“We should run away,” she whispered.
I shook my head. “We’re not doing that. I know an easy way to bring your father around, but I would rather do it the hard way. I’d rather prove myself to him.”
“What’s the easy way?”
“I’m not telling you,” I said, with a chuckle.
“Angelo?”
“Yeah.”
“How did you meet my father? I mean how does a fighter come into contact with a man like my father? Also, I get the impression he really rates you as a bodyguard. You’re not just an ordinary bodyguard, are you?”
I scratched my chin. “I was recommended to your father through a mutual friend and associate. The reason he rates me is because he knows the kind of training I’ve been through.”
“What kind of training is that?” she asked curiously.
“I was trained by the Mossad in Israel for two years, and I spent a year with a Russian martial arts master. He lived next to a lake in the mountains between China and Russia. It was breathtakingly beautiful. From him, I learned the art of killing. I can kill a man with an envelope.”
Just as I expected, I felt her shudder at my words, so I lowered my gaze to hers and waited until she found the courage to meet mine. I laid out my cards. “I have an extremely dark side, Sienna, and I hope it won’t scare you off but this is me. You have to know the real me.”
The corners of her lips twisted. “What do you take me for?” she scoffed. “When was the last time you killed a man with an envelope? I come from a brutal world and even though I was shielded from much of it, I’m not naïve. My father has more bodies weighed down with rocks at the bottom of the sea than you could imagine.” She then threw her arms around me to crush me into a desperate hug. “So don’t. Don’t ever think you can scare me away with your bullshit stories about killing men.”
When she pulled away, I had my own question for her, “What about you? How was life in London? Were you lonely? Being so far away from home?”
“At first, I was miserable,” she responded. “I missed Gemma and Nonna all the time, but eventually, I made a few friends, learned to weed out the bad ones, or thought that I had until recently. I soon had a handful of people I cared about. I learned to stand on my own two feet. I wasn’t ‘the boss’s daughter’. I was just Sienna. It was peaceful. I dream of going back.”
“You want to leave me behind?”
“Well, until yesterday, you gave me the impression that you could barely look at me. So yeah, I've had to not include you in my plans … for my own sanity.”
I planted a kiss on her temple. “Well, all that’s going to change from now o—”
I was interrupted by a loud knocking on my front door.
Chapter 49
Sienna
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7SouU3ECpU
-we could be heroes-
I was so deeply involved in the world we had created for ourselves that I jumped when the banging on the door came.
We both looked towards the bedroom door. Then I returned my gaze to him. “Is that our kebabs?”
He frowned and got off the bed. “It’s not. Mehdi doesn’t bang like that.”
The bangs came again and this time, they were even more aggressive.
“Boston!” someone yelled out, loud and angrily.
I too got out of bed. I dressed hurriedly, instinctively. Something was wrong.
Angelo had already pulled his pants on and was heading out of the room.
“Aren’t you going to take your gun?” I whispered, glancing at his piece lying on the bedside table.
He faced me. “I’m better without it.” He took a step away from me then, turned back again towards me. “Stay here. No matter what happens, don’t come out,” he instructed.
I stopped breathing. The warm passionate man was gone. In its place was the cold-eyed killing machine he’d told me about.
I went to the door and put my ear against it, so I could listen to what was happening outside. Angelo had obviously opened the door and there was muted conversation, but then the voices began to rise. And then there was a loud roar and an accompanying sound of pain.
“Let him go!” a shout roared.
What was going on? Was he in trouble? I almost burst out of the room then, but I knew going out empty handed would be a mistake. So I turned around, ran over to his side table and picked up his 9mm. I opened it. It was fully loaded. Gripping it tightly, I went to the door.
As I stepped out into the hallway, I heard the question that sent a cold chill through me. “Where is she?”
My hands began to tremble. What if these men weren’t from the same rival family who tried to kidnap me, but were from my father?