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She heaved and sputtered and coughed as she tried her best to catch a breath in the hot, smoky air. Valentina had to keep moving. Once those fast-moving flames hit the gas tank, it would send out a deadly blast. If Valentina didn’t get herself out of its range, she would be blown to bits with it.
When the dizziness and nausea prevented her from standing on her own, Valentina pulled herself forward on her hands and knees. Every breath sent razor sharp pains shooting through her ribcage, the palms of her hands and the pads of her fingers were burnt and blistered. Valentina’s scalp stung, her eyes itched, and her ears rung.
She had managed to pull herself just a few yards when the car exploded, punching a fist of flames through the sky. She felt an instant surge of fiery wind swoop under her belly, pick her up and send her flying over the broken trees and jagged rocks.
Valentina landed hard and when she did, she felt a burst of intense pain travel with excruciating speed through her body. Unable to move, she fought her way in and out of consciousness. Her body had gone numb; she couldn’t feel her legs or her arms. Logic told Valentina that she was going into shock, but fear told her that her spine had snapped. When a hot ash landed on her calf and Valentina jerked reflexively her eyes flooded with tears of relief—if her legs could still register pain then maybe she had a chance.
While Valentina fought the grinding fear of paralysis, her body began to slowly check in with her brain. Fighting her fear, Valentina began to make a series of small deliberate movements. The control of fingers and toes graduated to wrist and ankles, then to calves and thighs. Each small success flooded her with relief, and led to a larger triumph until Valentina gained full motor control of her body. From that point, she was able to haul herself to a sitting position and relax her spine against a large boulder.
Valentina knew that the twisted, flaming piece of metal was still sending up billows of black smoke—still erupting in sporadic bursts of flames— but she didn’t look that way again. Valentina didn’t want her last image of Uncle Sal to be his charred remains, and she knew he would not want that either.
Tu sarai sempre con me—you will always be with meValentina whispered in the wind.
E tu con me—and you with me.The wind seemed to whisper back.
With a heavy heart, Valentina pushed sorrow away and turned all her energy and focus into getting herself gone. Then she logically weighed her options, Valentina knew that her father’s men would send out word when the Lincoln did not make it to its destination and that those men would be out looking for her.
But Valentina also knew that Abiatti’s crew was most certainly behind this latest assault. They would have to send proof of her death to the head of their family, and she was pretty sure that a photo of a mangled car taken from the top of a ledge would not be enough.
Valentina reasoned that as soon as all risk of a second explosion was eliminated, the men who wanted her dead or captured would be coming for her. She scanned the area and decided that her only chance was to climb up the steep embankment. From there, she could use the cover of trees until she got to the highway. Once Valentina was on level ground, she could better assess the situation and flag down someone to help her.
It was a well thought-out and logical plan, and Valentina knew it was a good one, she just had no idea how she was going to manage the climb. Her ears pulsed painfully, her sense of balance was shaky at best, her palms and head were riddled with burns, and every time Valentina took a breath, she felt like knives were being thrown into her chest.
I’ll just have to try my bestValentina sighed as she shaded her eyes and looked up at the steep, jagged slope.
“Try Not! Do or do not—there is notry!”
Valentina and Gia had binge watched a Star Wars marathon during their forced confinement and now the words of Yoda, that oh-so revered ninja master, cut through her mind like a light saber and propelled her forward.
There is no try. There is only do.
With that edict echoing in her mind, Valentina grabbed the backpack from where it had been catapulted and put one foot in front of the other. But after only a few steps she stopped and looked up at the impossibly steep cliff. There was no way she was going to make it up that jagged, rocky ledge—Yoda be damned. But there was a good chance that if she continued to walk around the perimeter she would find the way to a more reasonable slope.
Valentina slowly made her way to the other side of the ravine and found what she was looking for. Although this slope was not as steep, it was not without its challenges. Plants covered in thick thorns and sharp bristles grew wild along the steep, winding trail.
At one point, Valentina lost her footing and landed in a patch of shiny reddish leaves clustered in threes.Leaves of three let them be,the adage popped into Valentina’s mind and she paused long enough to wonder if she might have been just landed ass end up in a patch of poison ivy.
Least of your problems,that inner voice rebuked her.A little Aveeno bath will clear that right up…let’s keep focused on getting us out of here alive!
When Valentina finally reached the top of the embankment, to her immense relief and intense surprise, luck seemed to finally be swaying on her side. Just a few yards away the highway split, and a median separated the lane going east and the lane going west. The west route offered a rest area complete with a shaded pergola, picnic tables, and a faucet that gushed out natural spring water.
Holding one hand tight against her rib cage and using the other to grab onto tree branches to help support her, Valentina kept her eyes on the prize. She lurked low in the bushes and listened for the sound of voices or the roar of an oncoming car. When she was sure the coast was clear she limped quickly across the highway, hurried over the median, and made her way to the rest stop.
Valentina sank down on the wooden picnic bench set in the welcoming shade and stretched her blistered hands under the gushing water. It was refreshing, clean, and felt like heaven against her raw hands. Valentina scooped the water up in her palms and drank deeply for several minutes then sighed with unmitigated pleasure when she felt the cool water make a wet trail down her chin, neck, and the deepvbetween her breasts. Before she could give in to her fears, Valentina bent down and shoved her burning scalp under the spouting faucet. She gasped as the icy water hit the burned patches on her head but instead of panic, Valentina felt only blissfully cool and intense relief.
She longed to take off her sneakers and run her feet under the water as well, but she didn’t dare remove them just in case. Valentina leaned back gingerly on the bench and rifled through the backpack looking for some sort of pain reliever and found —Midol? She figured what the hell and swallowed three of the pills. The advertisement on the package caught her eye and she burst out in hysteria induced laughter.
Midol makes it all go away.
Well, wouldn’t that be nice?
Derringer Gage was waiting for Prosper and his boys at the door of the warehouse. Derringer was a small man with hard eyes, a mean mouth and several Vietnamese prayers inked onto his skull. Rumor had it that he had been a very effective and thorough interrogation specialist during the Vietnam war. Hal had wondered more than once about what Derringer’s deal was. Oddly, along with his reputation for extreme and systematic brutality, it was also well-known in the circuit that Derringer ran his chapter with integrity, was dedicated to Prosper, and would do anything for the brothers in the HSMC.
“Thanks for making the trip, brother.” Prosper gave him a hard man clap on the back in greeting.
“Anytime, anywhere, anything for you, brother,” Derringer automatically responded. Then he lifted his chin towards the individuals seated on the other side of the warehouse. Hal hardly recognized them as the same two men who had attempted the assassination at the lake house. It seemed that Derringer had been a very busy guy.
The two hit men had their hands, feet, and necks wrapped in heavy chains. Their limbs stuck out at odd angles giving them the look of bloodied, broken scarecrows. Blooms of purple patches covered their naked chests and told the story of internal bleeding and organ damage. Their eyes were swollen shut and their noses were non-identifiable. Blood had congealed in their hair in a gory mess and they weren’t moving.
