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Then Valentina shocked and pleased the hell out of Hal by taking the few precious moments they had left together to show him just how fearless she could be.
Although Hal was confident no one had followed them back to the compound, as an added precaution Prosper sent out a decoy car about fifteen minutes before Valentina and Sal made their way to the hangar. Prosper also wanted to send a convoy along with the Town Car but Gianni nixed the idea. He had every confidence that Salvatore would get Valentina to the hangar safely, and he was worried that it would bring unwanted and unnecessary attention to have an MC escort. Prosper was not used to having his orders questioned and thought that Gianni was making a big mistake. However, he also recognized that G was Valentina’s father so, despite Prosper’s better judgement and Hal’s scowling disapproval, Prosper acquiesced.
Hal held Valentina’s hand tight as he walked her to the Town Car where Sal waited to speed her off to safety. When Hal lifted Valentina’s chin to give her a long and deep kiss good-bye, she wished that she could make herself very small, hop into the pocket that sat over his heart, and stay in there, close to him forever. A cold chill ran up Valentina’s spine as Hal reached to pull out the strap to the seat belt. When she heard the snap of the buckle holding her in place, Valentina had a sudden and strange foreboding feeling that she was never going to see Hal again. She pushed that thought away quickly and attributed it to the whole deadly vibe of the day. Then Valentina sat back into the deep leather car seat and forced herself to try and relax.
She watched through the window as the landscape flashed by in a series of long blurs. With one hand on the wheel and the other holding a cell, Uncle Sal kept his eyes glued to the road. He spoke low and fast into the phone using a Sicilian dialect that Valentina had trouble following. Sal’s suit jacket hung on the back of the car seat, a Colt 1911 .45 semi-automatic pistol was strapped to his side and sat in a custom-made shoulder holster. The air was thick with a sense of urgency and danger that made Valentina bite down on her lip and clench her fists.
When she let out a long, fractured sigh, Sal threw her a look of concern. He abruptly ended the call and hastily stuck the cell into his shirt pocket. Then Uncle Sal reached out his hand and gave Valentina’s thigh a pat of fatherly reassurance. “Vatutto bene.Non ti preoccupare—Everything is going to be fine, don’t worry.”
She smiled at him just to ease his mind. “I know I’m safe with you, Uncle Sal.”
Valentina had barely gotten the words out of her mouth when a cacophony of confused sounds sprang up in deafening decibels all around her.. Thepingof shattering glass, thewhompof exploding tires, and thecrunchof metal being torn and crushed mixed in with Valentina’s screams as bullets sprayed all around them; Sal lost control of the car and plowed through the guardrail.
In an instant, pointed shards of glass from exploding windows became lethal projectiles. The glittering, razor- sharp splinters volleyed through the air like tiny deadly arrows. Sal’s arm shot out, and his thin palm covered the top of Valentina’s skull as he forced her head down. He shouted at her, “Brace your body, cover your head and close your eyes!”
Valentina steeled her body and waited for the final impact from a stop that just didn’t come; the car only seemed to pick up speed as it went careening down the long, steep embankment. As Valentina and Sal continued to tumble towards the rocky ravine, the earsplitting screech of a door being savagely ripped from its hinges tore through the air. That horrific noise was instantly eclipsed by the sickening sound of metal as it crunched and twisted through thick layers of trees and scraped against enormous, jagged-edged ledges of rock. Valentina’s seatbelt was both a blessing and a curse. It held her securely in place when otherwise she would have been thrown to certain death. However, while her body tumbled and bent and twisted, Valentina felt as if she were being squished and squashed and smashed into a tiny box. Her lungs contracted with such force that she was afraid they would collapse inside her chest. When the airbag was violently released, it thundered out in deafening decibels. Almost instantly, the car shuddered, heaved and teetered like a fallen soldier. Then it shifted to its side and continued its violent descent to the bottom of the ravine.
A deadly silence followed.
When Valentina recovered consciousness, she found that her face was pressed into the airbag while the seatbelt still held her firmly in place. Her ears were ringing, she was disoriented and dizzy, and her head hurt terribly. The sudden overwhelming smell of gas caused Valentina to erupt into a spasm of coughs that sent her diaphragm screaming out in pain and made her wonder how many of her ribs were broken.
