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When we carry Riley out into the hallway and start to the staircase, gunshots ring out. First one, then another. There are screams and an unmistakable yell from downstairs: Michael Vertucci is on the warpath.
His vicious voice carries up the stairs, bouncing furiously off the Travertine stones lining the walls. "Where the fuck are they? Find them. Bring them to me!"
"Run," I hiss, and we sprint like a six-legged animal toward the staircase, leaping up the stairs; Riley stumbles, flailing, but Morgan and I both rip her to her feet and drag her along; Morgan and I don't even need to look at each other to communicate in the adrenaline-filled moments as we sprint up the stairs and to Michael Vertucci's unguarded suite; this is it. If we die, we die together. I love you, sister.
Bullets zip by our head as we reach the door to the suite and more hit the door as we slam it behind us.
"Where is it, Riley?"
She blinks, her head limply turning to survey the room. Whatever she took, she's fading fast. "Closet," she mumbles.
We rush to the closet and Riley fumbles with the keypad. Her fingers are slow and uncoordinated from the drugs. Finally, she punches in the code and the heavy door slides open to reveal a small, windowless room. It's stocked with water, food, bottles of a variety of medicines, and a shelf with a stack of porno mags on it.
"Good job, sis," Morgan says, pulling Riley inside and gesturing for me to follow.
The door closes behind us with a reassuringly heavy thunk. Not moments too soon, because the second it shuts, the sound of more gunshots heralds Michael and his men arriving in his suite. Dimly, I hear his voice through the door. "They're in my fucking panic room. God damn it. Get it open."
"There's a lock... the keypad on the wall... hit the pound symbol, and then seven," Riley mumbles. “Keeps it shut.”
I do so. There's a beep. Then the sound of a heavy lock falling into place.
"He can't open it now. Not until we hit the opening code."
A nerve-wracking rat-tat-tat of deafening volume erupts against the door as Michael Vertucci and his men vent their frustrations with a chorus of lead. It's enough to make me shriek in terror, and Morgan puts her arm around me from behind, pulling me into a hug.
"You're dead. You're all dead." Michael's muted voice comes through the door, a tyrannical scream of rage.
"Can he break in here?" Morgan says aloud. Maybe she's looking for reinforcement from me, maybe she's asking her sister, but all I can do is shrug my shoulders. I hope not.
"It's not bulletproof," Riley murmurs. "It's bullet-resistant, he said. He told me why, but I don't remember, something to do with a Vertucci man only needing a place to take a breather if people broke in, not somewhere to hide forever... he used the word 'honor,' too… My head, oh, my head..."
More bullets. At the door, at the door frame, at the walls around it. The door holds, but it groans beneath the onslaught.
I take Morgan's hand, then I take Riley's, even though I know she may not even be mentally present right now. We only have a temporary reprieve before death breaks the door down.
"Love you both," I say.
If I die, I die with my sisters.
The way things are going, it won't be long.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Striker
Roaring down the road with the screaming of my bike’s engine filling my ears, I think about what awaits me. Combat against an enemy who has us outnumbered. Death, most likely.
But Danielle, too.
A chance to protect her, to save her, to tell her just how wrong I was and make things up to her for not listening, for not believing her in the first place.
If my death gets Danielle Green out of danger, it'll be a life well spent.
There's a bandage and a quick set of stitches on my back that barely contain the blood that wants to flow out of my wound. Eliza chewed my ear off when she saw the ugly red streak, then she fixed it and spent the rest of the time cooing at little Luca, a giant smile on her face. Not that I blame her — he really is adorable.
At the pull-off from the main road that leads to the long driveway to the Vertucci family compound, we spot a semi-truck pulled onto the side and an incredibly large man standing next to it. He's got a frantic look on his face, and he's staring anxiously into the distance toward the Vertucci compound. And again, he is the largest man I have ever seen in my life.
Smokey and I trade a look that says —Are you seeing this shit?— and I pull to the side of the road and hop off my bike.
