Chapter Nine

Stefano

Being surrounded on the beach by Dresor’s militia might have forced them to drop their weapons, but the fight was far from over. Of course, unpredictable as ever, Wild suddenly sent a roundhouse kick into the perp behind. Seizing the moment of surprise, Rossi launched at a nearby man and Stefano dove head first into the fray. A blow to his back sent him down to the sand, but he bounced back up and delivered a throat punch. The man clutched his neck and stumbled away. Two men grabbed his arms and another delivered a punch to his core. He would have doubled over, but the men held him steady and when the fucker moved in to send another punch to his gut, Stefano put his foot in the man’s face. He sent the back of his head into one of the men holding him and managed to catch the side of that guy’s head. With one arm free, he twisted and dropped to the sand to send his last assailant sailing over his head. He scrambled to his feet just as more converged on him.

A foot caught him in his knee and he cried out, going down to the ground before lunging up again, fighting through the pain.

Gunfire spewed over their heads.

The noise brought the fight to a dead stop. Gunfire on a public fucking beach?

Was Dresor out of his fucking mind? Apparently so.

Rossi must had thought the same thing. Slowly, both he and Rossi lifted their hands up.

Wild, though, had already taken down five or maybe six men, and seemed prepared to continue. Wild wiped the back of his hand at the blood on his mouth, but a small shake of Rossi’s head had the operative standing down. One of the men stepped in and sent the butt of his gun into Wild, bringing the man silently to his knees.

Dresor stepped up and pointed a gun at Wild’s forehead. Wild didn’t flinch. Stefano knew Wild would never flinch. In fact, Wild leaned forward into the barrel.

“Do it, motherfucker,” Wild snarled.

Dresor pressed the gun harder and sneered.

And in that moment, it occurred to Stefano that Dresor had nothing to lose by killing them and everything to gain from silencing them forever.

One of the militia stepped forward and slammed the end of his gun into Rossi’s head.

“No!” Stefano snarled, lunging in an awkward hop forward when Rossi dropped to the beach.

Several guns were suddenly turned on him and with his teeth clenched, he kept his hands raised. Two of the men reached down and lifted Rossi to drag him in the direction of several jeeps lining the nearby road.

“Soon,” Dresor told Wild. “Now, get up.”

Several men stepped forward to grab Wild, and Stefano turned around on Dresor.

Dresor studied him like a fucking bug and lifted his gun to gesture to the vehicles. Stefano moved with a slow limp, he had no choice and he knew in his gut if he fought any more, the drug lord could kill them on the beach and toss their bodies into the ocean without blinking a fucking eye.

This was his fucking fault.

If only he’d kept his mouth shut and not threatened Dresor, the man wouldn’t have come back with an army and attacked Barry’s house.

Shifting on the hard concrete beneath his ass, Stefano realized his arms were going numb from being tied to a pipe behind his back. Grimacing, the fucker had kicked his knee during the fight and straightening it out was excruciating. The whole fucking thing was swollen and hot to the touch.

From what he could tell of the dimly lit building they’d been taken to, it was a warehouse not far from Barry’s place.

Wild sat just to the left of him, similarly tied up, and was slowly working his arms behind him.

It was Rossi who he was most concerned with. The man hadn’t woken up since they’d been attacked and a gun had hit Rossi’s head. Slumped on the floor next to him, Rossi lay on his side, his hands tied in front instead of behind due to him being unconscious.

Thank fuck he hadn’t been able to sleep well without Rossi at his side or Stefano may have never seen them coming. He’d been downstairs when the hit went down. There’d been so many of them and his weapon was upstairs, so he’d sprinted outside to try and get through another door and take the back stairs. Camilla’s scream echoed and something made him glance upward. That was when he had seen Barry go down. Barry… fuck. Was he still alive?

It must have been the powers of the universe, because something made Stefano glance toward the beach trying to get an idea of how many perps there were.

That was when his eyes had landed on two men walking toward the house. Even in the growing darkness, he recognized Wild with his long hair and lanky build.

And in his heart, Stefano knew the man walking next to Wild like he knew the back of his own hand.

Rossi had come for him.

Leaping off the stairs, Stefano had run for the love of his life.

A noise jogged him back to the cold, air-conditioned building. He heard Dresor’s men in the other room, but nobody had approached them, not even Dresor.

“Gio,” Stefano whispered, aching to stroke the man’s hair. The only comfort he drew was that Rossi’s chest was rising and falling. “I’m so sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” Wild hissed. “You didn’t do anything, did you?”

Stefano closed his eyes and nodded. “I confronted Dresor. That’s his name, Kyle Dresor. He was selling drugs to the teenagers who live near the beach. I caught him talking to Camilla’s son, Mark, and I took him to the ground.”

Wild’s eyes widened. “Like knocked him out?”

“No, I only took him to his knees, but I wanted to.”

“Who’s Camilla?”

“The housekeeper. She has a room there and so does Mark.” Stefano leaned his head sideways and rubbed at an itch with his shirt.

“Was the owner there?” Wild asked.

“Yeah. I saw Barry get attacked and I don’t know if he’s alive.” His voice grew raspy.

“Still, none of this is your fault,” Wild grunted and then started working his arms again.

Stefano wasn’t sure what the wily man was up to, but he hoped to hell Wild would soon break free.

