Total pages in book: 52
Estimated words: 48585 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 243(@200wpm)___ 194(@250wpm)___ 162(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48585 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 243(@200wpm)___ 194(@250wpm)___ 162(@300wpm)
I cry again as intense pain sweeps over me, knowing that I won’t make it to get the keys and get back to the car, not like this—not while I feel like I’m both going to pass out and be sick and die all at once. So, I take the final few steps toward the car, crying and holding my stomach as I leave a trail of blood in my wake. At least if I make it to the car, I can lie down on the seat and pass out. Whatever happens after that, I leave to God or fate or whatever now controls what happens to me.
As soon as I get close enough to the car to reach out and touch the door handle, I see my reflection in the window, covered in Leonardo’s blood, and pale as a ghost from the loss of my own. I look like an apparition, and I think perhaps I’m seeing one too. Before I pull the handle open, I see something else coming toward me off in the distance. A black car, speeding so fast that it is kicking up a veritable sandstorm behind its wheels. I don’t think I’m imagining it or hallucinating because I can hear the rev of the engine and smell the fuel burning as it comes to a quick stop.
Then, a man steps out of the car and runs toward me.
“Valentina!”
My eyes tunnel as I look with hope up ahead at the face that I want to see more than anything else.
“Luc?”
CHAPTER 19
LUC
“Zara, we need your help,” I say as Vincent and I burst through the doors of her office.
Her eyes glance up at us over the top of her laptop screen. “Geez, you know that knocking before barging in through a closed door is a thing, right?”
But as soon as she sees the desperate and furious look on my face, and the spray of Angelo Barone’s blood on Vincent’s face, Zara drops the sarcasm and realizes that this is a dire matter.
“What happened?” she asks.
“Leonardo ran from the auction with Valentina,” I explain as I pace the room furiously. “I almost had her, but he slipped away from me, grabbed her, and ran.”
“We were vastly outnumbered,” Vincent adds. “When we lost sight of Leonardo, we had to get out of there or risk not being able to get away at all.”
“Whose blood is that?” she asks as she motions toward the splatter covering Vincent’s clothes and face.
“Angelo Barone,” he proclaims proudly. “After all these years, he finally got what he deserved.”
“Sorry, not to give you this moment to bask in the glory of your revenge,” I say impatiently, knowing how much it means to Vincent and the entire Moretti family to have eliminated Angelo once and for all. “But we need to find Valentina now. God only knows what Leonardo will do to her after the trouble we just caused him at his auction. Not only did another one of his high-profile events just get ruined in front of an audience, but now he surely realizes that keeping Valentina around is nothing more than a liability for him.”
“Agreed,” Vincent nods as he sits down beside Zara, who is already getting to work pulling up the camera network around the city. “And he also now knows that selling her won’t be a viable option for him anymore, either. No one is going to want to risk purchasing a woman that puts them in our crosshairs, especially not after seeing what just happened to Angelo Barone.”
“I found them,” Zara announces within a matter of seconds. “Well, I kind of found them.”
“What does that mean?” I ask anxiously, looking over at her laptop screen.
“It means that I’ve got them on camera surveillance, leaving Leonardo’s estate, and driving through the city,” she explains. “I’ve got them driving all the way through the city until the camera network ends. I can see them heading out to the desert, taking the lone road, and driving at record pace. But after that, the city’s surveillance camera network ends. There aren’t any cameras in the desert.”
“So that’s where they are, though—in the desert outside the city?” I ask to be sure.
“Yep. If Leonardo had driven back onto the Strip, I would have been able to see it on the video feed. I sped up the video to the current moment, and there’s no sign of him, or his car, or Valentina re-entering the city. They’re out there in the desert somewhere still.”
“What the hell is he doing with her out in the desert?” Vincent asks me.
“I don’t know, but whatever it is, it can’t be good.”
I head for the door, and Vincent follows.
“No, thank you for all of your help, cousin, but I’m going after him alone this time,” I say as I pause momentarily before leaving. “He’s alone out there, and he owes me a debt for what he’s done to Valentina. I can take him on myself. I intend to put a bullet in his head just like you did to Angelo Barone. I’m sure you can understand that.”