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“Luca thought it would be better if I stayed. Safer.”
“Bella, it would have been safer for you to get the hell out of here and never look back. I know him. He would’ve made sure you had plenty of money to fall back on, so you could’ve moved anywhere. He’s always been generous to a fault.”
“What are you trying to say?” I finally have to ask, the cards forgotten again.
“I’m trying to say it’s pretty obvious he cares about you. Are you okay with that? Because as much as he irks the shit out of me like it’s his life’s calling, he is still my brother. I would like to make sure he’s not making a mistake and getting in deep with somebody who still thinks he’s a callous, heartless piece of shit.”
For once, he’s serious. There’s no wink, no laughter in his voice. “I don’t think that about him anymore,” I venture.
“That’s a start.”
“He’s been very good to my sister.”
“Stop dancing around the subject. You know what I’m trying to say.” He leans in a little closer, his eyes fixed on mine. Gosh, he looks so much like his brother it’s almost breathtaking. “If this ends up devolving into all-out war, is it something you want to be part of?”
“Careful,” I warn. “Or I might start thinking you like me.”
“I like you a lot. You’ve got grit. You’ve got heart. Do you want to take a risk like that? Because it could get very ugly.”
I don’t know what to say.
When the sound of breaking glass rings out, I don’t have to say anything.
He jumps to his feet while I gasp, looking around. He holds up a hand, going to the doorway and looking up and down the hall. I hear men running, hear shouting coming from somewhere else in the house, or maybe it’s outside, I’m not sure. It’s all happening so fast.
And then, a quickone-two-threecrack of gunshots.
I didn’t realize Vincent was carrying his own gun, but it appears from his waistband like magic. “Here.” He places it in my hand. “Do you know how to fire a gun?”
“What?” It’s all I can blurt out now that my heart is pounding and there’s blood rushing in my ears and I’m pretty sure I’m going to faint.
“A gun. Can you fire a gun?”
“You just pull the trigger, right?”
“Yeah. Close enough.” He takes my other hand and pulls me along with him to the pantry where, to my surprise, the string hanging from the light fixture is actually the release for a cache of weapons which swings down from the ceiling. I had no idea it was even there.
He pulls down a pair of guns, tucking one in his waistband before checking the clip on the other. “The sonofabitch. What the hell does he think he’s doing?” He’s not talking to me, I know. I would like the answers to those questions, though.
There are more gunshots, shouting, orders being thrown around somewhere else in the house. An alarm goes off, the sound a high-pitched shriek that brings to mind an icepick getting drilled into my ear.
Suddenly, Vincent shoves me aside and stomps his foot in the corner. Like magic, a door swings upward. He flips a switch on the wall, and a light goes on down there.
He takes me by the arms and shoves me toward the hole. “Go. Take the tunnel. Don’t look back. And once you’re out, stay there. Do you understand? Somebody will come for you.”
“Come with me! I don’t want to go by myself.”
“I can’t go with you. I have to stay here. This is my home. But you, you should go. Take the gun with you, and don’t be afraid to use it.” More shots, this time louder than before. He looks out into the kitchen before looking at me again. “Somebody got inside. You have to go. Don’t argue with me.”
What else am I going to do? I give him one last look before climbing down the ladder into a tunnel so small and narrow I can only get through it on my hands and knees. There are lights strung up overhead, but otherwise this is nothing more than a long hole in the ground with packed dirt on all sides. I hear the door close behind me and only hope that’s not the last time I’ll see Vincent alive.
I crawl as fast as I can and hope none of the men invading the house know about this tunnel. It feels like it stretches on forever as I wrestle between trying to move quickly and trying to avoid spider webs which are pretty much everywhere. Now isn’t the time to be squeamish over things like this, not when I have a gun in my hand. All I can do is be careful not to touch the trigger. Wouldn’t that be something? Going through all this only to shoot myself dead in a tunnel I’m supposed to be crawling through to safety?
Finally, there’s a dead end in front of me. Jock said something about the door being easy to open. I only hope he’s right. I also hope this is the actual door, not a cave-in nobody knew about. I run my hand over the surface, pushing here and there before it finally springs open and I get a blast of cool, clean night air.
There’s not exactly any way to exit gracefully, so I tumble out onto the grassy strip beside the access road. I’m filthy, breathless—and terrified at the echoes of gunshots still ringing in my ears even this far away.
I turn and look up. What I can see of the house is fully lit, as I left it, but every so often there’s a bright flash here and there behind one of the windows. They must have swarmed the place. Are there enough guys there to defend it? What’s Vincent doing?
