Page 104 of Where Quiet Hearts Scream
I start to sob frantically. He can’t come home. They’ll kill him.
“Look, we’ve found Leo. Benito can take it from here. As soon as that man is dead, the others will fall—they have to. I’m coming home. I don’t want anyone taking you anywhere except me.”
“No, Andreas, please. I’m going to be fine. Stay where you are. Do what you have to do. I’ll lock myself in the bathroom. Just… please don’t walk into their trap.Please.”
“I need you to do something,” he says, completely ignoring my pleas. “Inside the hallway closet is a door.”
Hold up. I was just in that closet and never saw a door!
“It’s hidden behind the coat rail. Open it. There’s a light switch to the left. Close the door behind you, lock it, and go down the steps. That’s my gun cellar.”
Hiswhat?That’s one room Viola failed to include in my initial tour of the house.
“All the guns down there are locked and loaded,okay? Grab one that isn’t too heavy. One you think you might be able to fire if you have to, okay?”
My heart lunges up my throat and the image of Tess holding a gun at Trilby’s wedding sends a shiver through my bones.
“Uh huh.”
“Stay down there until I get home. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I whisper, weakly.
“Go. Now. Take this phone with you.”
“Okay.”
He pauses, briefly. “I love you, Sera.”
“Don’t say that,” I reply. “That feels so final. Don’t say it.”
“Okay. Then, I’ll see you soon, baby.”
He hangs up and I immediately run to the closet in the hallway.There’s a fricking door in here?I push through all the coats and jackets and, well, blow me down with a feather. There’s an actual door. I open it and flick on the switch.
Oh dear God. If a group of camo-clad men don’t finish me off, this creepy cellar might. I have to push any fear of cellars, spiders and cobwebs to the back of my mind and bolt the door behind me. My life was put in danger the day my sister got engaged to a Di Santo, but this is the first time I’ve ever felt so close to death.
I hurry down the steps into the bowels of the building. When I reach the bottom I look around and my jawdrops.
Andreas
Fuck.
Why did I have to go and break my best fucking hand?
I slide the burner into my pocket and face my brother.
“Go,” he says. “I can see it in your eyes, man. You need to be with your wife. I can handle this son of a bitch. I’ll make sure it’s slow and painful.”
“Make him call off his dogs first.”
“Oh, that’stopof my list,” Benito says, his voice low and filled with vengeance. “Take Rocco at least.”
I shake my head. “I can handle whatever’s waiting for me. You keep everyone else here in case he has more fucking games up his sleeve.”
“What about Arrow?”Benito looks over at my right hand who’s carefully watching the surveillance footage that is tracking my father in the basements he calls home.
“He stays too.”
