Page 40 of Mafia Betrayal

My guard was out there, and so were so many men from the family. They all had guns, all had been in gunfights before. What was the difference between then and now?

“The man out in the living room is the fucker who put me in fucking prison.” He looked nervous. “If you think I’m bad, you haven’t seen anyone like him before. He’ll torture the living fucking shit out of you.”

“Are you afraid of him?” I asked, eyes wide.

He scoffed. “No, I’m not afraid of him. I’m afraid of what he’ll do toyouif he kills me,” he said. “And I’m not letting you go out there to get yourself killed, Chiara, because I care about you.”

My eyes widened even more, my heart racing with butterflies. Had Alessandro … had he just said what I thought he said? That he cared about me?

He pushed me toward the open window. “Don’t look at me like that,reginetta. Jump. Land. Roll. And protect that pretty little head of yours because I don’t want to clean up your cracked skull and splattered blood.”

I swallowed hard, eyeing the jump, and glanced back at him. “Alessandro, I can’t do it with my leg. What about Alice?” My heart dropped, and I hurried toward the door. “I need to find Alice.”

He grabbed my arm, tossed me over his shoulder, and hurled me straight out of the fucking window. I screamed and grabbed on to the windowsill, trying so desperately to hold all my body weight up.

He growled, jumped out of the window next to me, hitting the ground hard, got back up, and stood under me. “Let go, Chiara. I’ll catch you.”

The spare bedroom door opened, and I let go before one of those men could kill me. I landed in Alessandro’s arms, as he’d promised, and we tumbled to the ground together. Someone stared out the window, and bullets started flying down at us again. Alessandro grabbed my hand and sprinted as quickly and as stealthily as he could while aiming for the man’s head and shooting him dead.

Everything happened so quickly. I barely knew what happened next. All I knew was that I was running through the rain of bullets to get into another car, which I assumed was Alessandro’s. He started the damn car, revved the engine, and sped off into the night.

There wasn’t a second thought in my mind that they’d follow us. We were bound to be followed—hadbeen followed almost every time we were together now. As he drove onto the highway, he continued to look in the rearview mirror.

We got off on the second exit and sped toward a junkyard—the same junkyard we had sped into last time. He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward another car, pushing me into it and driving back off into the night—this time more stealthily.

I fumbled with my phone, about to text Alice to see if she was okay, when Alessandro grabbed my phone and hurled it right out the window and onto the highway.

“Don’t call. Don’t text. Don’t contact anyone.”

“But Alice … what if she—what if they take her?”

“Does she know anything about me? Anything about the family business?” he asked, jaw twitching.

I gulped. “Nothing about you. Some about the family business.”

After a few moments, he blew out a deep breath. “She should be fine.”

“Should be?!” I nearly screamed at him.

This man had the damn nerve. She was either endangered or she wasn’t. And either way, I needed to make sure she was okay. She hadn’t been in any shoot-outs as far as I knew. She was one of thoselet the guys do all the dirty workkind of girls.

“Sit back and shut your mouth,” Alessandro said. “Be thankful you got out alive.”

27

chiara

I stormedinto Alessandro’s apartment. This would be the first place anyone would probably look for us,ifthey knew where he lived. He walked in after me and shut the door, his footsteps making my heart race.

“What is wrong with the damn princess now?” he asked, tension in his voice. “I saved your ass again, and you’re still angry with me.”

I turned on my heel. “Do I have to remind you?! You threw me out a second-story window! Threw my phone onto the highway! And refused to let me see if Alice is okay!”

“She’s fine,” he said.

His phone was sitting on the counter, buzzing over and over. He threw his jacket down and turned it over, rolling his eyes when he saw the sender. Instead of answering any of the messages, he threw it back down and turned to walk down the hall.

When I heard his bedroom door close, I snatched his phone and started going through the messages. Maybe I could call Alice. All were from Dad, who was asking if we were okay. I had the urge to answer it, but I refused. I didn’t need his drama in my life right now.

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