“Your father, Maxwell Mariano. He is dead, correct?”
My brows furrow and I nod, not knowing where the hell he could be going with this. “Yes. I killed him myself.”
“As I thought,” he muses, watching me like a tiny little fly landing right in the center of Venus fly trap and waiting for it to slam shut and destroy me. “There is still the question of your father’s debt, and as his sole living heir, that debt now falls on your shoulders, and on top of that, you now owe me for putting your hands on my wife.”
I shake my head, the determination creeping back into my soul. “No. No fucking way. I had nothing to do with my father’s debt. That’s all on you. You’re the idiot who so willingly gave your cash to a deadbeat piece of shit like him. Don’t blame me for your mistakes. And as for your wife,” I spit. “She put her hands on me. She forced me to spread my legs so she could put on a little show for your sons. Take that one up with her. I don’t owe you a goddamn thing.”
Giovanni laughs, his eyes darkening in the same way that his sons’ do, warning me that this is only the beginning. “You should have stayed locked up in that castle, playing the role of the innocent little damsel. You were safe there,” he warns me as his hand moves and I see the muted sunlight glistening off the sleek metal of his gun. “Your time is up, Shayne.”
Fuck.
I don’t hang around.
I take off like a fucking bullet, bolting through the thick trees, not sure which direction I’m heading but any way that’s further from Giovanni is a bonus. A terrified scream tears out of me as I faintly make out the sound of Roman’s name on my lips.
My hip slams into tree trunks as fallen branches scrape past my legs, slicing deep into my skin.
The wolf snarls behind me as I hear the rhythmic sound of his paws slamming against the hard earth. Giovanni grunts and as a growl fills the forest, the gun rings out, the loud BANG vibrating through my chest.
Dill lets out an agonised howl that tears right through my chest, my eyes widening with horror hearing Doe’s returning howl back at the mansion, the sound filled with heartache as her brother and best friend falls.
Hot tears sting my eyes as heaves of grief overwhelm me, but I keep running, knowing that if I stop for even a second, I’ll be next.
My feet slam down on the ground, catapulting me through the thickening forest as my whole fucking world flashes before my eyes. Tears stream down my face. I should have stayed in the fucking mansion where the boys could protect me, where Dill would have been safe.
I stumble over a rock and just as I catch myself to keep going, a strong hand knots into my hair and yanks me back. My ass slams down onto the hard ground and the last thing I see before blacking out is the butt of Giovanni’s gun coming down over my face.
Hands grab at my body and my eyes spring open with a panicked gasp to find two men hovering over me, gripping my arms as they pull me from out of the back of a black SUV. I fight against them, trying to pull my arms free as my feet come down on an old gravel road.
They hold me tight, painfully dragging me along as I see Giovanni stepping out from the passenger side of the SUV. He strides toward an old, abandoned house that sits in the center of a huge property out in the middle of nowhere, right where nobody would think to look for me. The windows are boarded up and the door looks as though it’s falling off its hinges. It’s the perfect place for a man in hiding.
It’s well after nightfall, but when Giovanni stalked me through the forest, it was barely even midday. At least eight hours must have passed, and eight hours in the car could put me anywhere. The boys will never find me out here. I’m fucked.
The guards pull me along and I drag my feet, trying to make it as hard as possible, but even if I did manage to get away, where the hell am I going to go? There isn’t another property in sight and we’re surrounded by nothing but the hot desert.
The small door is pulled back and the men shove me in, letting me fall over the threshold. I barely manage to catch myself before someone is there, a hand jabbing into my lower back as Giovanni strides in behind me, the old wooden door slamming shut and echoing through the empty home.
There’s nothing here but an old, torn-up couch with piss stains and a small fold-up table with beer cartons, an empty pizza box, and playing cards. Guns lay scattered around the house and I take note of each one, but something tells me that I won’t be in a situation where I can get my hands on one of them.