Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 118965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 595(@200wpm)___ 476(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 595(@200wpm)___ 476(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
I can’t give her up.
Not now.
Not ever.
“Sir?” the man on the other end of the line says.
It’s the driver I sent to the new house.
I make my way downstairs with quick steps. “What did you find?”
“We need to call an ambulance to the new house. Roch is here. He’s been shot, but he’s alive.”
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
Angelo
* * *
“What?” I stop dead at the bottom of the staircase. “Roch?”
“Yes, sir. He’s in bad shape, but he has a pulse.”
I start walking again, my steps powered with urgency. “Where’s he been shot?”
“In the stomach. I don’t see any other wounds.”
“Forget an ambulance. I’ll send a chopper from Bastia. They’ll need to operate, and they don’t have a theater here.”
“Yes, sir. You’ll want to come and see this for yourself. There are bodies.”
“Ours or theirs?”
“Theirs.”
I gnash my teeth. “Who were they?”
“Marziale’s men. They have the cross and dagger tattoo on their wrists.”
“None of them has the tattoo on his hand?”
“No, sir. Marziale isn’t one of them.”
“Call in the cleanup team but tell them not to touch anything until I get there,” I say under my breath, making sure the front staff don’t hear me.
“Yes, sir.”
“What about our men?”
“We don’t know yet. There’s no sign of them. The others just left to search the forest.”
“I’ll be there in half an hour,” I say before hanging up.
The receptionist licks her lips in a nervous gesture as I stop at her desk.
“Give me the paperwork,” I say. “I’ll complete everything and drop it off later.”
“I’m afraid—”
“I don’t have time for this.”
She thrusts a file at me.
“If there’s any change in my wife’s condition, you call me. I’m keeping you personally responsible.”
“My shift ends at ten,” she calls after me as I walk through the doors.
My driver pulls up at the entrance. I get into the back of the car and just sit for a moment, thinking things through.
I sent Marziale a message when I eliminated his spy. His response was to retaliate by targeting my wife and the children living under my roof. He didn’t care whether the kids lived or died. He paid those incompetent motherfuckers to do the job because the outcome didn’t matter to him. All that mattered was Sabella. He wanted to hit me where he knew he’d cause the most damage. He would’ve taken his best men with him to fight the battle that truly counted. He knew my wife is my biggest weakness, and the only way he could know that is if Daisy told him. I made my feelings about Sabella crystal clear when I gatecrashed her wedding and dragged her off to Corsica. My tireless and violent pursuit of her is enough to tell anyone how much she means to me.
She’s everything.
She’s the reason I fight, live, and survive.
Like the rest of Sabella’s family, Daisy was aware of the events that transpired in South Africa. Like everyone else familiar with our history, she knew Sabella was my obsession. Then she came to my house with her nose to the ground like a hound sniffing for blood and discovered Sabella and I didn’t live together. When I rejected her proposal, she went to my uncles and saw her chance when she discovered they weren’t loyal. I’m willing to bet every penny I own that’s the call she made straight after walking through my door.
My uncles were already scheming to get rid of my wife. Knowing I’d kill them if they laid a finger on her, they needed to convince me to do it myself. That was why they paid Hugo to feed me false information. I already doubted Sabella. It wasn’t difficult to manipulate me into believing the lie. They counted on me to put a bullet through her head. I made how much I cared about her as plain as day. They knew killing her would floor me like nothing else. They hoped to hit me when I was at my weakest and to cover it up as a police raid.
Only, I didn’t kill Sabella. I never would. No matter what she did. My uncles needed someone else to take care of the task. Then Daisy showed up, and they saw their opportunity. So they made a deal with Marziale. They slipped him my wife’s location. He’d go in and do the dirty work. With the help of his army, they’d get rid of me while my defenses were down.
Uncle Enzo knew. He knew what Sabella’s fate would be. He could’ve easily stopped it. Yet all day, he didn’t say a word. Why? Because he still hoped their plan would work out. He still believed Marziale would save the day and that Gianni would escape the death sentence I reserve for traitors.
Only, Marziale isn’t a team player. He’s a greedy bastard who works alone. That way, he doesn’t have to divide the spoils. Too bad he got to Daisy before I did. Maybe Laura was aware of Daisy’s plans. Maybe not. Either way, she was a witness. Collateral damage. He ordered his man to finish them quickly.