Page 72 of Stolen Vows
My fascination with those dark brown locks is something that could undoubtedly be studied, though time isn’t exactly on our side at the moment. If someone came into the tower and decided to take the elevator up, the shaft would receive their call and start its descent, scalping her instantly.
I open my mouth and immediately close it as a confession rolls from the tip of my tongue. Now is not the time.
“It will grow back. Cut yourself free, and I’ll meet you at the bottom.”
“You’re going to leave me?” Panic laces her words, and I recall the way she trembled against me when we came up here last night.
Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do for her standing outside the door. “Baby, if you want out of there, I have to go down. This panel is broken.”
“I knew your ridiculous ways would be my downfall.” She laughs, but the sound is forced, and my heart seizes. “Fine, hurry up. Give me five minutes once you’ve reached the bottom to make sure I’m out.”
Goddamn, I don’t want to leave her here, but there isn’t anything I can do to help. Every muscle in my body screams in agony as I jog to the bathroom, pausing to grab the Glock hidden beneath the sink, and push through to the door on the far wall. The stairwell is narrow and damp and, like the elevator, housed in the only solid wall of the tower, so a person’s comings and goings are entirely obscured from the outside world.
It’s probably the perfect place to carry out an attack, and I’m pissed as fuck that I didn’t consider that when I brought her here. If my ridiculous ways are supposed to beherdownfall, I don’t want to imagine the bleak future awaiting me.
When I reach the bottom, my foot slips on the last step, and my hand lashes out, grabbing hold of the railing before I lose mybalance. Gritting my teeth, I glance at the glass doors down the hall, trying to get a sense for any sort of tampering.
The alcove is totally empty and looks the same as it did last night. If not for seeing Frankie with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have thought he’d made it to the building yet.
Suspicious.
There aren’t even footprints on the ground, which is odd, considering that the outside looks freshly drizzled upon. As I head toward the elevator, a loud creaking fills the air, and then a snapping noise echoes down the tower.
I glance at the panel of buttons and notice they’re all blinking. As if in some sort of error.
For a moment, I wonder if my breaking the one upstairs could have caused problems, but then Frankie wouldn’t have been able to come up at all.
An earsplitting boom explodes around me like the shattering of metal and glass, and with it, my resolve.
With my hands shaking and mind racing, I whirl around and sprint back to the stairs. I’m not sure what exactly I think I can do, but my nerves are calling the shots, and my brain seems to short-circuit as it realizes that the elevator is fully malfunctioning and likely plummeting.
Just as I reach the steps, a brutal force impacts the side of my face, and my vision goes blank.
Liquid drips down my forehead directly into my eyes, and opening them becomes impossible.
My fingers curl around the handle of the gun, and I move forward, trying to get my back to a wall, but another blow knocks me down. I fall to my knees as my jaw cracks, lifting my free arm to shield myself from another attack.
“Careful, Ranolfo.” My uncle’s voice drifts close, chilling my spine. Despite everything, I suppose there was something deepwithin me that hoped it wouldn’t be him. “We don’t want to make a mess.”
Ranolfo’s laugh whizzes past my ear, and pain explodes in my stomach and groin when the heel of his foot drives into my abdomen. Coughing, I buckle, hunching over my knees as stars dance behind my eyes.
“After what he did to me and his own father? I don’t give a shit if we smear his remains all over this fucking property.”
“We don’t want to make a scene,” Gino says. “It’s bad etiquette to ruin a party you weren’t invited to.”
“If thiscazzohad cooperated in the first place, we wouldn’t have had to come to this godforsaken state to begin with.”
Another kick to my gut, and blood floods my mouth, splattering past my clenched teeth.
“Now, where’s that slut wife of yours? I was looking forward to stealing her from Candreva last night, but this will be good, too. Even if I suspect you broke her in for the men already, I’m sure she’ll have fun getting all her holes plugged before we slit her throat.”
“Pity it doesn’t seem he’ll be able to watch,” Gino notes, his voice next to my ear. “The boy can’t even open his eyes.”
“Bet he’ll be able to hear her scream, though.”
Another crash splits the air, crunching and splintering sounds reverberating off the walls. My body aches, agony rippling up to my temples and down my sternum, and still my eyes remain shut.
I’m going to die here, and then they’re going to grab Stella. If the elevator hasn’t fallen and killed her, that is.
