Damage Read online

  I see the first two men when we turn the corner. They look almost weepy from the heat. They’re leaning against the wall of the building, each smoking a cigarette, each with a machine gun slung over his shoulder.

  “Where’s the third?” Rafa asks.

  I’m already scanning. “There. Taking a piss.” The man is the first to see us as he walks out of the bushes along the side of the road. A look of panic crosses his features and I watch as he fumbles with one hand on the fly of his jeans while trying to get his gun with the other.

  Before he can get either done, he’s down.

  The shooter must have a silencer on his weapon because although I don’t hear the shot, I know exactly when he hits his target in the right knee, dropping him instantly as he screams in agony.

  “So much for a quiet entrance,” Rafa says.

  “My entrance wasn’t intended to be quiet,” I say, opening the door as the SUV comes to a stop. I see another of the soldiers drop as a third raises his arms high in surrender.

  Francesco Catalano’s men step out of their hiding places and Rafa flanks me as we walk toward the entrance.

  “Stefan, you should wait until we have the soldiers contained.”

  “I’m not afraid of these men. They have what’s mine.”

  A machine gun unloads and we take cover as the shooter appears in the upstairs window. Bullets spray the SUVs. A moment later, the shooting becomes erratic as he’s hit by one of our men and his body flops over the windowsill, the glass of the window long gone.

  The machine gun finally drops to the ground and the shooting ceases.

  The door bursts open and a soldier rushes us, weapon ready. Another man appears at a different window upstairs.

  They get a couple of rounds off before I hit one and one of our soldiers takes out another.

  At my signal, the men spread out around the building.

  “On your knees. Hands behind your head,” I yell to the one guard who surrendered like a pussy when we pulled up.

  He obeys instantly, but his gun is still strapped to his shoulder.

  I take it, sling it over mine. I lean down, grab him by his dusty hair and make him look at me.

  “Any more men inside?”

  “No!” he shakes his head frantically, looking at the dead one in the window.

  “And the girl?”

  He’s shaking, blubbering.

  “The girl,” I ask, fisting his hair hard.

  “Out back.”

  I haul him to his feet. “Take me to her.” I shove him ahead of me into the building.

  It’s dark, the only light streaming in from the few glassless windows. The interior is completely destroyed, the stairs half-ruined. Any furniture that’s still recognizable is rotting and the place stinks of piss and earth.

  Better than the morgue, I tell myself.

  I push him along. The house is deeper than it appears from the outside.

  Rafa is behind me along with two other men. Our weapons are drawn, in case anyone lied and there are more armed men inside.

  We walk through two more rooms, stepping over debris, the bones of some unidentifiable animal.

  “If you’re fucking with me,” I start.

  He shakes his head, moves through an opening that was once a door to a walled-in courtyard. The walls are high and in the center is a well and I’m going to fucking kill him when he goes directly to it. He shoves the piece of wood covering it aside.

  I hear her before I see her. Her gasp echoes as sunlight pours into the deep well.

  I look down.

  Something moves and she screams, pulling her knees in and the terror in her voice makes every muscle in my body tighten.

  “Gabriela,” I yell down, shoving the man aside and leaning the machine gun I took off of him against the well. A soldier takes hold of him and I peer down. The well has got to be sixteen, maybe eighteen feet deep.

  Rafa is beside me in an instant. He looks down at her.

  “Ah, fuck,” he mutters.

  She’s huddled against a corner on her knees. Her hands are bound behind her and a hood covers her face. Something runs across her lap, a mouse maybe, and she screams again.

  “I’m coming, Gabriela. I’m coming to get you.”

  I don’t know if she hears but she’s trying to stand, to press her back into the wall.

  “Here,” Rafa says and I look at him, at the rope ladder he’s unraveling into the well.

  “We’re throwing a ladder down. Just be still, Gabriela. It’s me. It’s Stefan. I’m coming.”

  I climb down into the cold, damp space. The rope is old, and I have to be careful.

  When I get closer, she starts screaming again.

  “It’s Stefan,” I tell her, taking hold of her shoulders, pulling her into me. Holding her tight.

  The instant she knows it’s me, her body goes limp and she begins to sob, her hooded face buried against my chest.

  I look around. I’m glad the well is at least dry. They didn’t have her sitting in filthy water.

  I pull back to look at her. She’s covered in dirt and shivering and for as hot as it is up there, it’s fucking cold down here. Although I think without that covering at the top of the well, it would have been worse for her.

  She’s cold, but she’s alive.

  I have to hold her upright as I look around the small space, see the hole the mouse must have disappeared into, see the carcasses of bigger animals rotting nearby.

  It’s probably better she had that hood over her head.

  “Stefan?” she manages.

  I hug her again, hear her whimpering softly beneath the hood.

  “Are you hurt?”

  She makes a sound and leans against me, her face, her torso, her weight fully into me. I want nothing more than to pull that hood off. To look into her eyes. To see for myself she’s not hurt. To tell her she’s safe.

  But I need to get her out of here before I do that. She’ll panic if she sees what’s down here.

  The rope ladder concerns me, though. She’s too weak to climb on her own but I’m not sure it will hold both of us.

