Page 50 of The Prices We Pay (Vittori Enterprises #1)

Sebastian

S hocker to literally no one, Joe and I got stuck in traffic fifteen minutes into our drive to the penthouse.

We’ve now been sitting in the same spot for ten minutes, and it doesn’t look like we’ll be moving anytime soon.

Leave it to New York City for it to take forty minutes just to drive four blocks.

Not that I mind, though, because here we are in my Mercedes, with my hand wrapped around Joe’s thigh as I listen to her sing along to whatever song comes on the radio.

However, her singing is abruptly cut off by the sound of a phone call coming through. Luca’s name flashes on the car’s screen, and I press the button to answer it on my steering wheel. “Hey, Baby. What’s—”

“Where are you?” he bites out.

Instantly sensing the tension in his voice, I remove my hand from Joe’s thigh and grip the steering wheel.

“Stuck in traffic on the corner of Seventh and 44th. Looks like construction.”

“You need to move. Now.”

My grip tightens, and I watch Josephine’s posture tense in the passenger seat. “What’s going on?”

“They sent me pictures of the two of you leaving the building. They’re watching you. You have to get home.”

“Luca, I’m still two blocks away. I’m boxed in. There’s no way I can drive.”

“We can’t get to you. Traffic is backed up all the way down Seventh. Enzo’s trying to get to you, but it will take too long. You have to get out, Seb. Leave the car and run home.”

“Sebastian.” Joe’s voice is laced with panic, but she doesn’t look at me. Instead, her stare stays locked on the street ahead of us. My stare follows hers, and it takes me all of one second to see it.

“Fuck.”

“What is it?” Dante’s deep voice booms through the car.

Like something out of a fucking movie, a dozen men dressed in all black weave through the stopped cars filling the street.

Masks cover each of their faces, and guns sit in each of their hands.

I can hear screams of panic echoing down the street, but the men don’t stop at any of the other vehicles. No. They’re headed straight for us.

Straight for Joe.

“Seb!” Luca snaps.

“Twelve men. All black clothes. Walking down the street toward our car.”

“Sebastian,” tears stream down Joe’s face as she calls my name again.

It’s silent for a moment before Luca speaks. The pain in his voice is as clear as day. “You know what you have to do?”

Quickly, I pull out my phone and double-check to make sure the program is running on my phone.

Once I see the four dots flashing on the screen, I reach in front of Joe and throw my phone in the glove box.

“My phone is in the glove box.” I look out the windshield to find the men getting closer.

“I have two minutes left. I have to go.”

“We will find you. Both of you.”

“I know you will, Baby. I love you.”

“I love you, Mio Re. Josephine, Vita Mia. Can you hear me?”

One minute.

“Yes,” she answers through a broken sob.

“Do everything that Sebastian tells you to. No matter what. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Fifty seconds.

“Baby, we have to go.”

“I’ll see you soon.”

“I’ll see you soon,” I repeat before hanging up the phone and turning off the car.

Forty seconds.

“Sebastian, what’s happening? ”

Reaching across the center console, I cup Joe’s face in my hands. “We have to let them take us, okay?”

“What? No. No, we can’t. We can—”

“We can’t, Love. There are too many of them, and I can’t take them all on my own.

They won’t risk fighting us in the middle of the day.

If they can’t take us, they’ll shoot us and run.

If they’re bold enough to do this where everyone can see, they will not hesitate to kill us.

This is our only chance. Okay? Do not fight them.

Do not argue. Just do as they say until I say otherwise.

” Joe sobs violently, and I can feel my heart breaking. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” she cries.

I reach down and unbuckle her before returning my hands to her face.

Fifteen seconds.

“This is a price we have to pay to live, but I will get us out of this.” I crash my mouth into hers.

Kissing her as deeply as the moment will allow.

Pouring out every emotion imaginable into our kiss.

But there’s one thing that needs to be said.

One thing that cannot be assumed. One thing she needs to hear in case I’ll never have the chance to say it again.

Breaking our kiss, I whisper against her wet lips, “I love you, Joe. I fucking love you.”

Three seconds .

“I love you, Sebastian,” she says through one last sob as the passenger door is thrown open.

A hand reaches inside the car and grabs Joe’s arm. White-hot anger rages through me at the sight of someone touching her, but I remind myself not to resist.

But when the man bends down to look inside the car and pulls off his mask, it takes everything in me not to reach between my seat and the center console, pull out my gun, and shoot this motherfucker in the face. “Nice to finally meet one of the men dating my daughter.”

Joe inhales a sharp breath and mutters a singular word, “Dad?”