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He drew his gun up vertically while holding his forefinger up to his mouth, telling me to be as quiet as humanly possible.
I was terrified that the men would find me.
But that fear didn’t last long.
My heart lodged itself in my throat as a series of loud, violent gunshots broke through the silence. Even though my positioning was rather awkward in way of hiding, I was able to see the madness that was taking place. As soon as Junior and his men made their way toward the staircase, they were chaotically ambushed by Francesco’s men.
Junior began shooting without a moment’s hesitation. Part of him probably knew that this entire ordeal was a trap from the very second he’d arrived. The ongoing suspicion in his tone from earlier was evidence enough of that.
Yet he was firing away with his gun as if he really believed he was going to make it out of this place alive.
The room swarmed with loud voices, shouting curses and several more gunshots.
I quickly clamped my hands over my ears in hopes of muffling as much of the ear-piercing sounds as I could. My eyes, on the other hand, remained open and fixated on the merciless insanity on the floor below.
Out of the corner of my eye, I finally spotted Elio. He had purposely remained hidden for much of the fight until it seemed opportune for him to join in. He acted with confidence and firm authority, which made me feel somewhat at ease.
Unfortunately, with every gun fight came the bloody casualties. Of the four men that Junior had brought along with him, three of them had fallen to the ground, as well as a few of Francesco’s men. No doubt, the wounds were fatal.
My heart ached in my chest for the tragedy, regardless of whose side they were fighting on.
At some point, the gunshots stopped and all I heard was the sound of thundering footsteps. Junior and the one man who remained with him ran out of the warehouse. Francesco and his men chased after them in wild pursuit.
I turned my head to see Leo nodding his head, assuring me that it was safe to leave the room. My hands slowly fell away from my ears while I cautiously slipped down the staircase. I needed to find Elio and see that he was okay.
“Elio!” I called out.
I glanced around until I saw the back of him walking through the room with Antonio. He turned around to face me and smiled.
“Cat!”
I felt breathless and utterly elated. I rushed to his side and threw my arms around him. It was then I realized that Antonio was among the injured.
“Oh, my God,” I muttered.
“One of the rogue bullets must have hit during the shootout,” Elio explained.
The bullet had struck Antonio directly in the chest, likely killing him instantly. I was genuinely surprised, but no more surprised than when I glanced up to see two of Francesco’s men walking back into the warehouse.
Both men looked purely exhausted and were short of breath as they spoke.
“Sir, we’ve captured the one man Junior had with him, but Junior has escaped.”
My eyes widened in disbelief while Elio let out a snarling noise of frustration.
“Fuck!” he shouted angrily. “Have Franky and the rest of you scope out the entire city. He couldn’t have gotten that far. No matter what it takes, find him!”
Once the men left us, my gaze fell back to a lifeless Antonio. Was it wrong of me for not feeling happy that the man was dead? After all the damage and destruction that he’d caused, he certainly didn’t deserve an ounce of my sympathy… but I felt emotionless, though somewhat safer.
Elio placed Antonio’s body beside the others and hastily returned back to my side. He cupped my face in his warm hands and checked me over for any possible injuries.
“Elio, really, I’m fine,” I assured him.
He pulled me into a searing kiss and spoke against my lips.
“I swear I will never let you get this close to something so dangerous ever again,” he promised.
I could have argued against such a fruitless statement, considering life had proven to be nothing short of unpredictable.
What about Junior? Were Francesco’s men capable of finding him?
I wanted so desperately to believe that they would. With Antonio gone, we were more than halfway there. But in the meantime, I simply allowed him to comfort me and ease the tension in my muscles… until Elio took away that comfort with one sentence.
“I’m sending you home,” he said.
*Caterina*
He was going to stay there and send me away. My brows pulled together in confusion. What the hell was he talking about?
My lips parted. As I was getting ready to speak, Elio instantly cut me off with a tone that was both concerning and stern.
“I’m having someone take you back to the apartment,” he stated. “This is not up for discussion, Caterina.”
My stomach twisted in knots. As much as I wanted to stand there and argue, I honestly didn’t have it in me to try.
‘He’s not shutting me out,’ I told myself. ‘After everything that’s gone on, Elio is not trying to push me away… he’s merely trying to gain control of the situation again. And the last thing he needs to worry about is me.’
I asked about his plan before I left. Elio told me that he was going to stay back with Leo and Franky to help deal with the bodies and potentially create a new game plan should no word of Junior come through the wire.
So, I left without so much as another word, following the man he’d assigned as my driver. I was too stunned by everything that had happened to even remember the guy’s name. I struggled to keep my eyes from lingering on those who hadn’t made it through the shootout as we headed for the cars outside.
Once I was back within the safe walls of our penthouse, I tossed my phone to the side and headed straight for the bathroom. An awful wave of nausea hit me, and I was certain I was going to be sick. I had gone through yet another terrible event that was sure to leave a mental scar on me.
Thankfully, the feeling passed, and that just left me wanting a shower to at least help me unwind.
‘They’re going to find him,’ I thought mindlessly to myself.
It became my mantra for a half hour, or rather however long I’d been home since the shooting at the warehouse. In complete honesty, I couldn’t remember much after I discovered that Antonio was dead. My mind grew foggy, and the horrid events of the evening were playing around like a broken record in my head.
I pressed my arm against the cool tile of my shower and allowed the hot water to stream down my back. The scolding temperature felt incredible as it helped bring my body’s temperature back up to its normal level.
I hadn’t realized how cold I was until Elio wrapped his arms around me earlier. It had brought back a warm, familiar sense of security that I needed desperately, one I was sorely missing right now.
‘They’re going to find him,’ I repeated.
I let my eyes flutter closed and let out a long-focused breath in hopes of leveling out my anxiety. I tried to make sense of all the troubling thoughts that clouded my mind.
I remembered hearing all the gunshots going off and the unnerving sounds of men shouting. My muscles tensed uncontrollably with every thought.
I had glanced at Antonio’s lifeless body and made the rash assumption that everything was over. But when Francesco’s men came back to tell us that Junior had gotten away, I felt the intense weight of my mistake.
Of course, the bastard had managed to slip away.
Elio was beyond pissed off, and who could blame him? Tonight was supposed to be the night this would all be over. Both Antonio and Junior were meant to be taken down. The job was only half done. And that was not good enough.