Page 40 of The Bond

The wheels in my head turned as I tried to think of a way to save my husband. It took me a moment to realize that the best way to do that was to keep the focus on me.

“I was the one with the power, Dave,” I said, nodding. “Most of what went on in New York was my doing. My decisions. You were shot in New York, right?”

Dave narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Yes.”

“I was the head of family’s New York operation,” I said. Even though my father was in charge and Enzo was also probably involved in the shooting, if I took full responsibility, the focus would be on me. Dave could have his revenge on me without hurting anyone else. “It was my fault.”

He studied me with a frown. “You’re not the only one in the family. You two are married now, you’re one and the same.”

“Listen to me,” I said urgently. “Forget about anyone else. It’s me you want. You have me already. There’s no need to do any more. You’ve won, Dave.”

“You’re trying to trick me,” he hissed.

My heart pounded as I saw his expression darken to raw hatred. The sight of his hate was so ugly and frightening. Hatred had twisted his heart. Just like it had twisted mine once. Dave had been right when he’d said that love could make a person do irrational things. So could hate.

“I’m not trying to trick you,” I insisted, hoping that I sounded sure of myself in spite of my fear.

“Enough of your games!” Dave barked, the hand holding the gun suddenly unsteady.

I swallowed hard then, trembling in terror. How I wished I could get out of this chair, but I knew if I made one false move, Dave would shoot me and I’d have no way to save or protect Enzo. Brains were all I had against Dave.

“Whatever it is you want, Dave, just name it and I can make it happen,” I said. “We can pay for rehab. All your medical care. We can give you a house. You’ll never have to pay for anything ever again. We can give you a better life than the one you have now.”

“I don’t want a better life,” he ground out. “I want you to pay.”

I shut my eyes then, fear taking over again, numbing me and turning my thoughts to a dull roar in my head. “This is going to catch up with you. Someone will come after you. If not law enforcement, then one of our own. You’ll be starting the cycle of violence all over again.”

“Do you know how I plan on making you pay?” he asked then.

All the air in the storage room seemed to escape. I couldn’t breathe.

“This entire place is rigged to blow up on my say so,” Dave continued sounding proud of himself. “That’s what the bank bombing was. That’s why I set those fires. Sure, they scared you, but they were really practice in case my other attempts on you failed.”

My eyes snapped open. “You’ve rigged this place with explosives?”

“Yup. Your husband shows up, I’ll be out of the way by then and all I have to do to finally be rid of you is press a button. There’s no way you’re going to survive getting blown to pieces. Your families will blame each other, the war starts up again, and they’ll probably be a whole lot more deaths in your family when they’re back to fighting each other,” Dave said. “As for getting away with it, well, I figure faking my own death with the blast will take all the heat off me. There’s a fresh corpse of some homeless guy I snuffed out that will get blown up with the two of you—the cops will think it’s me. Just some unfortunate driver caught up in your war. Poetic, don’t you think?”

My heart sank. Shit! He was a killer through and through. Dave was going to win. He’d had the element of surprise this whole time. Planning while we had no idea what was in store for us. Never in my life had I felt so powerless. The despair washed over me with the force of a tidal wave.

Dave stepped on the smoldering cigarette butt on the floor, snuffing it out. He glanced at this watch. “Let’s see, if I call your husband now, he’ll be here in about forty-five minutes. Plenty of time for me to get into position so that I can blow the bastard to bits when he arrives.”

“No. Please, no.” I started sobbing, the thought of Enzo dying because of me too much to take. Regret at a life unlived broke me.

Ignoring my anguished pleas, Dave reached into my bag to retrieve my cell phone. With a smug smirk in my direction, he woke up my phone, swiped at the screen and pressed it to his ear. “Hello, Enzo. I’m calling with some very unfortunate news about your wife. I have her.”

Chapter 16

Enzo

I waited until the car turned the corner before heading back into the townhouse. With Valentina spending the night away, I had no idea what the hell I was meant to do with myself. All the old stuff that I used to do—boxing, drinking, whoring—none of it was even remotely interesting to me. A life of crime held even less appeal.

The most useful thing I could think of was to work on tracking the hitman. So, I grabbed my laptop to start going through a list of places he could have procured the poison that almost killed us at the food tasting several weeks ago.

As I got bogged down in research, a notification came up on my computer. A new automated message from a GPS tracker app. But that didn’t make any damn sense. Valentina’s phone tracker was connected to her devices, not mine. That was when I remembered.

Way back when I first improved the security around here, I had asked her to put a tracker on her bike in case it got stolen. I hadn’t thought twice about the thing. Yet, this app was pinging a notification to let me know the bike’s location.

I opened up the notification, frowning when I noticed that her bike was currently moving through the streets of New York. That didn’t make sense. The bike had to be at the house. With the bike locked up inside, there was no way somebody could have stolen it. Unless...