It took everything I had not to inflict pain on Delilah’s father, but here I am, trying to be soft like Gianni suggested. His advice plays in my mind a hundred times a day.
Soft.
Stay soft.
Be softer.
So instead of putting a bullet through anyone’s head that makes Delilah unhappy, I think about her and how she’d feel.
Well, I think about how much she’d hate me if I killed anyone she cared about, and that right there makes me want to be soft. So, it’s progress. On the inside, I’m still a raging killer with a hotter temper than flames, but Delilah helps with that. She cools the anger constantly flowing through me.
There’s a small coffee cart in the science building, and Gianni is there ordering coffee for everyone.
“Ryan, I didn’t know what you wanted, so I got you a caramel…something.”
“Thank you,” Ryan says in a small, fragile voice, as if he’s wary of Gianni possibly tossing the hot coffee on him.
Delilah gets hot chocolate, and the rest of us get plain black coffee.
“Are we ready?” She chirps nervously. “What if he says no? I don’t want him to say no. I need this exam to graduate and attend medical school.”
“I think the whole being kidnapped thing will be reason enough, but if he doesn’t say yes, I have this to change his mind.” Carmine flashes his gun that’s tucked in his pants. “No one says no to me, and no one will say no to my wife. Ever.”
“I want to throw up,” she groans, taking my hand as she leads me down the hall and then up the stairs where her class is. Everyone follows behind us, and Ryan looks spooked. He looks like he’s going to run any second.
When we get to the top of the stairs, Ari whistles when a college student with long red hair walks by. She gives him a flirtatious grin, and he tries to go after her but Gianni stops him with a hand on his chest.
“We are here for something else. Don’t lose focus.”
“Right. Sorry.”
“
The woman you want one day; I hope she gives you a run for your money,” Delilah says over her shoulder.
Ari scoffs. “Please. I’ll never be tied down.”
“Yeah, I can’t wait to see your downfall.” Delilah takes a left down another hallway, and we come to a closed door with her professor’s name on it.
Matias, Gianni, and Ari have their hands on their weapons. Ryan is leaning against the wall, staring at the floor, not wanting confrontation. Delilah takes a breath and knocks, waiting for the professor to say something.
“Get back,” Gianni whispers, lifting his gun when he points to the floor.
We all look down, and Delilah gasps when blood pools from underneath the door.
I wrap my arms around Delilah and spin her until she’s beside Ryan. “You two stay together. Do you understand me?”
“Carmine.”
“Do you understand me?” I repeat.
Her eyes are round, but she nods vigorously, taking hold of Ryan’s hand.
“Good.” I take out my gun, and Ryan turns three shades of white.
“Ready?” I mouth to my men. They all nod. I lift my leg and kick the door open, letting out a string of curses at what I see inside.
Impossible.
There’s no way I could have missed this. Caleb, Christy’s boyfriend, has Delilah’s professor on the ground, gripping his head by his hair and a bloody knife in his hand. The professor isn’t dead, though. He’s barely alive, but he won’t be for long.
“Caleb!” Delilah sees him from behind me. “Oh my, God, what are you doing? What did you do!”
“Oh, shut the fuck up, Delilah.” He wipes the blood on his jeans, dropping the professor to the ground. “I can’t stand you. I can’t stand him either.” He lifts the knife and points it at Carmine. “Is it nice to have the life I deserve? Is it everything you thought it would be? Do you know how exhausting it is to try to ruin your fucking life? You’re like a cockroach that won’t die. You keep coming back. I hired the kidnapper, but he goes off the rails. I tried to kill your professor so you couldn’t take your test, yet here you are. You’re fucking everywhere!” he shouts at her.
I cock my gun, and Caleb maniacally laughs.
“You aren’t going to want to do that. I know something you don’t,” he sings.
“Why would you do this? What did I do to you?” Delilah cries. “And what about Christy?”
“What about her? She’s so fucking needy.”
