Vittorio
Vittorio felt the blood well up inside his mouth before he spit it out onto the carpet. He hoped that his men weren’t too far away, or he might be dead by the time they arrived. The alarm that had been triggered by Rocco and his men had been a silent one to them, one that Vittorio had set the night before to give him and Sharon some privacy. But an alert had blasted onto Vittorio’s men’s cells the minute it had been triggered.
The installation of the silent alarm was the best fucking thing he had done lately.
Now, he just had to wait and survive until they got there.
“Let him go.”
Vittorio was dropped onto the carpet. The movement jarred his body and doubled his pain, but he didn’t let it show. He rested on his knees to catch his breath. His side fucking hurt. The ribs he knew had to be broken dug into his lung in excruciating agony. The bullet wound in his leg had gone numb and he couldn’t feel his fucking face any longer. He knew he was in bad shape.
“You see, Contarini? This is how it feels to be on the bottom, always looking up. My family has always been second rate to yours and I am fucking tired of it. You meddled into my business too much, interrupting my profits by letting those women go. I never once cost you a dime.”
Vittorio looked up at his captor, fashioning what could only be a bloody grin at him.
“Worst way to piss a man off is to mess with his money.”
“Or his woman,” Rocco mused, tapping his finger to his chin. “Whatever happened to your whore, Vit? You know, I found one of my men dead in an alley yesterday. Had your name written all over it.”
“I did what I had to do,” Vittorio responded carefully. “She’s off limits to you, even if you kill me.”
“Huh,” Rocco said.
The man who had been scoping out the penthouse wandered back into the living room.
“There’s no one here boss.”
Rocco turned to him.
“Did you find signs of a woman here?”
The man scratched his head.
“Now that you mentioned it, I found these on the floor. Was gonna keep em.”
Vittorio schooled his emotions as the man held up the lacy scrap of underwear that Sharon had put on for him only a few hours earlier. In her haste to get dressed, she must have missed them.
Shit. That was the last thing he needed Rocco to focus on.
“So what?” he said lightly, shrugging. “I get some and, unlike your boss here, I don’t have to pay for it.”
Rocco’s grin was feral as he looked away from the panties and focused his attention back on Vittorio.
“You got her, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Oh, but I think you do,” he answered, almost giddy now. “Where did you hide her, Vittorio? Surely she didn’t climb out of a window.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Vittorio repeated, rolling his shoulders to ease the pain.
He had to protect her. If Rocco found Sharon, there was no telling what he might make her do, what he might do to torture Vittorio.
“That chick from the club,” Rocco continued on, turning toward his men. “Go find her. She’s here, I bet you.”
He then turned toward the man who had been searching the penthouse and raised his gun.
“As for you, you are an idiot.”
“Boss,” the man said, holding up his hands. “I did what you wanted.”
“Yeah you did,” Rocco responded coldly, shooting him in the head. “But you fucking sucked at it.”
The rest of the men scattered and Vittorio listened to them tear apart his penthouse.
“They are wasting their time.”
“Maybe,” Rocco said, his eyes on the dead man before him. “But I guess we will see, won’t we?”
Vittorio sucked in a breath, turning his attention on the man next to him, his gun trained on Vittorio in case he tried something stupid. He couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t protect himself, nor could he protect Sharon any longer. The only thing he could hope for was that his men would get there before the others found Sharon.
“You want to know why I buy my women?” Rocco asked after a moment, his eyes back on Vittorio. “Because if you let them get too close to you, then you become weak. Just look at you. Lara made you soft, made you not want to get involved in this nasty business. So, I eliminated her, just like I am gonna eliminate this chick for you as well.”
Vittorio growled, but said nothing. That was where Rocco was wrong. Sharon had made him stronger, made him realize that there was something else to this life, other than his family business. She had shown him compassion, love.
“Boss! I found something!”
“Watch him,” Rocco stated as he walked from the room.
Vittorio’s stomach rolled as he watched him walk down the hall, toward the safe room. There was no doubt in his mind that he had found Sharon. It wasn’t more than a minute later that Rocco walked back into the room with another one of his men, motioning for them to bring Vittorio. Vittorio attempted to fight them but was rewarded with a few more punches that left him dizzy, gasping for breath.
They dragged him toward the room and ice ran in his veins as he saw they had the keypad out, the one that would take his thumb print to open the door.
“Get his thumb,” Rocco commanded.
Vittorio fought as hard as he could, but they grabbed the wrist that was likely broken, forced the limp hand open, and brought it up to the scanner.
Shit. This was about to be bad and he couldn’t stop it.
He had failed.