Page 90

A shot cracks through the air, water splashing up inches from my leg where the bullet hit just shy of the intended target. “Run!”I shout to Estella, and when I look up, I see the figures of Vito’s men beginning to appear over the edge of the ravine.

Estella bolts forward, panting as the water slows her down, trying her best to keep her footing. I twist around, firing up toward the advancing men, and a cry tells me that I’ve hit someone. But it won’t slow them down for long. I can’t take out all of them, not with the minimal firepower that I have.

I look up, seeing that the forest is denser up ahead, off to the left of the creek, where it starts to widen and turn into a river. “Up there,” I gasp, calling to Estella. “We can lose them in those trees, maybe. If we can get?—”

A second shot rings out, and pain explodes through my thigh. For a moment, I can’t think or breathe, my entire body consumed with the fire licking up every nerve in my leg. I stumble, staggering forward, and my legs give out as I go down hard in the cold water. The world swims around me, everything reduced to damp and agony as I groan, trying to regain my senses.

“Sebastian!” Estella screams my name, but it sounds as if it’s coming from down a long tunnel. I hear the hardthudof boots on the ground, coming toward us, and I shove myself up on my hands and twist around just in time to feel the rest of my body go cold.

“Estella,run,” I choke out, but she shakes her head, her hands balled into fists at her sides as she stands next to me, her shoes and pants soaked from the water.

“Well, well. Isn’t this touching?”

Estella freezes, her head snapping up as she hears Vito’s voice and sees what I saw just a moment ago—Vito walking toward us, the right side of his shirt soaked through with blood, one arm hanging limply at his side. His temple is streaked with blood too, congealing on his cheek and chin and matting his hair. Estella’s second bullet missed.

“Did youreallythink you were going to get away from me?” His mouth twists in a malicious smirk. “This has been an amusing romp, really. But it’s time to go home, Estella. In fact, you’re coming home withme. I’m not waiting any longer to take what’s mine.”

He motions to two of his men, who stride forward to grab Estella. She backs up, her face pale and her eyes wide with panic, but more of them surround her, circling her like wolves about to spring on their prey. I grab for my gun, knowing that I can’t kill them all. But I could kill him.

I raise it with a shaking hand, aiming for the one man that, right now, I want to kill more than anything in this fucking world. But as my finger curls around the trigger, something slams into the back of my head.

Hard.

I collapse back into the water, stars swimming in front of my eyes as my vision narrows and nausea creeps up my throat. Through a haze of pain, I see them dragging Estella away, hear her screaming, and my heart feels as if it’s being wrenched from my chest with clawed fingers. I try to get up, to go to her, to find my gun and shoot even one of them, but I can’t move. The world is spinning, and all I can do is lie there in the rushing water, watching.

I feel a foot—Vito’s, I think, since he’s wearing dress shoes and not boots—slam into my ribs. It takes everything in me to not make a sound, to stay limp in the water, so I have a chance that he might think I’m already dead.

If not, he’ll put a bullet in the back of my skull, and I’ll be gone.

It seems like an eternity before he backs away, leaving me there. He keeps walking, following his remaining men in the direction that Estella was taken.

The world swims and darkens around me. I think I pass out, briefly, and when I open my eyes again, coughing and choking as water splashes up into my nose, I see a figure moving toward me, bracketed by more men. An older man in a suit that stands out in these woods, his gray hair gleaming in the dappled afternoon sun.

Antony Gallo.

Come to find his daughter—who’s already gone.

30

ESTELLA

“You can’t leave him there!” I scream as Vito’s men drag me away, kicking and trying to twist out of their grip. I try to make myself dead weight, dropping down as they try to drag me along, but all that happens is that one of them—a tall man with broad shoulders and thick muscles—throws me over his shoulder as if I weigh nothing, and keeps on back the way we came. “You can’t!” I scream again. “He’s going to die?—”

“He’s already dead.” Vito’s voice is harsh and unfeeling. “Your precious bodyguard is dead, Estella, and you’re mine now. There will be no more of this foolishness. We are going home, and we will be married within a few days. I’m not waiting any longer to make you mine. I’ve had enough of your rebellion. Waiting will only encourage it.”

“No,” I gasp. “No, I won’t do it. I won’t say the vows. If you’ve killed Sebastian?—”

Vito gives me a faux-pouting expression, clearly mocking my distress. “What? You’ve got nothing left to live for? It doesn’t matter to me, Estella.” He sneers at me. “You’ll say the vows, if I have to break every single one of your fingers to get you tospeak. And when I’ve had enough of enjoying your body, I’ll get rid of you. I have no intention of dealing with a disobedient wife. After all, very soon, I won’t need you in order to inherit Gallo’s wealth.”

My breath stops in my throat. I’m furious with my father over his treatment of Sebastian and how he’s handled my marriage, but that doesn’t mean that I want him dead. “You’re going to kill him,” I breathe, and Vito shakes his head, chuckling darkly.

“No, Estella. I’m going to give him an incentive to give me my inheritance early, as it were. Your father will step down, and I will become the new head of the Gallo family. With my beautiful wife, of course—who, if she causes me too much trouble, will meet with a terrible, sad accident. Perhaps a miscarriage gone wrong. Something to make me seem very sympathetic.”

“The other heads of the families will never go along with that,” I hiss, and Vito smiles indulgently at me.

“Of course they will. Your father will help me sell a story that will make sure of it. He’ll do it because he doesn’t want any harm to come to his precious daughter. And now, with your handsome protector gone, there’s nothing to stop me.”

Sebastian. I struggle harder against the man carrying me, but it’s useless.Sebastian would have known what to do,I think. He would have figured out some way to get us out of this. But he’s dead now, lying in that rushing creek, if Vito is to be believed. And I watched him fall. I saw…