“You better shut your fucking mouth,” Gianni steps forward, aiming his gun at Caleb’s head. “Don’t talk about her like that.”
“Why not? Do you want to fuck her too? I’ll let you have a shot. She’s a prude, though. She won’t give it up. So good luck with that.”
Gianni goes to pull the trigger, but I place my hand on his arm to stop him.
“What do you want, Caleb?”
“My name isn’t Caleb. It’s Caleb Milazzo.”
The room becomes dead silent. I can hear the blood dripping from the professor’s throat onto the floor and his gurgles as he struggles to breathe. I want to help him, but as long as Caleb stands over him with a knife I can’t.
If he can just hold on a little longer.
“That’s impossible,” Ari spits venomously. “We would know if we had a brother, and we wouldn’t have left you alone.”
“Your dad fucked around, cast me out, and sold me to Romano when I was just a baby. A fucking baby!” He roars. “You don’t know what it was like growing up in that household.”
“I do,” Ryan steps forward, putting on a brave face.
“I don’t know you. I would know you if we ran in the same circle,” Caleb, whatever he calls himself, says.
“You wouldn’t have. He kept me locked away. I escaped, and I came here. These aren’t the bad guys, Caleb. They would have taken you in if they had known.”
“I grew up in violence and pain, and I was constantly unwanted. I want everything you have, Carmine. I want to bring down the empire you’ve built, and to do that I started with Delilah—the only person you seem to give a damn about other than yourself.”
He’s obviously lost his mind.
“Romano had nothing to do with any of this. It’s been you the entire time?”
Caleb tosses his head back and laughs. “Romano hates you. He doesn’t give a fuck about what I do, but since I made a mess of things, he’s gone quiet. I don’t know where he is.” He sniffs, rubbing a hand under his nose.
I’m sick of this. Obviously, my father was a real piece of shit, but I won’t allow anyone to come near Delilah.
I lift my gun, sick of the game Caleb is playing.
“You aren’t going to want to do that.” Caleb lifts the knife against the light to see it shine.
“Why not?”
“Because if you want to find Christy, you won’t let anything happen to me.”
“What!” Delilah steps forward and tries to launch herself at him. “What did you do to her, you fucking sick freak! She loved you. She fucking loved you!” She screams, trying her best to get out of my hold. “Where is she?”
“She’s somewhere she can’t be found without me.”
Gianni pulls the trigger first, and the bullet rips through his shoulder, keeping him alive. Caleb drops the knife, and Matias kicks it to the side and aims the gun at his head.
“I will pluck out every hair, every nail, and cut every toe off your fucking body until you tell me where she is, brother or not,” I say. “You are nothing to me, Caleb. And if you think this is how you thought you’d get my attention, you are very wrong. No one threatens what is mine, and Delilah is mine which means so are her friends. You made a mistake.”
“Romano will come for you if you hurt me.”
I grin at him, taking his hand and snapping his wrist. He almost crumbles to the ground, but Matias keeps him on his feet. “I hope so. I have business with Romano that needs to be solved once and for all, and you’re just making a bigger mess of things. Did you think this would get me to sacrifice anything for you? My money? My power?”
Ryan is on the ground, yanking off his shirt to press against the professor’s throat while we try to get the truth out of him.
“This is what I’ll do. You tell me where Christy is, and I won’t make your death painful. I’ll make it quick, but either way, you’ll die, that I can promise. If you don’t tell me, I’ll skin you alive and burn your flesh right in front of you. You’ll be nothing but meat. And then, while your heart is still beating and you’re crying and begging for me to kill you, I won’t. I’ll let you cry and hope for death because that’s so much worse, isn’t it? You brought the wrong fucking mindset to this game of chess. I’m a master, Caleb.”
Matias presses the gun to Caleb’s cock, and I chuckle.
“She’s buried in the woods!” he sings like a canary. “You have an hour before she runs out of air. She’s off Route 5 near the mile three markers.”
