Page 46 of The Don’s Omega

“Really?” I blink at him, feeling bewildered.

“Yes.”

Naturally, I have no desire to harm the poor woman, so I’m forced to give in. Feeling guilty, I meet her flustered gaze. “I… I’m sorry if I seemed ungrateful. Thank you for the kind gift.”

Relief immediately paints her face. “Oh, no need to thank me, sir.” She puts everything quickly in a bag and hands them to me. “Congratulations on your marriage, and thank you so much for shopping at Casa Bellucci.”

Don’t you mean thank you for robbing Casa Bellucci?

I walk out of the store, feeling like a jerk. The next store is the same thing. The stares, the whispers, the mortified refusal to accept my credit card. By the third store I stop fighting it and just say thank you. The alternative is arguing with terrified shopkeepers all afternoon. The whole situation makes me so uneasy, I quit shopping after the third store. These shops need sales and my presence is actually interfering with them doing business.

Dante takes the bags from me and loads them into the back seat. Apparently, when you’re a Foschini, you’re not allowed to do anything or pay for anything. I’ve never lived a privileged life before, and I can’t say I like it much. Not this part anyway. Stealing from hardworking shop owners feels wrong.

Dante pulls out of the shopping district and takes the coastal highway back toward the estate. It started raining while we were shopping, which I don’t mind. I listen to the steady thump of the windshield wipers as we leave the city behind, climbing up into the winding, narrow canyon roads. Rocky walls rise steep on the inland side, layered sandstone and scrub brush clinging to ledges.

On the ocean side, the shoulder drops away to nothing. No guardrails in places. Just crumbling asphalt and rocks and water below. Wildflowers grow in patches along the roadside, stubborn little bursts of yellow and orange pushing through gravel. The earlier storm is beginning to break, and the views are staggering. Miles of coastline stretching in both directions, the ocean a flat, glittering sheet of blue.

I’m watching the ocean, thinking about Fabio and the upcoming surgery, when I notice Dante’s posture change. It’s subtle. A shift in his shoulders. His hands adjusting on the wheel. His eyes lifting to the rearview mirror with a focus that wasn’t there a second ago.

“Hold on,” he says suddenly, accelerating.

Startled by the warning in his voice, I instinctively turn to look behind us. I see a black Hummer closing fast, taking the wet curves too wide, too aggressively. It’s obvious they’re trying to catch up to us, and my heart begins to pound.

“What’s happening?” My voice comes out wobbly.

Dante doesn’t answer. His jaw is set and his body coiled, eyes flicking between the mirror and the road. The Hummer gains on us in minutes, and is now riding our bumper. I can make out the tinted windshield but nothing behind it.

My stomach drops when the Hummer’s engine roars and the big vehicle comes around our SUV on Dante’s side. The road is narrow, barely wide enough for our SUV and a smaller car, let alone that massive thing forcing itself into the lane. The Hummer boxes us in, which means the canyon wall is inches from my window.

I can’t see the driver of the other car because the windows are too dark. When the Hummer suddenly swerves into us, I cry out as metal scrapes against metal. I clutch the armrest as our SUV lurches sideways, even closer to the canyon wall. Dante wrenches the wheel left, trying to drag us away from the rock. But the Hummer is still there, crowding us and trying to drive us into the rocks.

The Hummer is in an exposed position with the sheer drop off on the other side of them. I’m sure Dante sees that vulnerability, which makes me worried he might ram them in retaliation, hoping to shove them off the cliff’s edge. At the speed we’re driving, that feels too dangerous. Especially when our tires are already slipping on the wet, slick road. One wrong move could send both of our vehicles over the edge.

Thankfully, Dante makes no attempt to push them off the cliff. Instead, he accelerates, trying to pull away, but the Hummer hits us again. Harder this time and Dante almost loses the correction. The SUV fishtails and skids into the canyon wall on my side, but keeps moving. My head bumps hard against the window and pain detonates behind my eyes. My seatbelt locks so tight across my chest and ribs, I can’t breathe for a moment.

The world outside the window is a blur of rock and sparks. Dante fights the wheel, dragging us off the canyon wall by inches, but the Hummer stays with us, crowding us, its tires kicking gravel from the edge of the road as it matches our speed.

“Brace yourself,” Dante yells, eyes pinned on a narrow turnoff, fifty yards ahead on the right.

The turnoff appears to be a maintenance road cut into the hillside, the kind utility trucks and road crews use. It’s unpaved, just a dirt track disappearing around a bend in the rock. My heart is slamming my ribs as, with a growl, Dante yanks the wheel hard to the right. The SUV leaves the asphalt and hits the muddy dirt road at full speed.

The transition from pavement to soft ground is brutal. The tires lose traction and the back end swings wide. Gravel sprays against the undercarriage like gunfire. The SUV slides sideways across the muddy surface, tilting sickeningly. For one horrible second, I tell myself Dante will correct it, that the tires will catch and we’ll straighten out.

We don’t.

The SUV tips past the point of recovery and goes over onto the passenger side. The world rotates in a slow, surreal tumble. I hear glass cracking, metal groaning, shopping bags slamming around the cabin. My seatbelt catches me, wrenching my shoulder, and my head bounces off the side window again.

The rear passenger door across from me, already buckled from the collision with the canyon wall, twists violently as we roll. The damaged latch partially gives way, and the heavy door half-opens. Shopping bags are flung through the gap. In a daze, I watch them hit the muddy ground and burst apart, scattering clothes across puddles, gravel, and tire ruts. Jeans and T-shirts lie strewn through the mud, and my new boots tumble down a shallow embankment and disappear into the scrub.

The SUV completes the roll and lands back on its wheels with a bone-jarring crash that rattles every joint in my body. The vehicle comes to rest at an angle, half on the dirt road, half in a shallow drainage ditch. The engine is still running. Steam or smoke, I can’t tell which, rises from somewhere under the hood. My ears are ringing, my vision is fuzzy at the edges, and I taste blood where I’ve bitten my tongue.

Dante is moving immediately. He unbuckles his seatbelt with one hand, looks at me over his shoulder. “You okay?”

“I don’t know,” I mutter, my head ringing.

He turns to look out his side window, swears in Italian, and reaches under his jacket and pulls out a handgun. His face is blank. Professional. He could be reaching for a pen. “Stay in the vehicle,” he says. “Stay below the windows. Do not leave the car.”

He opens his door and steps out into the mud, positioning himself behind the engine block, weapon raised toward the main road.