Page 113 of The Temptation

I may look okay on the outside, apart from a few cuts and scrapes, but on the inside, I’m slowly dying.

He wraps me in his arms, holding me tight, and all I can do is sob into his chest. “Help him. Please help him,” I beg through the tape, but I doubt he can understand what I’m saying.

My brother-in-law grasps my shoulders and draws back. When he realises I’m trying to say something, he gently begins to pick at the corner of the tape covering my mouth.

As soon as he peels back enough, I jerk my head to the side, ripping the rest free. “Romeo’s not breathing,” I cry. “Help him, Dante … please.”

He swings around to where Romeo is lying, and doesn’t hesitate to press two fingers to his best friend’s neck.

When he leans in and moves his ear to Romeo’s mouth, I hear him mumble, “Shit.”

I watch through a haze of tears as Dante starts compressions, fast and hard, counting under his breath, his voice tight with emotion.

Somebody comes up behind me and cuts the cable ties from my ankles and wrists, but I don’t react. I just kneel here with my heart in my throat.

“Don’t you dare do this, Romeo. You don’t get to tap out now,” Dante murmurs.

I try to crawl towards them, but someone holds me back.

Dante doesn’t stop working on him. “Come on, brother,” he breathes. “Don’t do this.Fuck.Stay with me.”

“Romeo,” I sob, choking on my own words.

“Get her out of here!” Dante roars, his voice sharp with panic. “Now!”

I’m yanked backwards, but I don’t want to leave, so I start to flail my arms and legs in protest.

“No,” I plead as I begin to lose it completely. “Let me go!” I twist against the arms pulling me away, my shoes scraping the hard ground in protest. “Romeo,” I scream. “I have to be with him … I need to … please!”

The wind stings my face, but all I can focus on is the motionless shape on the ground, and Dante, kneeling over him, his hands pressed to Romeo’s chest, moving in a steady, desperate rhythm.

If this is the last time I’ll see him or be near him, I have to stay.

I thrash harder, wild with panic. “I didn’t even say goodbye. I didn’tsay…” My voice breaks completely. “ROMEO!” I scream his name so loudly it tears something open in my chest. “Please, don’t leave me!”

A figure moves in front of me, blocking my view.Dominic.

“I’ve got you, little one,” he says in a soft, soothing voice as he gently lifts me into his arms. “I’ve got you.”

He begins moving.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t look away.

“Breathe, damn it!” Dante pleads. His hands shake as he continues his compressions. “You don’t get to die tonight, you hear me?”

Dominic takes another step, pulling me further away from my heart, from my husband, and I’m suddenly too tired to fight. My limbs hang heavy and useless as all the resistance drains out of me.

This isn’t how it ends. It can’t be how it ends.

Not like this.

“Somebody call an ambulance!” Dante yells. He shrugs out of his jacket and tosses it to one of his men. “Put pressure on the wound!”

He resumes pressing down on Romeo’s chest, hard, relentless and desperate. “Stay with me,” he mutters, his voice sharp with panic. “You don’t get to die, you hear me?”

His head snaps up, eyes quickly flickering to the rest of his men. “Get all the bodies on the plane before the firstresponders arrive. Tell the pilot if he doesn’t get the fuck out of here pronto, and take those slimy cunts back to Italy where they belong, he’s going to face the same fate.”