I accept and then the screen fills with Rocky’s innocent face, his mouth open, tongue lolling. The only sign that something’s wrong with him is the rumbling, whining noise he makes, far back in his throat.
“You wouldn’t harm an innocent animal,” I growl. “What sort of fucking monster hurts a dog?”
Emilio turns the camera on himself, smiling his jackal’s smile, seeming very fucking proud.
Beside me, Anna gasps.
“I don’t want to,” he says. “But if you don’t get out here in – let me see – in eight minutes and twenty-two seconds, I’ll be forced to. And let me tell you, it won’t be quick for the little guy.”
“It’s you,” Anna whimpers. “Oh my God, it’s you.”
“Ah, so you remember me,” Emilio laughs. “Good little whore.”
“Show some fucking respect when talking to my queen or I’ll wring the life from your neck, worm,” I snarl.
“He’s the one, Artem,” Anna goes on, voice ghostly and distant. “He’s the one who kidnapped me.”
“That’s right,” Emilio grins. “I’m a man of many talents. Now get out here before things get nasty. Oh, and if I see a single guard, a single fucking one, I’ll send you Rocky in ten different parcels.”
Chapter Nine
Anna
My heart begins to jackhammer in my chest as I remember the look of the man, his gaunt cheeks, his skeletal features as he leered at me in the deserted kitchen. The lights were low and he was standing in shadows, but it’s definitely him.
He looks the same.
And he sounds the same.
When I walked into that kitchen, he leered and laughed and then said, “You stupid fucking whore. What’s the matter with you? Get her, fellas.”
They did, right away. A black bag over my head. Sudden darkness and stabbing panic.
Now I lean against the kitchen counter and let out panting breaths, remembering the groaning noises that Rocky was making on the phone. His tongue hanging out of his mouth, his mouth split into a grimace. I may have only known the little dog for a little while, but I don’t think I have it in me to let anything happen to him.
“Artem, what are we going to do?” I whisper. “How long do we have left?”
“About six minutes.”
“That’s not a lot of time to decide, is it?”
“No,” he growls. “It’s not. Shit. I could risk it. I could have twenty-five men out there right now. But …”
“But what?” I urge.
“But Emilio is a psychopath. He killed his father to take over the Italian mafia. He’s made a legend of himself as a sadist, and a lunatic. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’ll harm Rocky. The monster.”
I drink in the sight of my man, hearing the emotion in his voice. I can’t believe he ever thought his childhood stole his capacity to care, his capacity to ache for another living thing.
“But if we go out there, I don’t know what will happen to us,” he snarls. “I can’t believe he’s the one who kidnapped you. He invited me to that auction. I guess he had some sort of plan in play. Perhaps buy you and give you as a gift to me, the twisted bastard? He didn’t know I’d …”
You’d what, Artem?
You’d fall in love with me like I’ve fallen in love with you?
“We have to go out there,” I say, grabbing my chef’s hat and tossing it to the ground.
I feel tremors cascading through me, trying to cripple me with waves of nerves. But then I picture Rocky’s innocent face and something hardens inside of me.
A maternal instinct in me calluses and becomes tough and gnarled in a matter of seconds.
“We can’t let him hurt Rocky.”
“I agree,” Artem says. “But I can’t let him hurt you, either.”
“Artem,” I say firmly. “I’m going out there.”
I spin for the door, fists clenched, remembering that first morning when Rocky licked my face to wake me up. It may have only been a short time ago, but I’m already starting to think of my life in terms of before and after.
And the moment when Rocky’s happy face greeted me into wakefulness definitely belongs in the after segment of my life.
This segment.
This new beginning.
I barge into a hallway and start stalking down it, ignoring the doubts flurrying around me.
The time for doubts has passed.
I picture that jackal’s face, the way his lips peeled back over his teeth so that he could leer at me for all he was worth. He was up there in the darkness, then, at the auction, probably leering the same way he did in the kitchen.
Even if I’m almost two feet shorter than Artem, he has to quicken his steps to keep pace with me, his cell phone to his ear.
He barks instructions into his phone as we walk, telling his men to be ready to sprint into the street the second shooting starts, telling them to kill any Italian’s they see on sight if they have guns in their hands.