Page 106 of Twisted Obsession

I left Marco and the others behind as I ran blindly into the still billowing smoke.

As the toes of my shoes hit something solid, I understood that I too was standing on the very edge of the quay and forced myself to stand still and concentrate.

‘You like the rain, don’t you?’ I heard Ricco speak.

‘I…’ Giovanna replied cautiously.

‘What sort of slut are you?’ Ricco questioned.

Water was beginning to collect in my eyes, as they tried hard to clear the fumes engulfing me where I stood. I pulled the silk square from my top pocket and wiped them, before covering my nose and mouth to stop myself from blowing my cover by coughing. The only good thing was, if I couldn’t see him clearly, I was convinced he could have no idea I was this close.

‘You killed your men,’ Giovanna observed, sounding baffled.

He shot them.

‘I watched you touch yourself in the rain, Gi. You writhed with ecstasy… as the storm rolled over Bovalino beach,’ the dirty bastard informed her.

‘What, Ricco? Why would you be watching my daughter?’ Valentina questioned, quickly followed by a loud, resounding slap of skin on skin and, as she cried out, I established that he’d just backhanded her, to get her silence.

‘You watched me?’ Giovanna asked.

The prick could only be referring to the night of the last storm we had been caught up in and the pleasure we’d taken from each other, all those years before.

‘Your grandfather would be ashamed of you.’ I knew how much that comment would have hurt her.

Keep talking fucker.Because the longer you talk, the easier it will be to pinpoint precisely where you’re standing. Inside my head I ran over Salvatore’s words. ‘Remain calm. Think more than you act and notice everything. Men fear and respect theman who thinks before he speaks.’And a strange sense of peace washed over me. Willing the smoke to clear just enough, I widened my stance, took my gun in both hands, and raised my aim.

‘We can go together to church and on the day of our marriage we can beg God to forgive your depravity,’ he stated, as the smoke became less dense, and I made out what looked like the damned awful shoes he always wore, and then once again he moved from the position. The sound of his shoes was loud on the wood he was walking over, but I couldn’t place him enough to train my gun at him, for fear of hurting her.

‘I’m not marrying you! I’ll go nowhere with you.’ Suddenly, she too cried out, and I rolled my lips over my teeth to remain quiet.

‘You can help me; we can help each other,’ he insisted.

‘What are you saying… we are to be married?’ Valentina asked, clearly questioning Ricco and his motives, which had clearly now moved focus from her to my wife.

‘NO!’ Giovanna shouted back at him.

He grunted, followed by two deep sounding thuds, letting me know he used those fucking shoes on her somewhere. When Giovanna released a blood curdling scream, which ended with her crying in pain, without thinking further, I was moving. The smoke I’d been using as cover, cleared enough for me to find the three of them still alive, and surrounded by the bodies of their dead bodyguards.

‘Drop your weapons!’ I shouted and watched as Giovanna caught sight of me. She was laid out on the quay, curled up in a foetal position, clutching her blood-soaked hands tightly to her. Holding my gaze, she smiled a soft, small smile of acceptance. One that told me she knew I was there for her, and everything was going to be alright.

Just before Valentina raised her gun towards her daughter.

‘NO!’ I shouted.

‘You can’t have him…. HE. DOESN’T. WANT. YOU.’ Valentina bent down and grabbed a hold of Giovanna’s long hair, pulling her sharply up, positioning Giovanna’s forehead in front of the gun she was holding.

I could feel Salvatore and my men closing in around us.

‘Tell them to stay away, Giordano,’ Ricco demanded, also sensing the same. When I hesitated, he continued, ‘If you want your wife to live, tell them.’

I shook my head slowly.

‘You won’t get off this fucking beach. You owe too much to many people. You’re going nowhere, like all the traitorous scum that’s crossed our families before you.’

Seconds passed, and everything around us began to move in slow motion, like watching a car crash from inside the vehicle. Every single piece of my army training came into play. Immediately, I was closing the rest of the distance between me and Giovanna, moving my gun between the pair of them that had my wife. Instinct took over and I saw in my peripheral as Ricco’s eye twitched as he looked down his sight as he prepared to take me out. But I refused to move my weapon away from Valentina.

‘Valentina,’ I called, to get her attention.

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