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CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

GIA

A heavy thud on the front door echoes through the house, stealing the air from my lungs.

I take a deep breath, trying to stop the jitters coursing through me. Right now, I’m the only one in the house and Bianca is asleep in the panic room. The others are doing laps of the property, waiting for Noah and his men to show up.

Though I’m starting to doubt that’s going to happen.

It’s been hours. Noah should’ve been here by now. The information Mom gave me was wrong and she was just trying to set me on edge.

At least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself for the last seven hours while I rotated between pacing the house and going into the panic room with Bianca to keep her entertained.

Mom was lying though. She had to be. Otherwise, we’d all by dead by now. The storm last night wasn’t enough to clog up the roads. The plows took care of it all within hours.

The words play like a mantra through my head as I make my way to the door, hands shaking and breathing shallow.

This is fine.

Royce is just back early. He doesn’t have a key to Skyla’s house, so he would have to knock.

If Noah or his men had gotten close to the property, the Lyndes would’ve raised an alert.

Still, I stand on my toes and look through the peephole, but all I see is black. There’s no shape of a body or blowing snow from the wind howling through the trees. Nothing.

There has to be a buildup on it from the storm last night.

With a deep breath, I twist the lock and open the door.

And within seconds, I regret it.

Though I only open it a crack, Noah forces it the rest of the way open, a smirk on his face as his men take up position on the porch outside. Jace follows him in, standing by the door with his arms crossed.

His smug smile makes me feel sick to my stomach. “Long time, no see, Gia.”

I reach for the gun in my waistband, only to realize it’s still sitting on the kitchen island where I left it while I was making Bianca lunch.

Noah slams the door shut behind him and twists the lock. “You know, I would’ve thought you would find a better hiding spot after this long. The safe house that everybody knows about is getting a little old, isn’t it?”

Squaring my shoulders, I stand taller. “How the hell did you find me here?”

Jace leans back against the wall, wiggling his fingers at me. “You didn’t think that someone wouldn’t be following you after the last time you tried to get away, did you?”

“You’ve been following us for weeks, then,” I say the words without emotion, but inside I’m terrified.

That means that the attack on the road was nothing more than an attempt to drill more fear into me. Noah knew where we were the entire time, and he was content to play a game of cat and mouse until he got what he wanted.

Noah shrugs, his body shifting to his left just before he lunges. I don’t have time to get out of his way, but I try, spinning to the side.

His fist slams into the side of my stomach, driving the air from my lungs. I wheeze as he sweeps my legs out from beneath me, sending me to the ground.

Before I can even begin to process what’s happening, his hand is in my hair.

The pain as he hauls me to my feet is blinding, and I’m sure that he’s going to tear my hair from my scalp if that’s what it takes.

Noah smirks and slams my head into the mirror hanging on the wall. “I’m not going to stand here and talk to you, Gia. Not when you’ve spent weeks turning your back on your family.”

He holds my head against the mirror, jagged shards digging into my cheek and ear, though thankfully none cut my eye.

I grab his wrist, trying to keep him from grinding my face into the mirror. “Noah, you don’t have to do this.”

“What did you think was going to happen?” The words come out a rough growl as he hauls me away from the mirror and throws me to the ground in front of him. “You knew that this was coming, and you still decided to turn your back on your family.”

The pounding pain in my skull has little white stars dancing across my vision. I don’t know what to do or say, but right now, I know I need to get away from him.

Flipping onto my back, I try to get to my feet, but his boot collides with my spine, sending me sprawling into the shining shards of glass.

Blood pools on my hands as the glass goes deep. I glare up at him, biting the inside of my cheek so hard I taste blood. “I found my family. You’ve never been it.”

He crouches down in front of me, one hand on my ankle. “Who’s the one that fed you and kept you safe for years? Who took care of you and your sister and your mother after our father died?”

“You manipulated us.”

His shrug is casual, even as his fingers dig deeper into my ankle, putting so much pressure on the tendon that I scream.

“You’re never going to get away from me,” Noah says, chuckling as I kick out, catching him in the jaw and snapping his head to the side. He spits a mouthful of blood onto the floor. “You’ve always been a disgrace to this family, Gia, but that was almost respectable.”

“Fuck you.” I spit the mouthful of blood at him, smirking when it splatters against his face.

Noah lifts my ankle before slamming it into the ground. “You stupid bitch.”