Sal
She couldn’t see him past her airbag. Desperately Valentina began to claw, wrestle, and grapple with the inflatable until she had somehow managed to push it aside and could see across to the driver seat. Valentina looked at Sal through the haze of smoke and noxious fumes with dawning realization.
His airbag hadn’t gone off.
His airbag hadn’t gone off.
Valentina’s eyes were glued to Sal, but weirdly she could only see him in small frames— his right shoulder, one eye, the blood pooled in his ear. It was as if her psyche was revealing the truth to her one terrible puzzle piece at a time— giving her the time to register the shock in small degrees. Slowly, slowly, the whole horrible picture came into place.
The steering wheel was sunk into the cavity of Sal’s chest and his head lay at an odd angle—blood flowed in crimson streams from his ears, nose and mouth.
“Sal?” Valentina croaked out, “Uncle Sal?”She pleaded and prayed and strained across the divide that separated them. Valentina pulled on Sal’s arm but his head just lolled loosely back and forth— his eyes were lifeless.
Valentina’s heart shattered into a thousand pieces when she realized that Uncle Sal was lost to her. She reached out as best she could and closed the lids of his eyes.Lord have mercy on your soulshe began a prayer for his deliverance.
When Valentina’s prayer was interrupted by a loud series of hisses and pops, she was forced to turn her attention away from Sal. When she did, Valentina was horrified to see licks of yellow flames blaze up from the engine; soon the whole car would be engulfed.
She lost precious moments fumbling with the door handle, only to realize the door itself was pinned against the bottom of the gulch. The seatbelt pulled hard across Valentina’s chest as she twisted and turned in the confined space searching for another way out.
Valentina turned her attention again to the front of the Lincoln, horrified to find that the small sparks of flame had caught and turned into a blazing storm. Valentina watched in horror as the hungry fire ate its way through the hood of the car. Frantically she pulled at the seatbelt and followed the strap until her hand found the latch.
She let out a cry of pain as the heat from the metal clasp burned into her palm. Repeatedly, the hot steel blistered her fingers as Valentina pulled at the locked latch in determined desperation. The flames danced before her eyes; they skipped and whirled towards her with such hypnotic flare that Valentina was soon lost in a stupor of mesmerizing heat. When the roar of the fire began to fade into the background and her limbs began to feel heavy, Valentina wondered idly if her central nervous system had begun to shut down. She knew that her brain was being deprived of oxygen and that soon she would lose consciousness.
Hal
Out of the smoke and blazing flame, his image flashed before her with the force of a jet plane—the ice blue of his knowing eyes, the square of his strong jaw, the warrior scars that gave testimony to his strength. Hal was so close that Valentina could reach out and touch him, yet when she slowly lifted her arm towards him—poof—he disappeared. When Hal’s image blended in with the dark smoke that surrounded her, it shook Valentina to the core and startled her into full consciousness. Suddenly, the enormity of the situation she found herself in came screaming back into sharp focus. If Valentina didn’t act soon, not only would she never see Hal again, but she would die a horrible, horrible death. The caustic smoke was suffocating and small spurts of flame had begun to bore holes through the roof of the car. Valentina cried out in pain as hot metal rained down, sizzling her hair and blistering her scalp.
With renewed determination and strength of purpose, Valentina grasped the molten hot seatbelt, locked it firmly into her blistered fingers and with a rebel yell, wrenched open the clasp. Now able to move freely, Valentina was frantic to find something—anything— that would help her.
Water bottles! Thank god! Valentina was overcome with relief to find three two-liter water bottles in what was left on the back seat. Valentina used two of them to douse her clothes and body. Then she tore the suit jacket from the back of Sal’s seat and soaked it with the remaining bottle of water. She wrapped the sodden cloth loosely around her head and shoulders.
The worst of it was that now Valentina would have to crawl over Sal’s dead body to get to the back window. There was no other way, and she had to act fast before the whole thing exploded.
Being careful to avert her eyes and keep her focus straight ahead, Valentina silently begged Sal’s forgiveness, and pulled herself over him. Then she slid through the leather interior of the Lincoln until she was at the back window.
Once there, she squeezed her body through the small opening framed by shattered fragments of glass. Valentina used what strength she had left to push herself off the car and onto the hard, rocky ground.
