AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Because something tells me we’re going to need his possessive rage to make it through this final test alive.
Make it through together.
Zedd looks at his watch now, hops out of the truck-bed, circles round to the front passenger side, pulls the door open. I stand on the truck-bed, hands on my hips, and watch Zedd get ready.
He straps a military-style web-belt across his body, packed with extra magazines for the two silencer-equipped Glock 17 handguns stuck into holsters. He scratches his beard, grunts, then unzips a black nylon bag, pulls out a Glock 19, a smaller handgun but just as lethal. “Here. It isn’t silenced like mine, but if we’re in a situation where you actually need to use it, the noise won’t matter. Stick it . . . somewhere.”
Nodding, I take the handgun and stick in into my bra, which is as conversative as my panties, with thick straps and an underwire that takes the added weight without sagging too much. Along with my private tutoring and horseback riding in Italy came weapons-training, and I’ve fired thousands of bullets in my young life, emptied hundreds of handgun and rifle magazines in between saunas and siestas.
I am a fucking mafia princess, after all.
“No machine guns?” I ask when I see him check some electronic device which I think is a WiFi-signal jammer for the security cameras on the Romero Estate wall.
Zedd chuckles. “This isn’t a Hollywood action movie. If we need to shoot our way out, we’re already dead. The plan is to fire just a single silenced shot into Ralph Romero’s head, then hide out and wait for the damn cavalry.”
I scan the woods like I’m expecting to see Carlo and a bunch of Volini soldiers crawling through the bushes in camouflage. But, as Zedd explained back at the house yesterday, Carlo is going to hang back at a safe distance until he gets confirmation that Ralph is dead.
“Here,” says Zedd, handing me a little black plastic box with a red blinking light and one button. “It’s a simple transmitter that sends a signal to Carlo’s receiver. Easier than trying to send a text. Once Ralph goes down, you push the button.”
“Me?” I frown, taking the little box that looks like a pager from the 1990s. “Why am I holding on to this?”
“In case I go down,” Zedd says matter-of-factly. “Then you can hit that button, even if Ralph is still alive. Maybe you’ll be able to get out in the chaos when Carlo and your father’s soldiers attack.”
I shake my head firmly, patting the handgun nestled against my boob. “If you go down, I’m going down with you. Besides, if Carlo gets that signal, he’s going to think Ralph is dead and maybe the Romero soldiers will stand down without their leader.” I shake my head again, place the box on the truck’s roof, cross my arms beneath my heavily armed boobies. “I won’t lead Carlo and the Volini soldiers into a battle where they’re outgunned. It’ll be a massacre, and I’ll be killed anyway.” I shrug, flash a wicked smile. “Or maybe Ralph will use me as a hostage. A bargaining chip. And I doubt you want to evenimaginewhat he’ll do to me to make Carlo surrender.”
Zedd’s face darkens to a deep red, and I’m surprised steam doesn’t come out of his ears. His fists clench so hard all his knuckles crack like dry branches beneath a rampaging bear. His big Adam’s apple moves as he swallows thickly, and I wonder if he’s going to just take me and run, leave this mafia-war for the mafiosos to finish, take his prize like a pirate and sail off into the sunset, flying the skull-and-bones flag, making me his curvy little wench.
But he won’t.
I know he won’t.
Because this lone-wolf has chosen to come in from the shadows, take his place in the pack, join the Family.
And start a new family.
Our family.
Now my hand goes unconsciously to my belly, and Zedd’s gaze flicks there instinctively. It’s been three weeks of nightly sex, with Zedd fucking me so deep, filling me so full, that although we don’t know for sure, we absolutelydoknow for sure.
“I must be insane to bring you along,” Zedd whispers, reaching for me and lifting me off the flatbed like a doll, holding me close to his warm body like he wants to take me inside him, protect me with all his heart, all his soul, all his love. “And even more insane to not just take you and run. It makes no damn sense that I’m risking it all to win this battle when I’ve already got my prize. And it makes even less sense that I’m taking you along.” He rubs his eyes, shakes his head. “But I can’t run with you, can’t take you away from your Family. And I can’t leave you alone out here in the woods, don’t have time to drive you to safety before Ralph gets back from the funerals.”
“So then it alldoesmake sense,” I inform him with surprising composure, perhaps even a spark of excitement, like maybe the adrenaline is kicking in, making everything sparkly and shiny, surreal and superficial, like there’s a deeper reality shimmering beneath the surface of this earthly drama, this flesh-and-blood façade, this poignant game of pretend. “Come on. Let’s go. Try to keep up, OK?”
I smack him on the lips, wriggle my way out of his bear-hug, then tramp off into the woods in my tennis shoes and wedding dress. But after a few steps I realize Zedd isn’t following. He’s just standing there with his arms crossed over his chest, left eyebrow raised, mouth twisted in a half-smile.
“This way, Princess,” he says with growly satisfaction, pointing his big thumb in the direction opposite to where my ass was heading with all the confidence in the world. He waits for me to trudge over to him, then slides his arm around my waist, smacks his palm against my embarrassed butt, kisses me sloppily on my head. “And remember that I’m in charge. I say run, you run. I say jump, you don’t even ask how high, you just start jumping.”
16
ZEDD
“Jump,” I whisper up at Amelia, who’s perched atop the Romero Estate wall in her wedding dress. A glance at my WiFi-signal jammer tells me we don’t have much time. The camera-signals have been jammed for three minutes, and if I don’t bring them back online pretty damn quick it’ll be obvious that something’s up. Three minutes is about the limit for it to look like a temporary glitch, signal interference, something like that. “Come on. I’ll catch you. Jump. Right now, babe.”
The wall is only nine feet off the ground, but Amelia’s frozen, like it’s only just sinking in that we’re breaching the border, passing the point of no return, simple logic telling her we’re probably not making it out alive. Her brain is sending panic signals now, her ancient survival mechanism kicking in, urging her to come to her senses and run like hell in the other direction.
And shit, that’s what my brain is screaming too. How damn reckless and stupid is this, Zedd? Everything you’re doing is for Amelia, and you bring her with you into the lion’s den?
My head throbs as we stare into one another’s eyes, time slowing down as if the universe is giving us one last chance to take the easy way out and run, leave her father to fight his own damn war, let the mafia thugs kill each other for reputation and territory while the lovers flee the scene and start a new life.
