Page 16 of Serendipity
Jesus fuck.
“Does this happen often?”
He looked at me as if I grew two heads. “No, it doesn’t happen that often. It almost doesn’t happen at all.”
“Then why now?”
The look on his face was not the one I wanted to think about, but I had a feeling this wasn’t just some random attack.
“This way.” He pulled me quickly through another doorway into the room I wished to stop and admire. It seemed to be some sort of a ballroom, probably used in the past for gala dinners, and parties. But even the beauty of the ballroom couldn’t erase the dreadful feelings coursing through my veins, or the fear and anxiety taking over my body.
I was surprised I could still run, barefoot and terrified. But my fear was not for me, it was for Nico and that frantic look he had on his face.
Whatever it was, spooked him enough for his emotions to show on his face.
I didn’t know him well enough, but I had a feeling that he wasn’t the kind of a man who showed his emotions all that often. The fact that he showed them to me spoke volumes.
Daniele suddenly stopped, his grip increasing on my arm. When I looked into the direction where his eyes were trained, my heart skipped a beat, and my palms became clammy all over, again.
A man, dressed all in black with a balaclava over his head, stood at the doorway leading from the ballroom. Several knives were attached to his belt, and in his left hand was a gun pointed right at us.
“Going somewhere?” the man asked. Daniele pushed me behind him. “And here I thought that we were just starting to have fun.”
“Who are you?” Daniele asked, holding his own gun trained at the stranger.
This wasn’t going to end well; I could already feel it. I didn’t want to die before I truly ever lived. I didn’t want to die when my life was just supposed to start.
“Drop the gun and I might tell you.”
“Tough luck, buttercup,” Daniele answered, gritting his teeth. “I’m not gonna ask again. Who are you?”
What happened next would forever stay etched into my memory. I was pretty sure that there were a million things that could’ve gone differently, but they hadn’t. It was one of those what-if moments that would haunt me for years to come.
Daniele removed the safety on his gun, but before he could pull the trigger, the stranger pulled his trigger, shooting Daniele in the chest. The impact made him stumble back into me, making us both fall to the ground, in a heap of limbs and blood pooling from his wounds.
“You can call me death,” the stranger said as Daniele and I landed on the ground.
I pulled myself out from under Daniele, horrified at the sight in front of me.
Blood pooled out from five spots on his chest, creating a red circle around his body. His olive complexion was pale, too pale now, and the confident dark eyes looked scared, frantic, pleading with me, but for what I didn’t know.
“No, no, no,” I chanted, getting closer to Daniele, pressing my hands against two of the wounds, but there were too many, and too little of me. “Please don’t die.”
“Run,” he choked out, blood coming out of his mouth. “Get out of here.”
“No, I can’t just leave you.”
“Cazzo. Fucking run, Alessia.”
“You should listen to him,” the stranger’s voice joined us. His footsteps echoed around the room. “Not that you would be able to go too far. I didn’t come all this way to leave empty-handed. Nico Romano is going to know what real pain feels like, and you’re gonna help me.”
“You can fuck off,” I bit out as I looked at him. “Only a coward would shoot a man with a mask covering his face. Only a coward would come into someone’s house uninvited, destroying the peace here.”
“Peace?” He laughed. “Romanos don’t have that word in their vocabulary. They’re the ones you should look at like that—full of hate, anger and disdain, not me. They took everything away from me, and I am going to return the favor.”
He bent down and picked me up, pulling me away from a bleeding Daniele. “Let go of me.” I thrashed and twirled, trying to break free from his grasp, but he was too strong for me. In a matter of seconds, he had me close to the exit where Daniele and I were heading. “I’m gonna fucking cut off your dick, asshole.”
“So bloodthirsty, and they said that he didn’t have you for longer than a few days.”
