Page 36 of Unwritten Vows

Derrick

There are many of them, silenced, but obviously from a gun. “Get down!” My father yells, and we both jump under our seats.

Edoardo chuckles. “A bit overzealous today. I told them to steer clear of you both, but I hope they don’t shoot you boys.

” He looks down at us as he sits in his office chair.

“They lose their life if they do, so they probably won’t.

You should be able to leave out the back unharmed.

When you’re done here, consider my offer. ”

I look at him like he’s crazy, but my father just covers his head. “Time to go, Derrick!”

Edoardo leans back—knowing, I suppose, that he’s safe right where he is—and he doesn’t move. My father and I, on the other hand, scramble out of his office.

We stay close to the ground as our training in active shooting kicks in. This is just life in the mafia. I’ve known how to have my best chance of survival in a situation like this since I was a young boy.

“I’ll check the exit, Derrick. Stay here. If worst comes to worst, I know there’s a safe room hidden below ground.”

“I want to get the fuck out of here, not hole up in a room!” I say over the sound of shooting and screaming voices.

My father grabs my shirt and looks directly into my eyes. There’s something strange about his gaze, and I figure it out in just a moment: he doesn’t seem worried. He seems… excited. “Listen to me, Derrick. Do not screw this up. Do what I tell you to do.”

I breathe out harshly and give one nod, preparing to hunker down for what will probably feel like eternity.

*****

I wait an excruciatingly long five minutes before I decide it’s time to move.

I start following the path I saw my father go down, but I realize quickly that there are too many fucking hallways and not enough exits in this building.

I hear the shots closer and closer, and finally I come to a room that isn’t just an alcove with a sheet over it.

I test the doorknob and find, to my relief, that it’s open.

Unfortunately, as if things couldn’t get any weirder, I run directly into my ex, Mara, who is already screaming before I get the door fully open.

I smack my hand over her mouth and pull her away from the door in a hurry. “Shhhh! You want to get us both killed?” I deadbolt the door, wondering why the fuck she didn’t do it in the first place, but realizing I have far more important things to ask. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question,” she says, before accusing me of being one of the gunmen. “Either that, or you’re thwarting them.”

She really grates on every one of my nerves. I look at her flatly. “There are more reasons than that for people to be here. Trust me.”

There are gunshots again, but Mara doesn’t even budge. They’re closer and closer, and she’s just frozen like a deer in headlights. I know she’s about to get shot before she realizes, apparently. “Get down, Mara!”

I barrel into her like a linebacker, but I know I’m going to be too late. She’s unconscious before we hit the ground, and although there’s nothing graceful about the way she falls, I at least manage to stop her head from smacking the floor.

I see the puddle of blood oozing from her and give a sigh of relief when I see that it’s below her abdomen. It’s coming from the back of her leg, so I have to turn her over to get a better look. Luckily, the shots seem to have moved further on down the hall.

She groans as I move her and I wince at the sight. Not because I’ve never seen anything like this—I’ve seen it many times. It’s just that I can’t believe it’s happened to her —to one of the ‘beautiful people,’ like us. The billionaires who are believed to be untouchable.

She wakes up just seconds later as I survey the damage.

“I... I got shot,” she groans.

“No shit, Mara,” I say gravely.

“It hurts. A lot.” She’s breathless and sweating, and I’m sure she’s about to pass out again.

“That’s usually the case.” I’m a little nervous and very angry that I’m in this position, but I actually think I feel bad for her. I’m taking this out on her when it’s not her fault.

I have nothing on hand to dress her wound with, so I take off my shirt and shove it into her wound. She grumbles a few things that I don’t quite catch before passing out again.

I look around for where to go and realize I’m stuck in here. I’m stuck in a storage room with my ex-girlfriend, passed out and bleeding rapidly from her thigh. The only upside to this situation is that I’m almost positive her artery hasn’t been hit.

My phone finally buzzes and I open it immediately. “Father?”

“I didn’t get very far. There are too many stray bullets. Where are you? Still where I left you?”

“No,” I sigh out. “I’m not there because I would have likely been shot by now if I were.”

“Did you get to the supply closet?”

“Yes, where you told me to stay, Jesus Christ.”

“Okay, you need to get to the safe room.” My father gives me some crazy instructions. Apparently, there’s a hidden fucking stairwell in this very room, and somehow my father knows about it.

“You got it?” he asks when he’s done explaining.

He’s about to hang up, but I know I need to warn him of what he’s about to see when he gets to the safe room with me. I gear myself up for it and then let it out all in one breath. “I’m not alone, though,” I blurt out, just before hanging up the phone.

*****

I drag Mara through the directions my father gave me, praying the entire time that all this blood she’s losing isn’t fatal. In the safe room, there’s a cot and a medical kit I begin using to patch her up as I wait for my father.

I could swear the breath my father emits is nothing short of elated as he walks into the safe room and sees Mara. When he speaks again, he sounds like a kid on Christmas morning. “Oh, Derrick, this is perfect. There’s no way she could have gotten out of here in that condition.”

Yeah, I’m fucking aware! Something feels very off. But what can I do? If I had tried to leave the building, Mara and I could have both died.

“I’m pretty sure she’s going to get sick if I don’t give her antibiotics very soon, which means this is a very temporary fucking solution.

