Page 28 of Revenge & Ruin

With one final kick, I manage to wriggle my arm free of his grip.

The guard falls unceremoniously to the basement floor. Despite my protesting arm, I spare him a look, wincing as I see him splayed out on the bottom step, blood oozing from his head.

That’s much worse than a fracture.

But I don’t have long to think about it. My fingers, now clammy on the metal bar, lock of their own accord.

In a fit of panic, I launch myself up, desperate to cling onto the banister with my other arm. But the movement dislodges me. My good hand flies up to try and grab hold of something, but it never quite finds purchase.

An awful, sinking feeling immediately sets in. I’m going to fall.

“Oh no, you don’t!” Dante is suddenly there, hand wrapped around my forearm, stopping my descent with a sudden, jerking motion.

I almost sigh in relief as he hurls me back over and onto stable ground.

Before me, Alessandro is standing over the other guard. Alessandro’s hands are almost as bloodied as the poor fucker’s face.

“I told you to wait for my signal,” I snap at him before giving Dante an appreciative slap on the back.

Alessandro turns to me, wildness dancing behind his wretched eyes. “There was an opening. I just took it.”

I want to dress him down then and there, but the likelihood that someone heard the altercation is too high. “Let’s just get this over with.”

The three of us descend the stairwell to the basement, tactfully stepping over the body on the bottom step, and slip out into the hallway.

The office itself is only a few doors down, and we find ourselves pushing our way inside without any further setbacks.

It’s dark, but I waste no time going over to the desk and sitting myself down behind a somewhat dated monitor.

I’m too distracted to notice the pulsing red light of the camera in the corner.

“Well, well, well. What do we have here?”

I freeze in place as a familiar, sultry voice suddenly crackles into the room through the AV system.

Isabella Natali chuckles in response. “I thought you were smarter than this, Teo.”

8

ISABELLA

Ihad honestly expected it to take weeks for the Guild to make their move.

In fact, I’d almost gone out for dinner instead of wasting another evening in front of my laptop, monitoring every branch of the Prince’s Guild.

There were others who switched out with me during the day, handing me reports of the general comings and goings with an impressive lack of boredom.

But seeing the look on Teo Vitale’s face was entirely worth all those grueling hours of monitoring nothing at all.

On my monitor, three men desperately look around the maintenance office for the camera, finally finding it tucked in the corner.

“If you wanted to get my attention, you could have just asked for my number,” I purr into the microphone.

There’s a slight delay before my words reach them. I know the moment they do, because Teo relaxes back into his chair as if he doesn’t have a care in the world.

“I’m assuming you can hear me?” he replies, a little louder than necessary.

“I wouldn’t miss the opportunity to hear those dulcet tones again,” I flirt back.

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