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“Rafe, listen to me. They want you dead. You are no good to Riley, or Gabriel, if you let them kill you.”
“I can’t let them take her.” I reach into my holster for my gun but the one with blonde hair, who looks straight out of a fucking Calvin Klein commercial, shakes his head at me warningly.
I doubt the handsome son of a bitch would think twice about putting a bullet in my skull. In fact, I’m surprised he hasn’t done it already.
Sylvia steps forward bravely and tugs at my arm.
“We can get her back, but we have to leave. We’ll go to Italy and come up with a plan. Please, Rafe. You know they won’t hurt her. They think they’re saving her.” There are tears in the old woman’s eyes, and I have to make a split decision. I could run and try to snatch her from them, drag her into the plane and have a hail storm of bullets fired at me, perhaps even risk some of those shots hitting her. Or I can take our son to safety and spend every waking second plotting each of these men’s deaths.
A lump wedges my throat when it becomes clear what I have to do.
I let Riley see the tears in my eyes as I press the button on the side of the door to raise the stairs and close the door. She’s not screaming anymore— she’s sobbing. Her brother tries to break her fall as she drops onto her knees and tries, weakly, to crawl away from him. He holds her, his arms trying to comfort and restrain her at the same time.
What’s happening in front of me now is Riley’s destruction. It’s the ultimate test of her love for me, and she’s passing it with all the fight still left in her body. I hope she knows that I have no choice. I have to protect our son. I hope she knows that this is the worst pain I’ve suffered, and I hope she knows that this isn’t goodbye.
I will come back for her.
The door lifts higher, taking her and the betrayed look on her face slowly out of my view, and the last vision I see of the woman who changed my life for the good is her beautiful, tear-filled eyes as she watches me leave her.
I drop to the floor and fist at my hair in agony. Nico orders the pilot to take off, and as we start to move, I expect the sounds of gunfire and bullets to ricochet off the plane. They don’t come, or maybe they do, and I just don’t hear them… because all I can hear is Riley screaming my name, and all I can feel is the pain of us being ripped apart.
Nico somehow drags me onto a seat and buckles me up as my plane lifts off the ground. And as I leave the best part of me behind on the tarmac, I realize that I didn’t break Riley Hayes at all.
She broke me.
“I had a clear fucking shot. I could have ended him.” One of the men drops the arm he was using to point a gun at Rafe when the plane takes off.
“That wasn’t part of the deal, Jess,” The old man standing beside my brother shrugs. His voice is so deep I feel it vibrate in my chest.
I can’t stop shaking, my throat feels raw from screaming, and my limbs ache from the tight hold Liam has on me. He still hasn’t let me go, even though the plane has lifted from the ground, and there’s no hope of me escaping.
“You’re gonna be okay, Riley. I gotcha,” he whispers to me again. It’s all he’s been saying to me since these people drove into the hangar and grabbed me against my will.
“You don’t understand what you’ve done,” I sob, clutching at Raggy bear in my hands. Gabriel can’t sleep without him. How is Raphael going to explain all this to him? He’s too young to understand.
My body stops struggling. It’s too weak from fighting so hard to get to Rafe.
I don’t blame him. I understand there was nothing he could do to save me. All these men were pointing a gun at him. Our son was on that plane, and he had to protect him. He did the right thing, leaving me behind. But it doesn’t make it hurt any less.
“You’re safe now. We saved you.” Liam forces me to look at him properly, and the relief on his face turns to confusion when I shake my head. He seems so different. So grown. He’s a man now. His arms have almost doubled in size since I last saw him.
“I’ve been looking for you for so long. I never gave up… These people are my friends. We’re gonna take you home and take care of you.” He tries to comfort me, but how can he when he’s just ripped my whole world away from me?
He clutches me tight to his chest, his strong arms wrapping around me the way he used to when we were living on the streets and freezing our asses off in the tent. I find no comfort in them like I used to. They feel suffocating and unfamiliar now.
“I didn’t need rescuing, Liam.” I find enough energy to fight my way out of his hold, and when he releases me, I wobble back onto my feet, wiping the tears from my eyes. Taking a better look around me at the other men, I notice all of them wearing the same leather vests, and all of them look dangerous.
“It’s okay. Grace told me you might feel that way. Verretti had you for a long time.” Liam speaks to me as if he’s talking me off a fucking ledge, and I hate it. “Get in the cage. We’ll go home, and we’ll get you better. It’s going to be okay.”
“Cage? I’m not getting in no fucking cage.” I stare back at him, horrified. Who are these people, and what have they done to my brother?
“He means the truck, darlin’.” The blonde guy who wanted to shoot the love of my life takes a few steps closer to me and smiles.
“I’m Jessie, a friend of your brother’s. No one here’s gonna hurt ya,” he assures me, and though his kind eyes force me to trust him, they don’t make me hate him any less.
“I need to get back to Rafe.” I try my best to speak clearly despite feeling hysterical.
My brother scrubs the frustration off his face with his palm before attempting to talk to me again.