Though the ankle doesn’t break, I know I’m going to have a hard time walking on it in the morning.

If I’m still alive in the morning.

The back door slides open, and half a dozen men enter the room, Ellie unconscious and draped over a shoulder while the other three are held at gunpoint.

Noah’s face shines with delight as he looks at Sean. “How’s the brand treating you these days? I hope you haven’t forgotten who you belong to.”

I use his distraction against him, surging to my feet despite the pain and taking him to the ground.

His arms strain against my legs where I have him pinned as I straddle his chest. “You should think about what you’re doing right now, Gia.”

And with not much thought at all, I break his nose.

“Fucking Christ,” Noah roars before I get my hands around his throat.

Jace steps in, looping an arm around my waist and dragging me off Noah, even as Skyla shrieks every threat under the sun.

The men with the family tie them up, stuffing rags into their mouths and shoving them in the corners.

I kick at Jace, clawing at his arm and trying to get free. Every rational thought leaves my mind as the need to protect my baby takes over everything else.

Noah gets to his feet and wipes the blood from his face as it continues to trickle from his nose. “You’re going to tell me where Bianca is.”

“Like hell!”

Jace drops me and Noah is the first to attack, grabbing me around the throat and shoving me up against the wall before I have a chance to rip his eyes out.

Noah keeps one hand around my throat, limiting my breathing, while the other wraps around my wrist, hauling it high above my head and bending it at an unnatural angle.

I bite down so hard I’m on the verge of cracking a tooth as tears spring to my eyes.

He smirks, pushing my wrist farther to the side. “I’m going to break your wrist if you don’t tell me where she is. You know that. I know that. Why don’t you save yourself the pain and tell me where the hell you hid my niece?”

“I’d rather die than let you get your fucking hands on her.” I drive my knee up into his balls as hard as I can, and he drops my hand but the one around my throat squeezes harder.

“That was stupid, Gia. Very stupid.”

“Fuck you.”

He takes a butterfly knife out of his pocket, flipping it open and drawing the blade along my jaw. “Do you think your daughter would still love you if you were missing a face? I don’t think she would.”

There’s a thud in the corner of the room as Dominic kicks out the knees of one of the men guarding him.

Noah sighs and motions to Jace with the knife. “Go take care of that.”

The gunshot cracks through the room before Dominic’s body slumps against the wall, staining it with blood.

“No!” I scream and claw at Noah’s hand, but it’s no use.

His hold on my neck tightens before he slides the knife along my jaw just below my ear, cutting me. “Now, you’re going to get one last chance to tell me where the fuck my niece is before I’m forced to do something I really don’t want to do.”

“Go ahead and kill me, then.”

He slams the knife into the wall beside my head. “Do you think this is some kind of fucking game, Gia?”

“None of the others know where Bianca is,” I say as Sean yells muffled threats against his gag. “If you kill me, you have no chance at finding her and we both know it.”

It’s a bluff and it’s one I’m desperate for him to believe.

Noah eyes me for a moment before letting go of my throat. “Maybe we should try to be civil, don’t you think?”

“No.” I rip the knife out of the wall and slam it into his thigh before I take off running.

“She’s mine!” His voice booms through the house, the heavy pounding of footsteps coming to an immediate stop.

I slide around the corner and into the garage, looking for the baseball bat I saw in here when we first arrived.

Before I can cross the garage, Noah’s hand is locked around my bicep and he’s hauling me back into the house. He drags me into the living room, grinding his teeth as he shoves me to my knees in front of the others.

His breath is warm against the shell of my ear. “I already had one of your little friends killed. Do you think I won’t kill another? I still owe Sean and Ellie a death sentence.”

I wriggle beneath the grip he has on my shoulder, but his fingers dig deeper. He pushes against the pressure point until the room around me starts to get a little fuzzy at the edges. My head is light as I look up at him.

Noah lets go of my shoulder and pulls out his gun, pressing it to my temple. “You’re going to tell me where Bianca is and you’re going to tell me now. I’m not playing any more games with you.”

The hazy feeling fades as I stare down the barrel of the gun.

He sighs, the corners of his mouth pulling into tight little lines. “You should’ve known this was the way it was always going to end between us, Gia, but I’m willing to give Bianca an even better life than the one you had.”

