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She chose a place like this because it’s the safest option when you’re using something so damned dangerous.
I see a window blown out to the side of us. I grab ahold of Alessandro’s shirt and pull him to me. “Listen,” I cough. “You have to get out of here! Get through there!”
He shakes his head and pulls himself away roughly. “I saved your ass! I’m not leaving now!”
I growl bitterly. “You have to make it out of here alive…and this place is about to go up. I am going to get her out of here…” The smoke is so heavy. I hack and cough. “But you have to have an insurance policy if I don’t! Tomasso, Mattias, Emma, Guilia… they all need you…” My chest is quaking. My body is in anguish as it tries to catch a breath. “And they can’t take over. You’re the only one.”
“I don’t want to leave her!” His sob is painful to hear; it’s helpless.
“And she wouldn’t want you to stay…” I remind. “It’s time to grow up. You have to do what’s right.”
He growls and shoves himself up. The footsteps are scattered and I can’t tell if they can even see where they’re going anymore “Now!” I scream and he launches himself up and back down the hall toward the exit.
I manage to push myself up in a crouching stand again and turn back toward the opening that I know has droves of enemies still searching for an exit. I groan, hoping he can get through the window before they see it. But there’s more to worry about here, if they’re looking for an exit…is she even still there? Can she be?
My hair is yanked back and a knife is pressed against my neck. My breath is hitched but shallow.. “Madam Rosa will be glad to get ahold of you…” The big fat gorilla friend of Madam Rosa seethes in my ear.
His breath, heavy and moist against my neck, is putrid. It accosted my nostrils with every choked cough he emitted. I smell it, even through the growing smoke; even though I can’t even catch a full breath. And then in an instant, the familiar heated splatter of blood hit my face and the man holding me fell into a gigantic and thunderous heap at my feet. Madam Rosa’s shadow cast over me.
“You let your guard down, dumbass…” she growls as she hobbles toward me, holding her side, limping.
“You killed your own man…” I pick up the gun he dropped.
“You took too long…” she says weakly.
She hacks and coughs, the smoke clearly getting to her too…
“I didn’t come here for you…” I snarl.
“Oh, you came here for her?” She asks, pointing with her thumb behind her.
Coming out of the smoke, from a hallway I would have never gone down, Aria staggers toward us.
I run to her and sling my arms around her with everything that I have. “You’re alive!”
She’s coughing and falls to the floor.
“Aria!” I yell, bending down to grab her as she hacks through the smoke.
“Alessandro?!” she asks, overwrought.
I nod. “I just sent him back through that window! He’ll be fine! He cleared this whole building through the rubble, basically himself…”
She smiles before coughing again. “Think if I don’t make it out of here, he’ll make a good successor?”
“You’re getting out of here!”
“I’m the old lady…” My mother laughs, almost bitterly. “You’d think it’d be me on the ground coughing and hacking…”
I reach my arms out widely towards both women. “I’ll carry you both over and lift you up!” I yell, although I know my body’s too weak. I’m too injured. And I can barely breathe myself. But, in true Madam Rosa fashion, she slings my arm away, stopping me.
“Stop being a bitch and let me get you out of here!”
She shakes her head, warningly. “I’ve been shot…” she says. I look down to where she’s clutching her side, horrified, as blood flows from her body, and seeps from between her fingers onto the floor. “There’s no use getting me out…just get out of here. Don’t say I never gave you anything…” Her voice is shaky. Weak. And it pisses me off.
“The martyr act doesn’t suit you!” I scream, angrily. “So knock it the fuck off!”
“I’m just saying, idiot!” She screams back. “There’s no point in wasting your time on me!”
