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Valentino

Page 121

by Sherry Blake

Something scrapes outside my door.

A footstep follows.

Then another.

Slow.

The door groans. Metal bends where someone pulls from the outside.

"Luca."

"Do not scream."

The door tears open.

A hand reaches in. Big. Gold ring on the little finger. It grabs my jacket first, then my hair. I twist toward Luca, but the seatbelt catches me across the chest.

A knife flashes near my hip.

The strap gives.

I fall against the roof, shoulder first. The hand drags me through the opening before I can get my arms under me. Broken glass scrapes my palms. My sweater catches on something sharp and tears.

I scream anyway.

"LUCA!"

Something hits the side of my head again.

Everything goes black.

Valentino

The phone rings while I'm sweeping glass off the kitchen counter with the side of my hand.

Fabio.

He is at Fiumicino, holding the handoff. He should not be calling me. Fabio does not improvise unless the plan has already failed.

"Talk."

"They hit the car," he says. "Twelve minutes from the airport. A truck took them broadside and rolled them. The follow car called it in. Marcello's people were sixty seconds behind."

Glass sticks to my palm. I look down and find blood there. Somewhere in the wreckage of the apartment, I must have sliced my hand open and never noticed.

"Amanda."

"They took her. Luca is alive, but he's bad. Shot twice. Head wound from the crash. Our men have him, and they're taking him to the doctor now. There was shooting. Sandro's dead, Valentino. They left him on the road. The following car lost the truck near the ring road. Marcello thinks⁠—"

I stopped hearing him after ‘they took her’.

"Valentino. Are you listening?"

I hang up.

The apartment is wrecked around me. Chair in pieces, lamp on its side, coffee table cracked through the middle. Fifteen, maybe thirty minutes ago, I tore through the place because she was gone.

Now Enzo has her.