“You’re a monster and I won’t allow you to raise my daughter to be one too,”

Laughter booms through the room as he wipes an invisible tear from beneath his eye. “That’s a good one, Gia. Me? Raise her to be a monster? Have you seen who her father is? Do you know the things he’s done? He makes me look like an angel.”

My heart plummets. “You know who her father is.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t realize you were sneaking around with a Lynde two years ago?” He chuckles, finger wrapping around the trigger.

“You knew and you let it happen?”

He shrugs. “Always figured there was going to be a day when one of you turned against me. Zoe and Martina are loyal to the core, but you’ve always been a wild card, Gia. Too much like our father.”

“I barely knew him.”

“Funny how that works, isn’t it?” He crouches down, level with me as he pushes the cold metal barrel between my eyebrows. “Final chance.”

My life flashes before my eyes in slow motion as he flicks the safety off.

At the same time, there’s a pounding at the front door. It sounds like an army of people are trying to get inside.

Noah jerks his gun to the door, one hand wrapping around my bicep and hauling me to my feet at the same time. “Jace, take the men and deal with that.”

I try to rip my arm free, but his fingers dig in tighter as he hauls me toward the stairs.

Though I try to fight him every step of the way there, he keeps pulling. It feels like he’s going to pull my arm right out of its socket if I’m not careful.

He gets to the stairs, and I brace against the bottom step, holding on to the wall with one hand and bracing myself.

Noah scowls as the front door rattles hard against the frame and its hinges, shaking the pictures on the walls and sending them crashing to the ground.

“I don’t have time for this.” Noah keeps his hold on me, walking back down the few steps he climbed.

As soon as he’s on my level again, I scramble backward, but he overpowers me, grabbing me around the waist and tossing me over his shoulder. He takes the stairs two at a time, his arm banded around my waist while he ignores the punches to his back.

I swing my feet hard, getting one good kick to his thigh where I plunged the knife.

He and I go crashing to the floor and I roll away, scrambling out of arm’s reach.

It doesn’t matter. Noah takes one look at the room to his right before heading inside and looking around. I follow him into the room, watching the way his gaze sweeps over the stack of diapers near the bookshelf and the baby toys scattered on the floor.

“A panic room.” He smirks and nods to the bookshelf. “It’s behind there, isn’t it?”

“No. Bianca isn’t here.”

I can’t run when he’s this close to finding her. He knows I’m lying and if I run, he’s going to let me go and then send Jace to hunt me down later.

Noah runs his fingers along the bookshelf, tugging at books and looking for the trigger.

I grab the lamp from the nightstand beside the big bed at the other end of the room and hurl it at his head. The toss goes wide, slamming into the bookshelf just beside his head.

Opening the drawer, I pull out a thick book and lob that at him too. It collides with the side of his face as he turns.

“You little fucking bitch.” He lunges across the room at me, and I let him. The more distracted he is with me, the less likely he is to get into that room before whoever is beating the door down gets inside.

He shoves me into the bookcase hard enough to knock the wind out of me. “Open it.”

I smirk at him over my shoulder. “I don’t know how to.”

His face glows a bright red as he uses his gun to smash me in the side of the head. “You better start thinking about what you do know and open that fucking panic room, Gia.”

“No.”

He grabs me by the shoulder and kicks out the back of my knees, slamming my face off one of the bookcase shelves. “Excuse me?”

“I said no.”

The barrel of the gun finds its way to the back of my head. My breathing hitches and tears prick in the corners of my eyes, but I know that I’m doing what’s right.

If he wants to get to Bianca, he’s going to have to go through me.

I just have to stall him long enough for Royce to get here. When he does, he’s going to make sure Noah never gets his hands on Bianca. I know he is.

Skyla and Ellie are going to be amazing aunts. They’re going to take care of my baby girl and raise her to be a strong and kind woman. I know they are.

And at the end of the day, I know that Royce is going to make sure she grows up knowing who I am.

It brings a certain level of peace to my mind as the gun presses harder against me, the impatient sighing freeing my blood in my veins.

“I’ll make you a deal, since we’re family.” He steps to the side and holds the gun out to me. “You’re going to take this and kill Royce when he walks through this door.”

“If I don’t?”

“Then I will take Bianca and kill you.” He smirks, wiggling the gun in front of me. “It’s your choice, but if I take her, I’m going to raise her to be the Rinaldo you never could be.”