Page 35 of Unholy Vows (Original Sin)

I couldn’t speak. His words had punctured my lungs.

“Do you want their blood on your hands?” He took a step toward me.

“You’re bluffing. You wouldn’t want that kind of attention.”

“Well, we can’t always get what we want. That’s a lesson you’re about to learn the hard way. The attention isn’t ideal, but I can afford it. They can’t save you.”

“Where’s my sister?” I veered off topic before his words could freak me out too much.

He smiled, and it had a wicked edge. “I’m sure she’s around here somewhere. Don’t worry. Elio’s on it.”

Just the thought of the mercenary enforcer getting his brutal hands on my sister was enough to send me spinning around and running.

10

CHARLIE

We never should have run. We should have gone to the cops.

No. It wouldn’t have mattered. There was never any other outcome to this. From the moment Miguel had died, it was always going to come down to this.

There was no going back.

I ran in the direction of the bus; despite his warning, I was sure he was bluffing. Renato De Sanctis,capo dei capiof New Jersey, hadn’t gotten to his position by gunning down groups of innocent bystanders. The fact that he’d even given me and Lucy the chance to keep quiet proved that he had a code of some kind, even if it wasn’t anything I could understand.

I ran as hard as I could between the parked trucks. After the last one, the bus was only a short sprint away.

I wassoclose.

I almost made it.

A split second before I escaped the looming truck shadows, his hand snagged my arm. My momentum sent me spinning around and right into his arms. Renato’s hand clamped over my mouth, sealing my scream inside. I bit at his fingers as he carried me deeper into the darkness, and the sounds of activity and potential witnesses faded. My teeth met something too smooth and thick to be normal skin.

Gloves.The man was wearing the gloves.

I was so fucked right now.

New panic beat at my chest as he dragged me effortlessly into the shadows, deeper into the truck stop. No amount of kicking seemed to dislodge his steely arm around my waist. I was utterly powerless. Beaten.

“I told you not to run, Charlotte. You’re only making this harder on yourself,” he murmured in my ear.

I fought to calm my raging fear.Think, Charlie. He expected me to keep fighting, clearly. Maybe I could use that. At my hip, a hard object. Something fastened to Renato’s belt. A gun.

He carried me behind the last truck. There was a freeway onramp there, and a car was parked with the headlights on, illuminating us. It looked just like the black, painfully expensive car that had taken me and Lucy to Renato's house. He wasn’t alone. Big surprise.

I was so screwed. I had one chance, and knowing my luck, it wouldn’t work, but I wasn’t going down without trying.

I let my body go limp, a dead weight that Renato wasn’t expecting. He cursed in Italian when I fell to the ground, leaning down to keep his arms around me. While he did, I wiggled my hand behind me and grabbed his gun. By the time he straightened up, I had it in my hand. I squirmed away from him, and he let me, clearly realizing what I’d done.

I took a few steps back and leveled the pistol at him.

He stood a few feet away, looking completely unruffled. The bastard smirked. “Clever girl. You’re quite the survivor, aren’t you, Miss Burke?”

“Shut up! I’m the one with the gun, and I get to talk now.”

He lazily raised an eyebrow and then nodded, gesturing for me to continue. His curved lip made me feel like he was only going along with this because he was amused, not because he was afraid I'd kill him.

“You are going to leave Lucy and me alone. We’ll leave town, and you’ll never see us again… You won’t come after us, the cops won’t know where we’ve gone – we’ll disappear.”

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