  First, I untie the rope at her wrists, rub them, eyeing the bruised, raw flesh, the marks on her through the ripped tatters of her clothes.

  Her hands move to the hood, but I capture her wrists.

  “Let me get you out of here first,” I say.

  “I want it off.”

  “Trust me, Gabriela.”

  She hesitates, then nods. “Okay,” comes her small, trembling voice.

  “We’re going to climb up,” I tell her, trying to keep my voice calm. I have to carry her up. I have no choice.

  When I pull away, she cries out. “Don’t leave me!”

  “Shh. It’s all right. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Stefan,” Rafa’s voice calls down when he realizes what I’m going to do. “The rope isn’t strong enough.”

  “It has to be,” I say. I turn to Gabriela who can’t see me. “Wrap your legs around me,” I tell her, lifting her up.

  She barely manages and I wonder if they’ve given her food or water in the last few days.

  “Good. Now hold on tight and don’t let go no matter what,” I say, folding her arms around my neck and holding her to me with one arm wrapped around her.

  I keep her like this for a moment before beginning the careful climb up. My progress is slow and the rope strains beneath our combined weight. When I’m about two-thirds of the way up, it tears beneath my foot and Gabriela screams, clinging so tight she’s almost choking me.

  I stop moving. Hug her tight to me.

  “It’s okay. We’re okay.”

  I look down. I look up.

  “A little farther and I can take her,” Rafa calls to me.

  I move again, carefully but as quickly as I can, hearing the tattered rope strain with every move, and just as Rafa takes hold of Gabriela, the rung I’ve got my feet on rips away, the ladder dropping to the well floor, le
aving me dangling.

  She screams again, but Rafa hauls her up and I shift my grip to the edge of the well and hoist myself up and over.

  I go to her, ignoring the burn of the rope on the palms of my hands. I take hold of her shoulders, pull her to me once more before taking the hood off. Relief floods through me at seeing her bruised, tear-stained face again.

  She blinks, squints. It was black where she was, and the sunshine is bright.

  I move her into the shade of the house. After a few moments, her eyes adjust and when they focus and she sees me, she breaks down into a sob and clings to me and I think how scared she must have been. How terrified.

  And I know I’m going to kill these men. I’m going to kill them slowly.

  “I want the men lined up outside. On their knees,” I tell Rafa, cupping the back of her head, keeping her close.

  “On it.”

  Without a word, I lift Gabriela in my arms and carry her out. One of our men opens the back door of the first SUV and I set her inside it.

  “I need water,” I tell him.

  He nods, goes to the trunk and returns with a bottle. I take it from him, open it. I haven’t taken my eyes off her once as I brush matted, dirty hair back from her face. I hold the bottle to her lips, and she takes a sip.

  “Make sure none of those tourists get close,” I tell the soldier. “Station men on either side of the street.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I pet the tangle of her hair, look at the dark spot on her temple. Notice the old one on her forehead and remember the damage to Rafa’s car.

  But that’s a question for another time.

  With my thumb, I wipe away a tear. I rub her skull, feeling for bumps, but I don’t find any. I note each bruise on her neck.

  Where her top is ripped, I see the bruise on her side, and another near her belly button. I can make out the print of a shoe and rage boils inside me.

  I touch each mark softly, making a mental note, shifting my gaze to her thighs, to the marks there, and down to her feet. She’s wearing one running shoe. The other foot is bare.

  I meet her gaze again, tilt her face to mine. “Did they touch you?” I force myself to ask and I can see the effort it takes for her to shake her head.

  Her gaze widens when it moves over my shoulder and I know the men are ready.

  She pulls me to her when I draw back.

  “I want to go. I want to get away from here,” she manages.

  I nod. “We will. I need to take care of this first. Do you know which ones put the bruises on you?” The others will have a swifter death.

  She glances over my shoulder and I follow her gaze when it focuses on one man in particular.

  “Him?”

  Before she looks back at me, I see her exchange a look with Rafa.

  My muscles tense and my eyes narrow when I look back at my cousin and he quickly shifts his gaze.

  “I don’t know,” Gabriela says. “When I woke up, I was in a van and they never took the hood off.”

  “Did they give you any food? Water?”

  “Water once.”

  “Okay. You’ll wait down the hill for me.”

  She shakes her head, wraps her hands desperately around my shoulders. She opens her mouth to protest.

  “Shh,” I say, again cupping her face. I kiss the first tear that falls, taste the salt of it. Then kiss her forehead. “I don’t want you to see this.”

  “I don’t want to be alone.”

  “You’ll do as you’re told now. The driver and another soldier will be with you. You’re safe. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  She looks over at the kneeling men again. At the dead one still flopped out of the upstairs window. He got off easy.

  “You’re going to hurt them?” she finally asks.

  “Yeah. I am. For every mark on you, they’ll have twice that from me.” Before I throw them into that well to rot.

  I leave that part out.

  She studies me, those sad sea-foam eyes understanding I won’t let this go. Is that because she’s a Marchese? Would someone outside of our world understand?

  “Okay,” she says.

