The policemen had discovered me missing and were giving chase, hunting me.

  As the sounds approached, my foot hit a rock and sent me sprawling to the ground. I scrabbled to my feet, but a burning sensation so unbearable sliced through me that I collapsed again.

  My hand accidentally brushed my jeans. It felt damp. The pitch black made it impossible see anything except the outline of my fingers. Then the clouds parted and a shaft of moonlight fell on it like a spotlight. My pale skin was stained with a thick coating of something black. My fingers trembled. The shouts were getting closer, almost upon me. Adrenaline forced me to get up.

  I began running and, in my haste, never noticed the fallen tree at my feet. My foot got caught under it and I stumbled to the ground once again. This time I couldn’t manage to break my fall. Pure agony exploded in my head. Unable to go on, I lay there and thought of my father, of Sebastian and the baby. I had failed them all. And then everything went dark.

  * * *

  Everything hurts. My muscles felt like they had been pushed through a meat grinder. My head throbbed. My right hand was numb, clamped down by a prickly vise. I tried wiggling my pinky though I don’t think it worked. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where the hell I was.

  Apparently an elephant was sitting on my eyelids because it took all the strength I had just to crack them open. In small increments, light poured into the narrow slits of my eyes, flooding my vision, making everything blurry and dream-like. Only this was no dream, more like a nightmare.

  I was so weak I needed a nap from the effort it took to open my eyes just a fraction. My hearing seemed to be working fine because I heard a deep, steady exhale. That peaked my curiosity. I tried lifting my lids a little bit more, and everything slowly and softly came into focus.

  I was in bed. A sandy head was resting on my hand. I tried wiggling my fingers again.

  The head moved…Sebastian.

  It all came back to me in a tidal wave of thoughts and emotions. Suddenly my head felt like it might explode. A swell of tears pushed up, with them came an acute pain in my head that made it impossible to cry. They seemed to logjam in my throat, unable to go further.

  He stirred and looked up, and when our eyes met, my heart stuttered. His face was ravaged with pain, his cheeks hollow, cheekbones sharper in contrast. He had lost weight, too much of it. Dark circles hung under his eyes, and he had about a weeks worth of beard growth on his handsome face. He squeezed his eyes shut, breathing a deep sigh of relief once the thick fan of his lashes lifted again.

  I made another half-hearted attempt at wiggling my numb fingers. Realizing what I was trying to do, he began rubbing my hand between his, trying to restore feeling in it. He kissed each finger in between the rubbing. I brushed his sharp cheekbones with my index finger and his jaw flexed, pulsing from tension. I had to touch him––unsure if this was a sick fantasy I was conjuring. Only I wouldn’t be in this much pain if it was a dream.

  A strange croaking sound rose up my throat. I licked my dry lips and tried to speak again but earned the same result. His brow creased, his worry palpable. He squeezed my hand.

  “Let me get the nurse.” His deep, rough-hewed voice cracked in an attempt to hold in emotion.

  I squeezed his fingers and mouthed the word ‘water’––moving anything other than that hurt too much. He got up so quickly that the chair he sat on toppled backwards. The loud sound exploded in my head painfully. As the sound reverberated down the hall, a stout nurse entered in a hurry.

  “You’re awake, Miss Sava. Good, I’ll get Dr. Rossetti.”

  “She needs water immediately,” he demanded, his tone overly curt.

  If I could have smiled then, I would have. My tender, despotic lover. The nurse raised her thin brows at his high handedness. She pinned Sebastian with an icy glare but her expression thawed instantly when her attention returned to me. “I’ll be right back with some ice water, and the doctor,” she announced before she walked out.

  I squeezed his fingers again and his gaze, filled with concern, met mine. “How?” I croaked; a small miracle that actual sound came out. A million how’s were caught in my throat. How long have I been here? How did you find me? How’s our baby…

  “Let me get you some water first,” he said quietly. “Don’t try to speak yet.” He kissed my hands again before he left my side, and stopped short when the nurse bustled in with a cup and a straw. Sebastian grabbed it from her none too politely. Fiddling with the control button, he elevated my bed, cupped the back of my neck gently and held the straw to my mouth. The nurse thinned her lips and grumbled in French about a sense of entitlement and something that vaguely sounded like ‘American asshole’.

  In the middle of unbelievable lethargy and pain, as I watched the two of them jockey for position, I had the overwhelming urge to burst out laughing. I had missed this, missed him…desperately. Everything turned blurry as tears slipped down my face. He scowled, his expression pained, while his eyes, burning brightly, absorbed every detail of me.

  “It’s okay, baby. I got you…you’re safe,” he murmured.

  I took small sips of water that required more strength than I had. My eyes fluttered shut while he brushed the dampness on my cheeks away with the back of his fingers. I felt his soft kisses on my temple, my eyelids, my lips, assuaging my battered soul. I couldn’t hold on much longer. Just before consciousness slipped away, I remembered the blood. I wanted to open my eyes and ask him but I drifted further into the void. Where nothing existed––except absolute black.

  To be continued…

  Coming Soon

  If you enjoyed A Million Different Ways please leave a review.

  Just a few words would really be appreciated!

  REVIEW

  A Million Different Ways To Lose You

  Book II of the Horn Duet

  is now available for pre-order!

  CLICK HERE TO ORDER ON AMAZON

  About the Author

  P. Dangelico loves romance in all forms, shapes, and sizes, cuddly creatures (four legged and two), brick oven pizza, the NY Jets (although she may rethink that after this season), and to while away the day at the barn.

  What she’s not enamored with is referring to herself in the third person and social media. But in an
attempt to get up to speed with the rest of the civilized world, you can now reach her at…

  www.pdangelico.com

  Facebook

  Pinterest

  Goodreads

  Mailing List– only used for new releases and promotions.

  Instagram