Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92071 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92071 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
The car crashed, hit something, and turned to its side, which caused me to slam against the door. Everything in the car that wasn’t tethered had fallen on top of me. My neck throbbed with a sharp pain. A hissing sound was coming from the engine. Grasping the handle hard I raised myself up from a twisted position into one where I could think. Matthew and Sarah had exited the car. They were probably keeping the gunmen at bay until help arrived.
Seconds felt like hours and every gunshot fired seemed oh so close to my head I burrowed deeper into the footwell. I was sure it was only a matter of time before it was over for me. Before someone shot a bullet into the car that went through me or jerked the door open and put one in my head.
For the last few weeks, I had romanticized the possibility of my death as the ultimate relief, but now that I was faced with the very real possibility, I felt anything but relief. Instead, I was a crying, fumbling mess, my hands shielding my head.
In those crazy moments I thought of Dante and suddenly knew. It was almost a revelation, like one of those religious disclosures.
I was in love with him.
From a distance, I heard screams and the screeching of tires. I had never felt so weak and powerless. I began to pray I would come out of this attack without harm and I could be rescued and taken far away from danger.
An eternity later or perhaps it was just a few seconds later, the shooting stopped. Obviously, one side had been annihilated violently. I heard men’s voices coming closer and closer to the car. Was it one of Ugo’s men or was it one of the supporting agents that Sarah had mentioned? I sat frozen until I heard an Italian accent.
Jesus! Oh, sweet Jesus.
It was any second now … any second now and a bullet would be shot through me … and it would be the end. I would be gone.
I righted myself and, in a panic, started pulling on the door’s latch, but it wouldn’t budge. I pushed and kicked at it till tears rolled down my eyes in frustration, but something had jammed it from the outside.
I was just a few seconds shy of screaming with pure frustration, but my fear wouldn’t let me. I continued to push on the door with all my strength.
Suddenly, the door on the other side was pulled open. Screaming with terror I hit even more fervently against the door.
“Zola!”
I gave up then. With my eyes tightly shut, I waited for the pain, but I was grabbed by a strong hand and pulled upwards.
The grip was so hard that no matter how I struggled to get my arm free, I couldn’t because the person’s strength was phenomenal. Despite my protest, I soon felt the grass beneath my feet and the sun on my face. The person’s voice and scent weren’t familiar to me so there was no way I could calm down.
There was a screech behind us and then a black car drove onto the grass.
I tried to crawl away on my hands and knees as fast as I could, but I was grabbed around the waist as though I weighed nothing and lifted off the ground. Then I was thrown into the vehicle that had just pulled up and in the next second, we were being driven away.
I was deposited on the opposite side with everything in my body aching so bad that it left me disoriented. I was finally able to calm myself down enough to notice the men in the car. They were all speaking rapidly in Italian, but I recognized one voice. The voice that was coming from the speakers. Instantly my brain and heart recognized it.
Dante.
Dante’s men had come to help me and not hurt me. In a flash, I saw that the man by my side was bleeding profusely. Half a scream left me before I was able to slap my hands across my mouth.
I watched as one of the other men inspected the wound. His face was contorted in pain as he pressed a torn T-shirt to his wound, but he shut his eyes and rested the back of his head against the headrest.
Dante continued to communicate with him from the car’s speakers and the man responded with as much strength.
I wanted to help but didn’t know how. Plus, I suspected I would just make things worse so I kept quiet, rested my head against the window, and watched as we sped away from the scene.
I couldn’t control the tears that ran down my face. I was still so shaken that I found myself trembling, and even when one of the men gently called out to me my voice quivered unnaturally.