I lace my fingers through his and squeeze. I want to tell him I know about the baby, tell him how pissed I am that he lied, but now is not the time. “I’m sorry for the hell your father put you through. And I’m sorry for doubting you for even a second.”
His gaze locks onto mine, the intensity swirling within those dark depths enough to steal my breath away. “I would never betray you, Isabella. I love you. You own my heart and my soul, and nothing will ever change that,” he whispers, voice thick with emotion. “It’s not exactly the most well-timed confession, but I need you to know that just in case?—”
I press my finger to his lips. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence. We’re getting out of here, both of us.” I pause, just long enough to let a smile through. “And I love you. So you better find a way out of this.”
A lop-sided smile crawls beneath my finger before he yanks it away. “I swear I will. As if I didn’t have enough motivation before, now I need to make sure we get out of here alive so I can show the woman I love the real beauty of this damned city.” A fiery glint lights up the shadows in his eyes.
A thrill courses through my body at his words. “Also, what the hell happened to your face?”
“I’ll tell you about it later.”
Bullets pepper the air down the hallway, muddling with the cloud of smoke, and Raf presses me against a wall, his arms covering my head.
“Watch out!” Giuseppe’s voice echoes over the chaos as two guards race toward us.
The crackle of fire and the surge of dark smoke crawls closer, obscuring everything in its path. With one arm over my head and his body draped over me, Raf discharges his weapon at the approaching men.Pop. Pop. Pop.
The sharp blasts vibrate across my eardrum, and I can’t help flinching at each shot. The sound of a body hitting the ground momentarily stills the panic. But there’s still one more guy and with the fiery inferno blazing, I can’t see shit.
A dark form emerges from the haze and pummels into Raf.
“No!” I shriek and stagger back from the force of the men’s collision.
Giuseppe appears next, a bloody gash across his forehead. He jumps into the rumble, trying to wrench Raf free from the other guard’s grasp. My hand instinctively reaches for the fragment of glass in my pocket. I could try…
The piercing bang of a gun sends my heart catapulting against my ribs. The three men are nothing but a blur of black clothes and pounding fists. “Raf!” I scream.
Giuseppe rolls over, crimson splattering his shirt. He clutches his chest, blood dribbling through his fingers.
“Cazzo, no!” I hiss.
Raf’s hand tangles around the guard’s gun and a sharp crack sends a chill up my spine. The guard cries out, his wrist going limp as Raf wrenches the weapon away before turning it back on its owner. I squeeze my eyes closed as Raf pulls the trigger. Thenhe’s crawling toward his brother, and I drop down to the floor beside them.
“Giuseppe, you’re okay. I’ve got you.” Raf presses his hand on top of his brother’s, putting more pressure on the wound.
“Go,” he hisses. “You’re wasting precious time.” His glassy eyes lift to mine. “Tell him to get you out of here, Isabella.”
“No,” Raf grits out. “I’m not abandoning you.”
“Yes, you are. Just like I abandoned you all those years ago,fratellino. Poetic justice,no? This is my penance and my punishment. Now, let me have it; it’s what I deserve.” He pries Raf’s fingers from atop his hand. “Go now!” he shouts, eyes lifting to mine.
Curling my arm around Raf’s I tug him off the floor. “Come on, he’s right. Let’s go.”
Pure anguish is carved into my bodyguard’s face as he rises. With one last look at his brother, his head dips, and he spins us toward the door.
Jerking the heavy metal thing open, he drags me outside. I nearly trip over the burnt corpses, but Raf manages to steer me around the piles of grisly charred flesh. A shot erupts, whizzing just over my head and my bodyguard pushes me to the ground. His massive body envelops me as a spray of bullets dot the night air.
All around us, the thud of heavy footsteps looms closer. The basement door is ajar, and smoke billows from the gap. Screams and shouts echo down the hallway where we’d just left Giuseppe.
We’re trapped.
“Raffaele, stand down, youstronzo.” I’ve only known the man for a short while and already I recognize Raf’s father’s voice. “There’s no way out.” It’s not quite as polished and in control as it was when I met him an hour ago.
I’m not surprised. His son has managed to single-handedly cause quite a bit of chaos across the compound. I run my handdown to my pocket and feel for the shard of glass. It’s not much, but it’s a weapon, and I’ll use it if I must.
Alfredo emerges from the shadows, a horde of guards surrounding him, each with a gun leveled in our direction. “I need the girl alive,” he hisses at his men. There must be half a dozen encircling the head of the Ferrara household plus another few crawling around the perimeter. Smoke thickens the air, the acrid odor burning my lungs.
Raf leaps to his feet, pulling me up with him, then jerks me behind his broad shoulders. With one arm holding me back, he trains his own gun at his father. “I’m not standing down unless you let us walk out of here.”