Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 54522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
“Fuck!” I shout inside the empty car as I strain to reach for my cell phone that flew across the dashboard on impact. As soon as I have it in my hand, I call Luc. And before he can even say hello, I holler into the phone.
“They’ve taken her!” I shout. “They orchestrated a crash when Isla and I were leaving the canyon. My car is a mangled mess that has me pinned beneath the crunched driver’s side door, but they pulled Isla out of the car and took her. I couldn’t shoot them because I couldn’t get a clear shot.”
“Slow down, Vincent,” Luc says. “Who took her?”
“The Barones,” I growl. “I saw the driver as he sped off with her in the back—three men in total—and I recognized the one driving. It was one of Angelo’s capos. You’ve got to come get me out of this car, and I’ve got to go after them and get Isla back.”
“On my way,” Luc says. I can hear the urgency in his voice and the sound of his car engine starting. “Was she hurt or injured at all in the crash?”
“No, not that I could tell. But they’ve got her now, Luc. And she saw me kill one of Angelo’s informants at the theatre,” I remind him. “Angelo knows that she’s my weakness, that’s why he took her. I know it, and you know what that will mean for her.”
“Yeah, I do,” he sighs. “It means that she won’t be unharmed for long.”
“Hurry,” I say before hanging up.
I need to get to Isla. And I swear to God that if Angelo Barone or any of his men lays a finger on her, I will tear them apart limb from limb with my bare hands.
When Luc arrives, he brings Marco along, and they both attempt to open the car door from the outside. I’ve already torn up my hands trying to get it open, and I’m pretty sure I dislocated my shoulder in the accident. But as soon as I’m finally free from the car, I grab my gun, my phone, and tell them we need to go.
“There’s no time to waste,” I say as Luc grabs my arm and pops my shoulder back in. “I’ve got to get her back.”
“How are you going to do that?” Marco asks as the three of us get in his car and race back toward the strip. “If Angelo knows he can use Isla as leverage against you, he will use every bit of advantage out of holding her in his possession for as long as possible.”
“You need to be strategic,” Luc advises. “Think this through before you fly off the handle and do something that you can’t rein in.”
It’s much too late for that. I’ve already flown off the handle the moment that I watched Isla being pulled away from me.
“I’m not worried about being able to rein anything back in,” I say as rage consumes me. “It’s Angelo Barone who should be worried about what I’m going to do now.”
CHAPTER 15
ISLA
Iwake with a throbbing headache, either caused by the car accident or the blow I received to the back of the head by my kidnappers. Either could have easily knocked me unconscious. The last thing that I remember is being pulled from the car with Vincent calling my name frantically. I remember seeing him pinned between the crushed car door and the steering wheel, unable to free himself and help me. Two men dragging me away. They forced me into the backseat and then sped away, and suddenly, everything turned black.
I try to move, but quickly find out that I can’t. Someone has tied my hands behind my back and tethered my ankles to the legs of the chair I’m sitting in. Already, I can tell that I might not make it out of this alive.
I look around the room that I’m locked up in and see nothing but blank walls and a long table butted up against the corner. There are guns on the table, lots of them. The men who stuck me in here with a pile of artillery either think that I’m too weak to get loose from their restraints or too scared to fire one of their guns at them. Either way, they are probably right. Given half the chance, I would try to kill them. But I’m a dancer, not an assassin, trained in pirouettes, not guns, so chances are good that I would miss if I tried to fire a shot.
As I sit there alone in the empty room, I try to swallow my fear. Whoever did this must have orchestrated the whole thing in order to incapacitate Vincent using that planned car accident. Otherwise, there’s no way that he would have let anyone take me. I know that much for a fact. And whoever is behind my kidnapping better hope that Vincent never gets out of that car alive because if he does—they’re dead.