Page 4 of Between Steel and Secrets
“Ask that monster!” I point at the man who retrieved it. “He tore its head off.”
Zeke shrieks more. The crocodile tears are real, and my heart breaks because he doesn’t realize his favorite toy is safely at home in his bed.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Simone?” Nova glares, storming up to him. “What kind of sick fuck likes to make little kids cry?”
He bites his tongue and glances at Dante. “I swear I didn’t mean to destroy the stuffed animal. I just reached for it; maybe it got caught on something under the seat when I pulled it out.”
Dante rolls his eyes and storms down the hallway to his office, slamming the door shut. The walls rattle, and I can finally breathe again.
I carry Zeke to the playroom, doing my best to settle him down, but the best distraction seems to be the toys.
His face is still splotchy, his eyes glassy, and he sniffles from the stuffy nose he has from crying, but he’s settling down.
Two
Luca
The gunfire above has silenced, and I can’t help but wonder who won the fight and who lost.
If it’s Massimo’s men, I’ll be dead in a matter of seconds, maybe minutes if I’m unlucky enough to suffer at their hands.
I’m careful not to alert anyone I’m alive until I know which side won.
Massimo grunts beneath me. His face is battered, his body pummeled, but he’s still alive, for now.
“Luca!” Ashton’s voice echoes in the distance.
My best friend is still alive.
Nova would kill me if anything happened to Ashton.
“Down here!” I shout. “I’ve got Massimo!” He’s pinned under me, my weight pressing him into the earth, keeping him from bolting.
“Like hell you do.” He grunts and pushes me forcefully off him.
I go stumbling backward, smacking my ribs into a rock.
“Fucking asshole!” I shout and ignore the searing pain as I throw myself at him and catch a glimpse of the gun in his hand.
We wrestle with the metal, and he discharges the gun into the forest. I knock it several feet away and grab a nearby rock, smacking him over the scar on his face, where Ashton had previously shot him.
I swear the man is a cat with nine lives.
Not if I have anything to say about it.
The trauma to his head knocks him unconscious.
He’s still breathing, for now.
Blood drips down his eyes and across his cheek.
Catching my breath after the jolt of pain to my chest, Ashton finally makes it down the mountainside. “Is he still alive?” Ashton nods toward Massimo, whom I have pinned beneath me once again.
I’m not taking any chances.
“He’s got a pulse.”
“Luca, you down there?” Halsey shouts at us.