  I nod, but before I let her go, I need to say one more thing. “I didn’t hurt Alex, Gabriela. What happened to him, it wasn’t me. I swear it.”

  She freezes and it’s like she just remembered. A moment later, her face crumples. I take her in my arms, and she sobs again, silent sobs that wrack her shoulders. I hold her, cup the back of her head. Feel her like this, feel her giving herself to me in her grief.

  “Go on now, let’s get this done and go home, okay?” I whisper in her ear.

  I feel her nod as I draw back. The driver and another of our men get into the car after I give them instructions and once the SUV is out of sight, I turn to the kneeling men awaiting their sentence.

  2

  Gabriela

  I shiver in the backseat of the SUV as we wait for Stefan and the others. We’re parked just outside of the town and tourists pass by on foot, laughing with each other, waving fans to cool themselves in the stifling heat, children playing as they run up ahead of their parents.

  And all I can do is sit here and think about what’s happening up there. What Stefan is doing.

  How was this going on just blocks from where I was trapped?

  The driver looks at me. “Too cold?”

  I drop my arms, shake my head no, even though I am.

  I think about Stefan, how he came for me even though I was the one who ran away. How he risked himself to carry me out of that well. I have no doubt he didn’t remove the hood because what I would have seen down there would have terrified me.

  I think about how gentle he was. Like the other night when I’d cut myself breaking his bottle of whiskey. Gentle and caring. Like I mattered. Like he actually cared about me being hurt.

  My mind wanders back up the hill again. He’s not being gentle now of that I have no doubt.

  If I strain to hear, is that a bullet being fired or is it my imagination? Will Stefan really kill all those men?

  Don’t I know the answer even as I ask the question?

  I am a Marchese, after all. My father may not appear to be as brutal as Stefan, but I know him. I’ve seen first-hand what crossing my father can do.

  My thoughts move to Alex and the thought of his death, of his vicious murder, makes my stomach hurt. He didn’t deserve to die. And he didn’t deserve to die like that.

  How am I going to tell Gabe? How will I explain it?

  And do I believe Stefan?

  I remember Alex’s text and realize that my iPod is gone. It’s at the bottom of the ocean with the dead man.

  I’ll never be able to go back and reread old texts, revisit old stories. The fact that I’ll never see him again hits then. Even though I know he’s dead, it’s like I’m only now realizing what that means.

  I will never see Alex again.

  I will never talk to him again. Never hear his voice.

  If it wasn’t Stefan, if I believe him, then who?

  But why would Stefan do it? What would he have to gain? Especially after talking to him, he knew Alex was no threat, not in any way. In fact, if he does care about me even a little bit, he’d know that it would hurt me to hurt Alex.

  Is that why whoever did it, did it?

  Guilt knots my stomach but I’m distracted by the cavalcade of black SUVs with their dark tinted windows coming our way.

  I see Rafa first. He’s driving the first SUV and Stefan is talking to him. Rafa looks at me. His expression doesn’t change when he does.

  The man up there, the one I recognized, I think he was the one driving the car that rammed into us the other day. I’m very sure, actually. I couldn’t forget those eyes if I tried.

  So, was it the same person who ordered the chase that ordered my kidnapping? And how did the kidnappers even find me when they did? The only person who knew where I was was my dad and he wouldn’t have done something like this.


  Would he?

  The procession comes to a stop and Stefan climbs out of the front seat, leaving Rafa alone in the vehicle. He gets into the back seat with me.

  He looks at me and I at him and I see how his hair is a little mussed, see how he’s absently rubbing the knuckles of one hand with the other. I almost expect to find a splattering of blood on him, but I don’t. Although he’s dressed in black from head to toe so maybe it’s just that I can’t see it.

  Our driver takes the lead and the other SUVs follow ours.

  I realize I never buckled my seatbelt when Stefan leans over me to buckle it.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  I nod. “What did you do to them?”

  He studies me. “You don’t need to be a part of that.”

  “I already am, aren’t I?”

  “You recognized one of the men.”

  I swallow, take a sip from my bottle of water.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” he says. “At home.”

  Home.

  “The phone you gave me, it’s gone,” I tell him. “I lost it in the water. I’m sorry.”

  “That doesn’t matter, Gabriela. What matters is that you’re safe.”

  “Who took me?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know.” He holds out his phone. “Call your father.”

  I look at it, but I shake my head. I have too many questions I know my father won’t answer. Like how he knew so quickly what had happened to Alex. Like how there was a second boat out there. How it came right toward us like those men knew exactly where we were.

  Stefan types out a text. “I’ll let him know you’re safe.”

  “Stefan?”

  He hits send and looks at me, tucking his phone into his pocket.

  “Did my father do this?”

  I can see from the look on his face he’s considered this.

  “I called him twenty minutes before I went outside. How did that other boat get out there so fast? How did they know we’d be out there at all?”

  “That’s what I’m going to find out.”

  I look out the window. Could my father have done this to me? Is he that wicked?

  “Where are we?”

  “We’re in Calabria. It’s on the mainland and the town they held you in is called Pentedattilo. We’ll take the jet back to Palermo. Or we can get a hotel room, get you cleaned up, get some food if you want.”