“Gio,” he said softly. “Wake up, please. I’m so sorry,” he repeated.

“Don’t be.”

The breath caught in his throat when those pair of beloved whiskey-colored eyes popped open and held his gaze. He made a sound like a half sob, but fought back a full one and roamed his eyes over Rossi’s beautiful face. After all these years, Rossi still rocked his world. Of the two of them, Stefano knew he looked his own age. Rossi, on the other hand, looked at least ten years younger than his almost fifty years. He supposed it came from years of eating healthy and keeping his body in peak physical condition.

Rossi quickly rolled, used his hands to get to his knees, and then reached for him. When Rossi realized Stefano’s arms were tied to the pipe behind his back, the man leaned around to look. Stefano pulled at the zip-ties cutting off his circulation, and Rossi drew back.

“Don’t pull,” Rossi told him and held the back of his knuckles against his face.

Surprise kept Stefano mute when Rossi smiled at him, deepening that sexy as fuck cleft in his chin. Stefano had a sudden urge to poke his tongue in the small dimple as he’d done a thousand times before, but he refrained.

When Rossi’s eyes deepened with banked laughter and heat, Stefano swallowed around a suddenly tightening throat.

It all came rushing back.

Every single reason he’d ever had to love Rossi coursed through him. How the hell had he thought he could live his life without this man? This powerful, sexy, overbearing and somewhat annoying, loving man.

Rossi had and would always be the one.

Breaking their gazes, Rossi glanced around the warehouse. “I’ll be right back.” The man slowly lifted to his feet as if testing his balance and then glanced at Wild.

“Wait!” Stefano hissed, craning his neck to look up at Rossi. He’d completely forgotten Rossi was injured. “How’s your head?”

“I’m fine.” Rossi reached down and caressed his cheek one more time with the tip of his fingers as if the distance between them had already become unbearable—fuck, was it ever. Stefano briefly closed his eyes.

“You good?” Rossi murmured, and Stefano’s eyes popped open. It took him a moment to realize Rossi was asking Wild.

“I’ll be much better if you cut us loose,” Wild said dryly.

With a smirk, Rossi used his teeth to tighten the zip-ties around his own wrists. Lifting his hands over his head, he brought his arms down and snapped the plastic as if it was nothing. The move was so goddamned sexy, it sent Stefano’s heart pounding and he kept his eyes glued to Rossi’s tall frame as he began roaming through the stacks of supplies. Rossi stopped to search through the piles of junk on the top of a nearby workbench.

A sudden noise at the door drew Stefano’s attention from Rossi and he watched as several men entered. Noticing Rossi wasn’t on the floor where they’d left him, the men started arguing loudly in Spanish that Dresor was going to kill them if they didn’t find the missing hostage.

Stefano casually used his peripheral vision to scope out the workbench, but there was no sign of Rossi. One of the guards stalked through the warehouse with a semi-automatic rifle in his hands while the other two stood guard over Stefano and Wild. One bent down and checked their bindings.

After a moment, the guard came back and told the other two that the one hostage had definitely escaped. They left and this time; Stefano heard the lock on the door click.

His gaze searched through the dark nooks and crannies of the supplies and he finally spotted feet emerging and then legs appearing from the shadows that hovered near the low rafters over the work table. How the hell Rossi had gotten up there so quickly was beyond him, but he was very glad the man stayed in tip-top shape. When that beloved head appeared, Stefano devoured the vision.

Rossi’s coal black hair was rumpled and had a few cobwebs in it when he stepped back into the light. The man didn’t have one shred of gray hair. The only thing Rossi did have was a streak of silver. That light band of hair was suddenly swept from the man’s forehead beneath a thrust of Rossi’s hand before he continued searching for something to cut them loose with.

“Why are you here?” Stefano asked Wild when a sudden thought occurred to him.

“Backup?” Wild said with a grunt and then gave up working his arms.

“For what?”

Wild tossed Rossi a glance and so did Stefano, but the man wasn’t paying attention to them.

“He’s really nervous,” Wild murmured.

“What?” He sat stunned trying to absorb Rossi being nervous.

“Yeah, he thinks you won’t forgive him.”

Stefano closed his eyes for a long moment and then popped them open when he felt Rossi at his side. He searched the man’s profile as Rossi worked with something to free his hands. When he felt them give, he didn’t have time to shake his arms out before he was yanked into Rossi’s arms.

“Once we get out of here, we are going to talk,” Rossi said all growly and shit. A shiver went down Stefano’s spine; he smiled and Rossi’s scowl deepened.

“Um, hey?” Wild hissed, and Rossi turned and started on Wild’s hands.

Stefano stayed sitting and gently worked his fingers over each of his reddened wrists and slowly rolled his aching shoulders. He wasn’t ready to test his knee yet. Rossi could be as mad as he wanted, he didn’t care. Rossi had come for him and had brought Wild. That meant that… well, he wasn’t sure what that meant, but it had to be a good sign. Right?

“You think we can find our phones on the beach?” he said.

“It’s probably too dark,” Rossi muttered.

“It won’t matter. The guys will find us,” Wild said.

“Wait… guys?” Stefano blinked and then blinked again before gazing at Rossi. “Just how many of the guys did you bring?”

Rossi sheepishly rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and mumbled,

“All of them.”