Page 53 of Sinister Devotion

The man falls to the ground, hitting his head against the cement with a sickening thud. Bonnie effortlessly takes the gun from his hand before she ducks and slips out of the door. I don't want to leave her by herself to defend us, but I don't have a weapon.

Gunshots pierce the silence.

"Get down!" I shout to Danny.

I don't want to stay here. I gesture toward Danny to come toward me where we swipe keys from the unconscious guy who now has blood pooling under his head. I don't recognize his face, but Danny's eyes water as if she's going to cry again.

"Don't, not now. We'll cry later," I warn her. "We're okay. We're going to see if there's any way we can help Bonnie."

Danny nods, and we slip out of the trash room into a much larger area that opens onto a loading bay. There are three cement landings with enough space for large box trucks or garbage trucks to back into and a metal gate to close once they do. There aren't any trucks, just a flimsy folding table with three flimsier folding chairs. The lights out here are bright enough to make me squint.

One of the garage gates is open. A sign of hope that we're getting out as it leads directly outside. There's a body on the floor by the release button, which is what probably lifted the gate. Three bullet holes and blood splatter surround it as me and Danny hurry past it to get out. Once we're outside, there are sounds of a struggle.

The sound of Bonnie's grunts, groans, and the curses of combat trigger the training inside me as I rush to her aid. The last guy is one big motherfucker. I don't reach her in time to double team him like the first guy. He wraps his arms around her waist, hoisting her into the air and slamming her onto the ground. It causes the gun to slip from her hand.

Bonnie scrambles to get the firearm back, but the huge man uses his thick tree trunk of a leg to raise it in the air and bring it down on the back of Bonnie's thigh. The sickening sound of her bone breaking angers me and I scream with every ounce of energy I have, charging toward him.

He snickers and stands there, because in a way, we both know me charging into him is the same as running into a brick wall. However, I'm not trying to fight him. I'm only trying to distract him long enough for Bonnie to crawl away.

As I reach the giant kidnapper, he steels himself for impact, but I dive between his legs and kick his right one behind the knee. He goes down immediately and it's enough time for Bonnie to grab the fallen gun, to pull the trigger and put a bullet through the man's leg.

"You're not going to kill him?" I ask her.

She pants, her entire face scrunching in sweat, dirt, and pain, shaking her head. "Julian and Edward are going to want at least one of them alive."

The sight of headlights approaching makes me nervous. Bonnie trains the gun onto the car and says, "Get behind me, Claire."

I never thought I'd be happy to see one of the most irritating faces of my life but seeing her get out of the car shocks the both of us. That's when I realize it. The shock on her face is because I'm alive. The shock coursing through my body skyrockets as I ask her, "What are you doing here, Ms. Marzano?"

24

JULIAN

"We're two minutes away, get a drone in the air and have a cleanup crew on standby." Edward speaks into his phone to men, soldiers of the Marzano Crime Family, whom he commands effortlessly. The drive down to a warehouse that's not far from the marina irritates me, but how were we supposed to know?

Bonnie's watch has a GPS locator tag in it for emergencies just like this. The first thing abductors do is take cell phones to destroy them. Her protocol is to give the watch to Claire. While I hope they're still together, at least I know the beacon we're following is leading to Claire.

The instant we pull down a wide street without a name, I can tell we're approaching a strip for trucks to load and unload into a string of warehouses. A car with its driver side door wide open, has someone standing a few feet beside it.

I can make out a lump on the floor, someone sitting on the ground and two people standing close to the loading bay. It's only when we get closer that the car's headlights reveal a disturbing scene.

Edward hops out of the car first, insisting I hang back, but I can't, not with what I see.

"Mother, what are you doing here?" I ask her, my eyes shifting toward Claire and Bonnie, whose leg is bent in a weird angle as the gruesomeness of her injury splays across her pain ridden face.

Bonnie's gun is trained on my mother, but it's only when I step closer that I see the gun in Bianca's hand.

"I came to help you," Bianca blurts out.

"Claire? Are you okay?" I ask as Edward takes cautious steps toward her the man lying on the floor with a bullet in his leg.

"I'm okay. A little banged up," Claire replies. "There's two more inside."

"You and Danny get in the car," I tell her but the sound of my mother's gun racking a bullet into the chamber causes everyone to stop moving.

"I came here to help you, Julian. This has got to end." Bianca's words are cold as she lifts the gun and points it at Claire. "It's time."

"Time for what?" I ask her, angling my body in a way that Bianca can't see me signal to Claire and Danny to make their way to Edward. The closer I get to the car, the more things click into place. I see the huge duffle bag of money in the passenger seat. "Why do you have the ransom money, Bianca?"

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