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Taking a mental inventory of her body, Natalia discovered that her hands were bound together beneath her. The worst of the pain radiating through her came from her head. Moving her feet slightly, she found her legs weren’t tied. She held her breath, praying neither man had noticed the movement.
Using her trapped fingers, she determined she was lying on a concrete floor. Her head rested sideways. Cautiously, she opened her eyes to narrow slits and peered at her surroundings.
Because she was facing away from the men, she could study the place where she was being held without them realizing she was awake.
Stacks of lumber filled what appeared to be a warehouse.
Closing her eyes against the pain shooting through her head, Natalia swallowed the rising nausea threatening to expose her wakefulness.
“How much longer before Rocco gets here?”
At Marco’s question, the nausea subsided as fear for her brother overrode it.
“An hour. Thanks to your stupidity, it’ll take him that long to get here.”
“He only lives twenty minutes away,” Marco said, fear evident in his voice. “He could be gathering his men … or getting the police involved.”
Unlike Marco, his father showed no fear. “He can bring his entire family. The more he brings, the closer we come to eliminating them all. Rocco won’t involve the police. He can’t—not with the circles he moves in now. Doing so would shine a spotlight on the Cosa Nostra organization he’s being groomed to take over. Whatever strategy Rocco or The Last Riders devise will fail. I’ve planned Rafael’s destruction for too long to let my idiota son ruin everything. With the men I’ve assembled and Edoardo’s support, Rocco’s family and The Last Riders will be outnumbered.”
Despite all the effort she and Rocco had made to keep silent about Rafael, it had been useless. Her lies to Arden and everyone else who had asked about her childhood—her claims that she hadn’t seen her father since he left the United States and had no connection to him—were coming back to haunt her.
Those lies would lead The Last Riders into a deadly trap without them knowing the magnitude of what they would face. There would be no justice afterward, either. The authorities would conclude that two rival groups had killed each other in a dispute, never realizing it had been a premeditated plan to seize Rafael’s powerful organization.
A tear slipped from the corner of her swollen eye. From what Antonio was saying, escape would be impossible. Even if she managed to get away from Marco and his father, she was in no condition to make it past the men waiting outside for Rocco and The Last Riders to arrive.
Her most painful regret was not warning Wizard, not the lies she had told Arden to protect herself. If she had told Wizard about her father, he might have been better prepared for the trap he was about to enter.
She hadn’t trusted him. Worse, she hadn’t wanted to admit how deeply she loved him.
He had been right. She had tried to end their relationship last night because he had come to mean so much to her, not because she wanted to, but to prevent this exact situation from happening.
She hadn’t gone on the dating websites looking for love. She had searched for a relationship she could survive losing if her father’s criminal activities endangered the man’s life. She never wanted to be left as heartbroken as her mother had been.
When she and Wizard had made love last night, Natalia had realized it was already too late. He held her heart, and he wasn’t giving it back.
The creak of a chair refocused her attention on the men.
“Enough time has passed for Rocco to be halfway here,” Antonio said. “Call Wizard and give him the address. Tell him to be here in twenty minutes or his woman dies.”
“What if he wants to see her?” Marco asked.
“Then show her.” His father talked down to him as if he were three years old. “The way she looks will make him even more determined not to call the police.”
In her mind’s eye, Natalia could see the ugly anticipation on Antonio’s face as he imagined the coming battle.
Another tear leaked from the corner of her eye at the futility of trying to prevent what was about to happen. Both men she loved were going to die.
CHAPTER 52
LUCKY CHARMS
Watching the helicopter land, Wizard felt some of his tension ease. During his military service, he had participated in high-stakes missions, yet neither the danger to those he was trying to save nor the risk to himself had ever fazed him.
He could walk into an enemy camp without an ounce of fear and stare down men whose only goal was to kill him without showing a flicker of emotion. Natalia’s kidnapping had shattered his belief that he could remain unaffected by the outcome.
He had lost his sister. He couldn’t lose Natalia, too. Dena had brightened his days like a ray of sunshine; Natalia brought peace to his nights like moonlight on a lake. If anything happened to her, his world would be plunged into darkness.
As soon as the helicopter touched down, Viper, Rider, Reaper, and Knox climbed out. Carrying their gear, they jogged toward where Wizard stood beside the SUVs he had brought to pick them up.
