Page 48 of Savage Hearts

“What the fuck?” Lorenzo growled what I’d been bouncing around in my head.

Besides the fact the women were mostly nude, the blood pouring out of their tiny frames painted a gruesome picture. They were all dead—someone had opened fire on them and then left them to rot. “We’re too fucking late.”

“This is not our fault.” Marco cut his eyes toward Lorenzo as he stepped closer to the dead women. “This is the work of a sick man.” He pressed his fingers to the first woman’s neck. “Dead.” He moved along the wall, checking each one for signs of life.

“Wait.” Lorenzo grabbed hold of the last girl's body and hoisted her up. “I think this one is still alive.”

I rushed forward, slinging the gun onto my back, and reached out to help him. She had been shot like the others, but Lorenzo was right—she had a faint pulse.

“We need to get her out of here.”

Marco tried to take the woman from his grasp, but Lorenzo jerked her away.

“No. I’ve got her.”

Marco held for a beat before nodding. “Let’s go. We will get her some help, then figure out where Alex is.”

Double-checking the women to make sure none of them were Carmela, I walked out of the room, the burning rage inside me near boiling. The women had endured who knows how long torture only to have their lives mowed down in a single act of cowardly behavior. When I found Manuel Costa, I was going to gut him.

The unmistakable sound of blades whirling filled the air, making the three of us pause. “Fuck. You hear that?”

We took off around the side of the building in time to see a woman and man being shoved into the hull. Rushing forward, I raised my gun just as the metal cage lifted off the ground.

“Shit. We need to stop that fucking chopper.”

As the words slipped from my lips, the sound of a gun going off made me jerk. My gut clenched as we watched a body fall from the opening, landing with a sickening thud a few feet from where I stood. Rushing over, I skidded to a stop.

“Fuck… Alex!” I bent down, my hands running over his deathly still frame. A bullet hole glared from his middle as blood soaked through his shirt. “Goddamn it.” I jerked my gun off and ripped my shirt off. “We need a car.”

Marco took off running as Lorenzo dropped beside me, laying the unconscious woman down on the ground. “Is he even alive?”

“I don’t know.” I shoved the fabric against his gut, and the blood soaked through immediately. “If the bullet doesn’t kill him, the fall fucking will.” I pressed my fingers against his neck. A faint pulse reverberated against where I pressed. “He’s alive… barely.” His eyes fluttered open. “Hey, man… don’t move.”

“Carmela.”

His words were garbled, but the name was clear. He tried to sit up, but I shoved him backward.

“No. Don’t move.”

“Carmela.” He muttered again before he finally succumbed to the darkness.

Lorenzo stared up at the helicopter that was now moving over the trees, heading away from us. “You think she’s on there?”

“Yeah.” I pressed my hands against his gut. “I do.”

The sound of distant gunfire had Lorenzo standing. “Fuck.”

I turned in time to see the front-end dip forward and drop from the sky. The helicopter was going down and fast. With nothing to do, we watched helplessly as it dipped behind the trees and a massive explosion filled the darkening sky. If she was onboard, there was little chance she’d survived the crash.

An SUV skidded to a stop and Marco jumped out. “What the hell was that?”

“That was the helicopter that shoved Alex out after shooting him.” I hoisted him up, not bothering to worry about any injury to his back—chances of him living were slim, so the most emergent need was to get the gaping wound in his stomach taken care of.

Lorenzo scooped the woman, who was equally bad off as Alex and climbed into the car with her in his lap. Not only had we failed at bringing Carmela home, but we’d also likely lost the man who loved her. I had no idea how I was going to tell Celestina. Her mental state was so fragile, I worried how this loss would hit her.

“A doctor is waiting on the plane. He will do what he can while we get the hell out of here.”

Marco drove like a maniac. With each passing moment, Alex and the mystery woman were one breath closer to death. As soon as we skidded into the private airstrip, several men raced toward the vehicle. Two grabbed the woman from Lorenzo, while the remaining two helped get Alex onto the plane. They’d rigged the bench seat into a medical bed and laid him down. A woman immediately started shouting out orders. Falling to my ass, I slid against the wall of the plane and watched as they frantically tried to save him. Without a way to scan him, they were trying to fix him blindly.

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