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I don’t respond and a tense standoff ends with Dante grabbing my wrist. He pulls me to my feet and drags me down an entryway on the far end of the hall.
I look up over the staircase, praying that Angel’s alright. My heart leaps with hope as I catch him glancing at us through a break in the rubble. He has his gun pointed our way...
Before he can fire, though, someone else does. My eyes rip from Angel, down to the main floor, just in time to see a group of Dante’s guards firing up at my fiancé.
“No!!!” I kick and scream as Dante tugs me into the darkness.
The backyard terrace looks like ancient ruins by now. The cobblestone is cracked and half the statues are sliced in two. In the distance, jungle trees burn. The fiery light silhouettes Dante’s bloody figure, as he sits on the edge of a cracked fountain, glaring at me while he taps his gun against his knee.
“Is he dead?” the younger Montoya brother asks, when a group of his soldiers come running outside to us.
“We don’t think so,” one of them says.
“Good. Set up a perimeter along the balconies. Funnel him here, but keep a close watch. If he tries to shoot me, kill him and then the girl. If he makes one wrong move, kill the girl then him.”
“Yes, sir.” The men scramble back out
“You’re really going to kill your own brother?” I ask with a sneer. My elbows and knees are scraped and burning, my lungs are on fire, my stomach is all twisted in knots, but my heart is alive and beating at a thousand rates per second. Angel is here, and he’s going to come rescue me...
“No, I’ve changed my mind. I think he’ll suffer more if I let him live. But first, I need to make sure he never tries to come back for you.”
“... What does that mean?”
“It means I’m going to make him choose between his own life and yours. If he chooses yours, then I’ll let him live. Otherwise...”
“You’re sick.” My stomach lurches at the cruelty.
“I’m smart.” Dante taps the back of his gun against his temple.
“Boss, he’s coming!” the notice comes over Dante’s radio. He shuts it off and straightens up, then points his gun at me. “Play your part, whore.”
“Cat!”
The sneer wipes from my face as I whip around to see Angel run in through the terrace doors. His gun is immediately up as he checks all the vantage points for hidden artillery. I don’t know if he sees Dante’s men or not, but he soon forgets about his own safety, instead shifting his focus entirely onto me.
“Baby...”
“Be careful,” I mouth to him, sorrow suddenly dragging down my heart. He’s trapped. My wild tiger has been lured into a cage, and all because I was used as bait.
“Brother,” Dante’s slimy voice crawls over my shoulders.
My gaze falls from Angel as my mind becomes heavy with impossible questions.
What do I do?
If I squirm or beg or show too much pain, Angel will risk it all just to get me out of here, and he’ll die for it... and I probably won’t be far behind. But even if I live, that will only mean a life without him, and a baby born without a father.
For his own twisted reasons, Dante seems to have decided to torture Angel, but his cruelty is foolish. As long as Angel and I are alive, there’s hope. Our love can survive separation, but nothing survives death.
The two brothers exchange words as I stand in the middle of it all. Their voices are muffled to my distracted ears—once in a while, I’m asked a question, and I answer withou
t a second thought, but I’m not paying attention. An inner war of my own plays out beneath my skin as I consider my options. The longer I think about it, the worse it all appears. We’ve been put in an unwinnable situation.
The only option is to stay alive. Maybe, if I wasn’t pregnant, I’d tell Angel to unleash his fury. Fuck it, babe, let’s go out in a blaze of glory...
But there’s a life growing inside of me. Beautiful life. Life that bonds us together, not just right now, but forever and always. We’re going to be parents...
But only if we can survive this chaos.