” I say this, but I have no way to contact the outside world from down here.

My cell phone has no reception and the emergency communication system in the room seems to be down.

My father finds a kit of different drugs, and then inexplicably takes more out from his briefcase. “Where did you get all this? Why would we need so much? We need to move her as soon as possible.”

My father loads up a syringe with antibiotics as he speaks. “Well, this is a well known mafia hang out, so it makes sense that the owner has antibiotics and painkillers, right? The most likely wound is a gunshot, isn’t it?”

He’s ignoring the more important question I had, so I jump straight back to it. “Why do we need all of this?”

He looks up with one eyebrow raised. “Do you have some investment in this girl’s well-being?”

I’m thrown off by the callousness of his words, although I should know better. “You’re the one giving her life-saving drugs.”

“Yes,” my father says, nodding, “and I have an investment in her well-being.”

I can’t hide my surprise. “What?”

“Don’t you realize how important this girl is, Derrick? Edoardo wants her dead, but she represents the Whitney family fortune. She carries the power and wealth of her father.”

I’m shocked further as I make a grim realization. I try to keep my voice level. “Did you know about all this?”

My father has a mild, self-satisfied smile on his face. “Of course I did. Marco and I trade information, and Marco is friends with the owner. He knew who would be here tonight. And it’s not neutral ground. I’m better friends with Marco than Edoardo is, so… here we are.”

I close myself off to any feelings of rage this might elicit, and instead I decide to try and get some information out of him.

“Okay, I have to admit, I didn’t see that coming. What’s the strategy here?”

My father busies himself with preparing the next syringe.

I have to unfocus so I’m not watching. Now that I know he has some nefarious plan, I’m worried about what the hell is in there.

“I guessed that Edoardo chose tonight to come here because so many big players would be here. He thinks Mara Whitney is a distraction, so I thought he’d do something crazy.

Everything fell into place far better than I could have imagined. Now we have her to barter with.”

I swallow through the sawdust in my throat. “Okay, so what the hell do you plan to do with her? Hold her over Edoardo’s head? Maxim’s? I mean, are you going to use her the way Edoardo was going to?”

He thinks for a moment, considering that before answering. “I don’t think that’s necessary. But now Edoardo doesn’t have the leg up he thought he had. You heard him tonight. He wasn’t going to offer me a better deal unless he had to. So now, he’ll feel more pressure to do so.”

I’m going crazy here not knowing what he’s planning for Mara . All he keeps talking about is Edoardo, the deal, and the power it will give him. “Okay, so she’s just an unwitting pawn, then. What are you doing with her afterward?”

He hesitates again. “I haven’t given that too much thought.

If Edoardo gives me a ‘no’ quickly on the deal, I send her back to her father and we can consider whether we want you to head back to the Bolyar or not.

We don’t have much more time there. He notices something is off with his daughter, but doesn’t want to interfere. He’s getting antsy though.”

He squirts a bit of the liquid from the syringe before sticking it into Mara’s arm.

She groans, a few tears squeezing out of her eyes, and tries to move away.

My father pays her no mind, just holds her still on the cot until she stops moving.

“If Edoardo comes through quickly with good news, I’m not sure what we do with her.

He might see us bringing her to her father as an act against him.

I think the best thing to do in thatsituation would be to make her disappear. ”

I feel a wave of nausea. I never loved Mara and barely even liked her, but she doesn’t deserve to fucking die.

We shared an apartment for a year; we were sometimes roommates.

I can’t even fathom aiding and abetting her murder.

There are a lot of things I would do in this life, for my own safety and my men’s, but that isn’t one of them.

I can’t let my father do it. I have to stop this.

But it still might not happen. I have some time to think, and in that time, I can try to gather information. “Okay, sure, I can see that. Deliver her to Maxim if Edoardo doesn’t come through. More allies are always better than less. So what is the timeline for all of this?”

My father nods, as if I bring up a good point that he hadn’t thought through until now.

“Well, I think she needs to go after 24 hours. By then it’ll be far too late to bring her back to Maxim, because how do we explain all of that time going by?

It wouldn’t be a good look. Too risky. I’ll give Edoardo a 24 hour deadline for communication, telling him that after what happened tonight, we’ll walk if he doesn’t give us his offer. ”

I gulp. I have to come up with something better than this. “You know, I just want to point out that Liza’s father might have an offer too, if he knows we’re going to his sworn enemy. He might promise some of his precious land to go with his daughter.”

I see the wheels turning in my father’s head as he considers that. “That is true.”

“I can watch Mara for now.”

His concentration is interrupted for a moment as he lets out a short laugh at that. “I don’t think she’ll need much company.” He points to all the syringes he has lined up. “I have a cocktail of narcotics and anesthetics over here.”

He plans to keep her drugged until he can decide what to do with her. Don’t lose it, Derrick. Get him out of here.

“Okay, why don’t you give your men a call and think it over? I won’t be going anywhere, obviously.”

My father nods one last time. “Yes, good idea. If she starts to get restless, give her this one next.” He points down to the next syringe in the open bag. “Go down the line. We need to alternate every couple of hours. Try not to give her too much.”

With that, he’s gone, and I’m alone to figure this shit out.