“That wasn’t so hard, was it.” I snap my fingers. “Load him up and call an ambulance for the professor. Ryan, Ari, stay here with him, okay? Text me for updates.”
“Sure thing.”
“Wait, you said if I told you—”
I punch him in the throat, which has him gasping for breath. “And I lied. No way would I ever let you die peacefully.” I step over the blood and hold Delilah in my arms. “She’ll be okay. We will find her.”
“I don’t understand,” she says, as I push her out into the hall. “I don’t understand why he’d do this. It doesn’t make sense.” She trembles as if she’s cold. “I can’t lose her, Carmine. She’s my best friend. I can’t lose her. I can’t.”
“And you won’t,” I say, taking her face in my hands. “I promise. I won’t let anything happen to her.”
“Something did happen to her!” she yells. “We trusted him, and look what he did.” Delilah holds her stomach and throws up the hot chocolate.
“I ran a background check on him. Nothing came up, Delilah. I’m so sorry.” He must have had someone erase his real name and forge another identity, or there’s no way I would have let him get so close. I swing her into my arms and hurry out of the building and down the stairs. I hear the ambulance’s sirens in the distance, and I hope the professor can hang on, but he’s lost a lot of blood, so my hopes for him aren’t high right now.
Matias and Gianni are behind me, and Matias has an unconscious Caleb thrown over his shoulder, blood trickling down his arm from the gunshot wound to the shoulder.
“We need to find her,” Gianni states, running his hands through his hair frantically. “I have to find her.”
We climb into the SUV, tying Caleb’s hands and feet together, then toss him in the trunk. Delilah is in the front seat, looking paler than I’d like, while Matias and Gianni climb in the back. Without putting on my seatbelt, I slam on the gas and head to Route Five.
Luckily, we aren’t far.
Pushing the hazard lights on, I max on the speedometer as we drive down the highway.
Delilah hasn’t stopped crying, and I couldn’t let Caleb live for that alone. He nearly took her life too many times, and now he’s taken one of her few comforts.
Gianni doesn’t seem too happy either, which makes me wonder if he has feelings for Christy. I don’t remember them interacting often. He’d stand to the side and listen to her, watch as Caleb kissed her and made her laugh.
If he does have feelings for her, that couldn’t have been easy.
I slow when we start passing the mile markers.
“I’ll stay with Caleb and make sure he doesn’t cause any trouble,” Matias says, the gun still aimed at Caleb. “I could just kill him and replace his body with Christy’s. Two birds, one stone, and all that.”
I don’t hate the idea. We are already here. A hole is already dug.
I want to torture him, but it would be helpful to get it over with, especially with Christy. She probably won’t want to see her ex-boyfriend ever again.
“Christy will probably want to shoot him when we get her. We have to get to her,” Delilah wipes her cheeks and climbs out of the SUV before it stops.
“Delilah! Don’t ever get out of a moving vehicle.” I shout after her since her door is wide open, and she’s stalking toward the woods.
Gianni climbs out next. Finally, I slam the car into park and run after her, checking her over to make sure she isn’t hurt.
“I’m fine. Let’s not waste any more time. Christy needs us. How far back? Is it a straight shot, left or right?” Delilah asks, taking a step into the woods. The pine needles snap under her feet, and she crosses her arms over her chest. “Oh my, god, I’m going to be sick.” She holds her stomach again, and I’m at her side instantly.
“Listen to me, listen,” I grip her with rough hands. “We will find her, but you have to relax. The stress isn’t good for you or the baby. I can’t have anything happen to either of you, do you understand? I can’t. So, breathe for me. We have forty-five minutes. That’s plenty of time to find her.”
“Hey!” Matias calls from the car. “It’s straight back about a mile—” His head turns, and I assume he’s talking to Caleb. Even from here, I can see his sneer.
“Shut the fuck up!” A gunshot rings out. “Shut the fuck up!” He looks in our direction again. “I didn’t kill him!”
He looks so proud of himself and way too much like Ari at the moment. For twins, yes, they look alike, but their personalities are different—except for right now.
