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I look over at Elias and I know I look completely lost because I am. “She was begging for her life to fucking strangers, Eli.”
“Brother—”
“She was begging!” I growl, my hand shaking.
“Lock it down, Marco.”
“He hit her. You know how delicate my woman is. He took his fucking fist to her, Eli and knocked her unconscious.”
“You have to get control until we get her. Then you can scream, rage, tear him apart piece by piece. You just need to lock it down until we get her.”
“This is my fault, Eli.”
“Marco—”
“I wanted her to have her house. I wanted to give her time to spread her wings, find her footing in a field she loved to work in. I wanted her to experience that before I brought her back here and tied her to me. Tied her to a man who wasn’t fit to even breathe the same fucking air as her.”
“Bullshit. You’re the best man I know, Marco. If it wasn’t for you, we’d have all been dead by now and you know it. You held this family together.”
“I’m not a man. I’m a monster. His blood boils inside of me constantly. It marks everything I touch. She only ran to Arizona because I didn’t give her a choice. I was forcing her into marrying me. I—”
“Jesus Christ, Marco. She had one chance to call for help. One chance and she didn’t call the local cops. She didn’t call Melina or anyone else. She called you. You brother. She loves you and if you want to blame anyone for this shit, blame me and Gio. If it wasn’t for the two of us, she would have never left. She was happy. She loves you.”
“She told me,” I whisper. “She told me and fuck me, Eli, I don’t think I said it back to her. I didn’t tell her that she’s my entire fucking world.”
“Marco—”
“I didn’t tell her.”
“Man, we have EZ and his crew already in Vegas. Sebastian is scheduling a phone conference with the Ivan Levkin and his brothers. Antonio said Niko, Victorio and Lodi and a crew of 15 men are due to touch down there in the next hour. Antonio has even put a call into Levkin himself. We will get her back and you can tell her how you feel then.”
I nod and try to clear my thoughts, but in my head, all I can hear is my woman begging someone to help her.
And no one did.
Chapter 40
Helena
For a minute, everything is a blank. My head hurts and it’s hard to move. Slowly memories begin trickling back in. Everything moves through my mind from talking to Marco, to Zervas discovering what I was doing, begging someone to help me, and finally Zervas hitting me. The sun has set, so the car is dark except for the glow of the dash lights up front. It hurts to move, but I don’t want to do that anyway. I’m in the backseat lying across it. I’d rather Zervas think I’m still knocked out. I move my mouth a little and jaw to tentatively try to figure out the damage. Pain radiates around my cheek and jaw and further up to my eye. The skin feels tight and hot. I know there’s swelling. I try to blot out what’s going to happen to me. I can’t think about it. If I do, I’ll go insane. My head is lying on my purse. My phone is under it. I remember Marco asked me to make sure I kept it turned on so they could track me. I reach under my purse very carefully, trying to not may any movements that catch the eye of Zervas—just in case he’s watching me in the rearview mirror. I wrap my hand around my phone and think about my options. It is turned off because I had it in my drawer at work. I’ve always made a habit of not using my phone at work. It was a new job, and I didn’t want to appear unprofessional. Now, if I wasn’t terrified, I would laugh at that. I turn my phone off and by memory I move my fingers to the side of the phone and pray I have the right button in my hand when I pull it toward me to put the phone on silent. The only people that call me should know what shape I’m in. Thankfully I already have my texts on do not disturb. I did that when I first got here and never changed it back. I was mad at Marco, and I just didn’t want to deal with any of it. Then after we started talking more often, I soon discovered Marco wasn’t a texting kind of guy and really Melina doesn’t like texts that much either. She just does it for me. So, I just left it.
