Page 60 of Forbidden Sins
SEBASTIAN
I watch as Estella steps out from behind our cover, my heart stopping in my chest. Everything inside me screams to pull her back, to shield her with my body, but it's too late.
She's already moving forward, out of my reach, facing Vito with a steadiness I've never seen before. And if I go for her now, I might get us both killed. If I shout her name the way I want to, the others will know where I am, and they’ll cut me down.
Then he’ll have her, and I’ll be dead. There will be nothing I can do.
"That's where you're wrong," she says, her voice carrying through the trees. "I was never yours, Vito."
The gunshot cracks through the forest like thunder.
I’m frozen for a split second, unable to believe that she did it.
That she pulled the trigger. Pride and fear crash through me all at once as Vito staggers backward, his face a mask of shock as he looks down at the spreading red stain on his chest. For a moment, time seems suspended—Vito still standing, Estella with the gun extended, me frozen behind the fallen tree.
Then chaos erupts.
One of Vito's men fires, the bullet splintering bark inches from Estella's head. I launch myself forward, tackling her to the ground as more shots ring out around us. We roll behind a thick tree trunk, bullets thudding into the wood.
"Stay down," I growl, returning fire. One of Vito's men drops, clutching his shoulder.
Vito is on his knees now, one hand pressed to his chest, the other raising his gun toward me. I aim and fire in one fluid motion. My bullet catches him in the arm, sending his weapon spinning into the underbrush.
"You bitch," he snarls at Estella, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. "You think this changes anything? Your father will hunt you both down. There's nowhere you can hide. Kill me, and he’ll sell you to someone else. You’ll just be a ruined piece of cunt for the highest bidder he can find."
I start to pull the trigger, but before I can, a deafening crack sounds next to my ear.
I twist around to see Estella kneeling next to me, her hand shaking, tears running from her eyes as she holds the revolver out in front of her.
When I look back at Vito, he’s on the ground, slumped into the dirt.
Estella looks at me, her face bloodless, her eyes wide.
“That was my last bullet,” she breathes.
I have no idea if her shot killed Vito or not, but I don't waste breath responding. Instead, I grab Estella's hand and pull her deeper into the forest, away from the gunfire as Vito’s men respond. We need distance, need to regroup. My mind races through our options, each one bleaker than the last.
I'm down to three rounds myself. Not enough to take on the remaining men, especially if there are more waiting in the SUV.
"This way," I whisper, veering left toward a denser patch of trees. If we can just make it to the highway on the other side of this forest, maybe flag down a passing car…
We crash through the trees, ducking around branches. One catches me in the cheek, leaving a stinging line across my skin, and I feel a warm trickle of blood. I hardly notice it—I’m more worried about other kinds of wounds. The kind you don’t get back up from.
Estella doesn’t slow or falter, even as we scramble across the rough terrain, the branches and underbrush tearing at our clothes. I want to tell her how brave she’s been, how impressed I am by her strength and tenacity, but there’s no time for that.
Maybe later. If there is a later, for us.
I can hear the shouts of Vito’s men growing louder. They’re gaining on us, and I don’t know how much longer we can run like this. Not in the state we’re both in.
I spy a ravine up ahead, and tug on Estella’s hand. “This way,” I hiss, veering off our current path. “I think there’s a creek up ahead. It could help hide our tracks, if so.”
Estella follows me, her hand clenched around mine.
When we try to run down the embankment, I feel her stumble and nearly fall, and I let go of her hand, slinging my arm around her waist to pull her upright.
The embankment rises up on either side as we follow it down, blocking the view from above, at least for now.
I pull Estella to the edge of the shallow, fast-moving water, nudging her down.
“Keep your head down,” I whisper, breathless from the cold water splashing up and soaking the legs of my pants, trickling into my boots. “Let’s move. Hurry. If we can get further down and take a different path, maybe double back?—”
The sound of the water is masking our movements, and for a moment, I allow myself to hope that this slapdash plan might work. That we might get away from them. We might make it to the highway, flag down a car, and then…
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 hard thud of 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 you really think 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 with me . 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.