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I’m screaming at Arsen with my eyes, trying to comfort him even as I’m being yanked around by my hair.
But the channel is closed. Arsen isn’t listening. His face is pale as he drops his gun to his side.
“Yeah, that’s right.” My father’s voice is an angry croak in my ear. He positions me more firmly in front of him—all the better to be his human shield. “Put the gun on the floor and kick it away from you. Now.”
Arsen doesn’t hesitate to do as he’s told.
“Charles,” Arsen says in a low voice, “you don’t want to do this.”
“I’d say this is an even trade, wouldn’t you? You get your wife, and I get my money.”
“I told you already: it takes time to set up a fund transfer of that size?—”
“I don’t give two shits!” he yells. I cringe away from him, pain rocketing down my hip. But I take the opportunity to loosen my restraints a little more. “I want fifty million right now or I’ll blow her brains out. Then I’ll finish you off, too.”
I wait for the fear to overwhelm me, but all I find is the unmistakable burn of anger.
The vein in Arsen’s forehead bulges. “What good will killing us do? My men will see what you’ve done. You won’t make it to the city limits. We’ll be dead, but so will you.”
He swallows and pulls me tighter against him. Sour sweat drenches his shirt. The smell alone is enough to make me gag. But I fight it back. My restraints are now loose enough that the feeling has returned to my hands. If I wait for the right moment, I can get away from him.
“They’re not— You ordered your men to keep a wide berth of Nonna Guilia’s. I heard you give the order.”
“But did they listen?” Arsen shrugs. “They knew I was walking into a trap set by two idiots with more desperation than brains. They might be surrounding the building as we speak.”
“I’ll get out of this. I’ve gotten out of worse.” I’m not sure if he’s trying to convince Arsen or himself.
“Nothing is worse than this, Charles. Nothing could be worse than this because you’ve never faced off against me before.”
Charles presses the gun harder against my temple. “And yet, I’m the one with the gun. You have nothing.”
He’s talking a big game, but he’s shifting side to side behind me, scanning for his way out. His breathing is heavy against my neck.
Thankfully, he’s so distracted that he doesn’t notice that I’ve managed to slip free of my ties. The rope slithers to the floor with a soft thud, but his focus is lasered in on my husband, so he doesn’t hear it.
“I have more than you will ever have, Charles,” Arsen says evenly.
“Are we getting philosophical now?” Charles laughs hysterically. “That’s the trouble with people like you and my daughter and my wife.”
“Don’tyou dare talk about my mother!” I cry out, unable to help myself. “She stopped being your wife the moment you left. You never deserved her.”
“Enough!” he roars right back in my face. “I’m done being blamed and questioned by you, you ungrateful whore! Your mother was a gutter rat with no family when I met her. I gave her a decent life, stability—I gave her a fuckingfuture.” His nails dig into my skin, broken and yellowed. “I didn’t even want you! She was the one who begged me for a child. So what did I do? I gave her that, too.”
“Enough, Charles,” Arsen warns. I try to meet his gaze, but he’s staring daggers at my father.
“Why? She should know the truth before she dies.”
“I’ve known the truth.” I flex my hands behind my back, working out the last of the tingling as my blood flow returns to normal. “I knew it before Mom did, even.”
“She was always a slow learner. You’re lucky you take after me in that way,” he scoffs. “Ironic.”
“I’m nothing like you. And I never will be.”
With that, I plunge my elbow right into Charles’s stomach. His body folds around me, and I feel the air rush out of him. He chokes on nothing and his gun falls to the floor.
It all happens so fast and so slowly as I twist out of his reach, dropping to the floor to avoid the gun just in case it goes off.
Arsen yells my name, but the only thing I can hear is my blood rushing in my ears as I scrabble forward, determined to reach the gun before Charles does.
