Page 89 of Hateful Vows
Frowning, I rub his forearms. “What do you need?”
“Gio gave it to me. I need it.”
Lucie and I reel back when he mentions his brother. I suspected it when I saw the man who shot at us but couldn’t compute the information at the time. The confirmation in Dante’s mouth sends dread over me. It slithers under my skin to settle in my bones.
Gio is alive. And the fucker is free.
Dante repeats over and over that he needsit, and I don’t know how to snap him out of it.
“Irina,” Lorenzo calls and I stand to walk the three steps that separate us. “I found this,” he whispers and shows me an empty syringe.
My eyes close and I sigh. “Fuck.”
We turn to look at Dante who hasn’t moved from his place on the floor.
My throat clogs but I steel my spine and clench my teeth. “Sedate him. We need to bring him home but he…” I hiccup. “He won’t follow us like this.”
When Dante slumps to the floor after Lucie administers the sedative that I thought I would use against our enemy, I recount what happened to Aleksei, filling in the gaps of when shouts and the sound of war echoed in his ears instead of my voice.
“He’s in a tunnel, Aleksei. Find him. And keep him alive.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
ALEKSEI
My skin is buzzing when Irina goes silent.
My whole team is here. The men I could almost consider family, maybe even friends are waiting with tension filling their shoulders, ready to tear Gio Ventura to pieces. Mikhail’s stationed a few miles away, coordinating our efforts while Ian, Boris, Ilia, Dan, five more men and myself wait for the rat to come up for air.
We’ve dispersed to cover a wide range around the isolated house we found Dante in. I will never forget the sound of Irina breaking and screaming his name. For a few minutes, I thought I would break, too. I couldn’t ask her what was going on, knowing she’d have to focus on him rather than me. But not knowing if he was alive or dead ate at me in a way nothing had ever done before. Even when Irina was in danger, I somehow knew my father needed her alive.
“Get your head on straight,Pakhan. Dante is fine. Irina’s with him. Now we reap what we’re due,” Ilia says quietly next to me.
I would have never allowed my men to see such weakness, but for weeks now, they’ve been a pillar of support. Quietly squeezing my shoulders, sleeping as little as I did, showing upat the Italian headquarters despite our decades-long feud and setting aside prejudice to help me recover my sister’s husband. My… Fuck, what do I even call what we have? The man I love? It’s ridiculous, yet I’d kill anyone who’d deny me this man, this joy, everything he taught me. Dante Ventura made me a better man and I’ll do anything to avenge him, even if it’s the last thing I do.
“Movement ahead,” Dan’s voice calls from his position on the East side of the decrepit house.
“Regroup,” I order in the earpiece and we move as one. “Incapacitate. Don’t kill him.”
“Be careful, everyone,” Mikhail says. “Gio Ventura’s been erased from history. He has no online footprint at all. He’s either very rich or very skilled.”
“Or both.” I bet on both.
We come across a disturbed piece of land in the otherwise untouched green hills of Jura, and pause our advance when sounds come from inside the ground itself. Rocks and earth have been moved and repositioned to hide what I suspect is an artificial grotto.
Blood thumps in my temples, adrenaline flows through me alongside bloodlust. The green around me seems brighter, the seagulls overhead chant their croaking song, and in the darkness covered with moss and leaves, a dark silhouette emerges.
His build is more lithe than Dante, and despite the years without ever encountering each other, Gio moves as smoothly as the man I adore. There’s no mistaking the predator trying to escape. Fully dressed in camouflage gear, Gio slithers out of the grotto and into the wild nature of the island, almost merging with the landscape.
Almost.
I’m no sniper, but Dan is. And he needs no command to take aim and shoot.
A gargled choke is all we hear as Gio goes down, but the bastard comes back up immediately and picks up speed, running toward the edge of the water. The ocean is wild there, whirlpools forming as waves crash upon the shore. A small motor boat is attached to what looks like a makeshift deck.
I’m not letting this man get off this island.
I jump to my feet and run, my eyes turning voracious and focused on the source of our pain. To disorient him, my men start to shoot toward him, making his race to his escape more difficult.
