Chapter 32

Chapter Thirty-Two

S omething splashes across my face, forcing my eyes open. It takes a lot of effort to get my vision to focus. Everything is blurry. My hand comes up and rubs over my face, wiping the water away.

"Good. You're up. About fucking time," a gravelly voice calls out.

My head pounds. It feels like a thousand jackhammers are going off inside it. Tiny little men just hammering away. Doing their best to torture me. And then, like a lightning bolt, an image flashes in my mind.

Marcel. He was on the ground. There was so much blood. He wasn't moving. And Ivan. He was…

Tears prick my eyes as the harsh voice yells at me again. "Get up."

I don't move. I can't. All I can think about is Marcel. He's gone. Because of me. I can't… My chest heaves as my lungs struggle to fill with air.

"What the fuck? Get the fuck up now, before I make you."

I don't care anymore. About what he says or what is happening to me. There is nothing they can do to me that matters. If Marcel is gone, then I want to go with him. Let this guy end me. I don't know what he wants and I don't care. I just want it to end.

I knew I was pushing my luck by getting involved with Marcel. Falling for him. Santo was right. Love is a one-way street that leads you right to heartbreak. My chest hurts. It hurts so bad. I thought I knew pain. I thought I'd seen the worst of the worst. I was wrong.

Losing Marcel, seeing him die because of me. There is nothing that could possibly happen that's worse than that. Which is why when this guy, whoever he is, starts yelling commands at me, I choose to ignore him.

I've been here before. My compliance is irrelevant. I know that he's going to do whatever he wants with me no matter how much I beg or try to get my way out of this situation. You can't reason with a monster. And this monster… he killed Marcel.

He. Killed. Marcel.

My eyes squeeze shut as a sudden bout of anger builds within me. A small ember at first, an ember that's very quickly ignited into a flame, and the burning heats something else in me. A rage so feral I can feel my entire body shaking.

"I'm going to kill you," I hiss at the guy.

"Yeah? You and what army? Look around. There's no one here to save you," he says. "Yet. But that's going to change."

He holds up a phone and snaps a photo of me. "What are you doing?"

"Just giving someone a little incentive." He smirks.

"Who?"

The guy doesn't bother answering me before he presses a few buttons on the phone and then brings it to his ear. "Isabella Valentino-Petrov. You're a hard woman to get a hold of." He winks at me, pulling the phone away from his ear so I can hear Izzy yelling threats through the speaker.

"No, Izzy, don't! Stay away!" My scream earns me a slap across the face, knocking me backwards. My head hits the wall. "No. Leave her alone." I push myself up to my feet and charge forward.

The guy's hand wraps around my throat, and he slams my body back against the wall again. "You hear that, Isabella? That's the sound of your little friend here dying. Come alone, and if I were you, I'd hurry."

"Why?" I gasp, falling to the floor when he releases his hold on my throat. "Why are you doing this?"

"Why? That's a good question. You know, I don't plan on keeping you alive longer than necessary," he says, and that's when I notice his thick Bronx accent.

"I don't care," I tell him honestly. "Leave Izzy alone. Just kill me."

"You aren't the key piece here, sweetheart. You're just a pawn on the chessboard. No, I want the queen. It's always been about her. I want her to suffer like she's made me suffer. She took from me, and now I'm going to take from her." He sounds almost… sad. Not that I feel any kind of remorse for this asshole. I just need to keep him talking long enough for me to figure out a way to kill him. I won't let him hurt Izzy, or anyone else for that matter.

"Why her? What did she take?" I ask him.

"She killed my father," he yells before he starts pacing the small room. I have no idea where I am, or how far away everyone else is. All I know is that this guy is as unhinged as they come and I need to see him dead before I take my last breath.

He claimed Izzy killed his father. If that's true, then I have no doubt the man had it coming. I'm more than aware my adoptive mother has a past. One that involved her earning herself the nickname the Stiletto Killer. Something she doesn't do anymore. Which means I also know she only ever killed men involved in the child sex trade. It was how she came to find me.

"I know what you're thinking. That he deserved it. That she must have had a reason."

I watch as he walks back and forth. I don't think he's talking to me at this point.

"He was a good man. He had flaws but so does everyone. He was my father and she killed him."

"Why?"

"Why? Because she's an evil bitch who needs to be stopped and I'm more than happy to be the one to do it." He stops walking, turns on his feet, and smiles at me. "She's coming for you. I've been watching. I know she's coming for you."

"No," I say, shaking my head. "She won't."

When the sound of tyres travelling over gravel breaks the growing tension, the guy rushes towards the door. "Our little guest is here," he says with a chuckle before stepping out of the room. "Don't go anywhere."

I push up to my feet and run towards the door but it closes and locks before I reach it. My fists pound on the wood. "No. Stop. Let me out!" I scream as I continue to bang on the door, only stopping when I hear voices on the other side.

"No, God, please no. Don't do this," I cry out the moment recognition hits.

The knob turns and then I'm falling backwards at the same time the door is being pushed open. I manage to catch myself and not fall to my ass this time. I shuffle aside, my stomach dropping when Izzy steps into the room with a gun pointed directly at the back of her head.

Why did she come? Why would she put herself at risk for me?

"You okay?" she asks.

I nod my head. Even if I know I'm never going to be okay again. Not without Marcel. "I'm sorry," my voice croaks and my eyes sting with unshed tears.

Izzy smiles at me. It's the same smile I've seen a thousand times over. The one that tells me everything is going to be okay. That everything is fine. The smile that says she has this handled. Although, for once, I think she's wrong.

I don't think this is a room either one of us is escaping. Her three babies are going to grow up without a mother because of me. Mikhail is going to lose her. He lost one of his best guys already. All because Ivan tried to help me.

"Get over there. Both of you," the guy hisses while pushing on Izzy's back.

My adoptive mother doesn't drop her smile, though. She has a wicked gleam in her eye as she turns around, somehow managing to block half of my body with her own.

"Izzy, don't do this. I'm so sorry," I whisper.

"You know, Kevin, when I heard you were looking for me, I didn't think you'd go to such elaborate measures to track me down," she says.

"You know who I am?" The guy appears taken aback.

"Kevin Geraldson II, son of Kevin Geraldson I, who's waiting for you in a special corner of hell I'm sure."

"You killed him. You took my father. Now I'm going to take something you love. And then I'm going to kill you."

"There are a few problems with your plan," Izzy says calmly. How the hell is she so calm right now? "First, I'm not about to let you harm this girl any more than you already have. Second, many people have tried and failed to kill me before. So what makes you think you'd be any better at it?"

"I'm the one holding the gun, bitch." Kevin waves his weapon in the air.

Izzy takes a step towards him, quickly closing the distance between them and then her hands are swiping out. A loud blast pierces through my ears within seconds, and that's when I realise Izzy is the one holding the gun now. The next thing I hear are the guy's screams. There's blood pouring out of his legs as he collapses to his knees and then his laid out on his back.

"Like I said, many have tried and failed." Izzy stalks forward and stands over the guy rolling around on the ground. "You got cocky, Kev. Where are all your masked men now? You thought you could let them all go, and that was your fatal mistake." Izzy pulls the trigger, sending another bullet straight through Kevin's abdomen.

"Fuck you, bitch," he screams at her.

I can't stop staring at the blood. There's so much blood. Too much blood. Visions of Marcel on the ground hit me, and I fall to my knees.

"Your first mistake was thinking you could come after me or my family," Izzy says and then the gun fires off again.

There's a commotion in the room. People are running in. I know I need to get up. I need to help her, but I'm frozen to the spot. I can't move.