Gianni power walks ahead of us and calls out her name. “Christy! Christy, it’s Gianni. Delilah and Carmine are with me. Scream if you can hear us.”
We wait for something, for anything, but silence speaks in return.
“Oh god,” Delilah sobs, covering her mouth to hide the sound as we listen.
I keep alert, gun out, taking soft steps, so I make quiet sounds.
Birds caw above us and fly away when they see us.
“Christy!” Delilah calls out. “Christy! Please, answer!”
The desperation in her voice kills me. If I don’t find her friend, my Sweetling will never be the same.
“Shh, I hear something.” Gianni turns his head, and we all stop walking.
Delilah’s fingernails dig into my skin as we wait.
“There isn’t anything—”
“Shh,” he cuts me off.
Anyone else would have gotten a punch to the face.
A muffled shout comes from ahead, and all of us look at each other before sprinting in the direction it’s coming from.
Delilah trips over a fallen log, and I catch her before she hits the ground. Gianni gets to the freshly dug mound of dirt first. He falls to his hands and knees, scooping the dirt with his palms.
“Help me!” Christy cries from underneath us, banging her fists against something. “I can’t breathe.” Her voice sounds so far away, but she’s so close.
“Hang on, Christy. We are right here. Just keep breathing.” Delilah is digging, too, while I’m using my entire forearm to scoop dirt out.
By the time we get to the wooden box, I see we have dug about three feet. Christy isn’t making any sounds; we are all sweating and covered with dirt. Gianni and I grip the edge of the lid, then pull. It’s nailed shut. There’s no way she could have escaped.
We roar in unison, our strength being tested, but finally, the wood breaks, and we almost fall over.
“Christy?” Delilah whimpers, as she looks down.
“I have her.” Gianni scoops an unconscious Christy from the box and lies her on the ground. He presses an ear to her chest. “I don’t hear a heartbeat.”
“Oh my, god.”
Gianni begins CPR, giving her air before pressing against her chest.
Christy gasps for breath as she opens her eyes before coughing, then loud sobs follow.
Delilah falls to her knees and gathers her friend in her arms. Gianni and I fall back, exhausted. Sweat stinging my eyes. There’s dirt under my nails, pants, suit, and face. I haven’t been this dirty from the soil in a very long time—if not ever. I’m typically washing blood off my hands and clothes.
Christy lets go of Delilah and throws herself at Gianni. “Thank you for coming after me.”
He wraps his arms around her and holds her as if she’s something precious. “Always,” he whispers.
“I brought him for you. The car got boring,” Matias says, holding a beaten and bloody Caleb.
Christy stands to her feet, and I notice her busted lip and a black eye. That mother fucker hit her. She has tears streaming down her face, and Caleb has the audacity to look smug.
“I see you found your way out of the hole I made you,” he says, blood dripping down his shoulders.
Christy reaches for the gun tucked in Gianni’s holster.
“And you’re about to find yourself in it, you fucking asshole.”
We can’t move quick enough to stop her, but Christy fires, the bullet puncturing his heart.
He falls limp in Matias’s hold, and my brother drops him to the ground. “Holy shit, that was badass.”
Christy’s hand is shaking, and the tremors cause the gun to rattle. Gianni lowers her arm, taking the weapon from her.
“I told you she’d want to shoot him herself.”
“I’ll bury him myself.” Christy kicks Caleb’s dead body and drags him across the ground. Gianni tries to help her, but she smacks his hand away. “I can do it.”
When she gets Caleb to the edge of the hole, she pushes him with her foot, and he lands with a hard smack in the wooden box. “Time to bury the past.”
I walk around Delilah, hand pressed against her stomach, kissing her cheek. “I think she might be okay. She’s taking this oddly well.”
“Christy is badass, but this will catch up to her. You don’t get over the man you thought you loved trying to kill you so quickly.”
With every angry scoop of dirt, Christy cried, and Gianni helped her, burying a love that was always meant to die.
