“Ettore! You can’t do this!”
“I can do whatever I want, which reminds me. Don’t go too far, little brother, I think we have some unfinished business to take of. I have to go, Dace. Michael is here, and I have a deal to make with him.”
“Ettore! I swear if anything happens to her, I will fucking kill you!” I scream at him, but all he can do is laugh and hang up. I rage, destroying anything within my reach.
My mind is racing, but I don’t have much time. Only one person can help her now. I pick up my phone and dial. “Aaron, you’re going to have to call in every favor you have and get a search warrant for Michael’s house. Yeah, he’s got a girl there—your sister.” He doesn’t even bother to say goodbye or ask for any explanation. As expected, he is doing everything possible to get into that house and now.
I am unable to sit back and simply wait to be told what has happened, if anything. Who knows how long it will take for Aaron to get the proper documents in order to invade Michael’s home. It may be too late by the time he is able to get in. I have to do something. I will sacrifice myself if I have to. Without thinking any further, I steal John’s car and leave with one goal in mind—save her.
I come up on his home with confidence. I know how to get in; it’s not as if I haven’t done it before. My thinking has changed slightly since I left to come here. My plan is not to just rescue one but two. I make a call and wait for the little voice on the other end.
“Hello.”
“Hi, Sage. Can you help me get inside?” I say, simply hoping no one is watching her closely and that she is observant enough to know that people around her are not my biggest fans.
“Yes. I forgot my doll outside in my play yard.”
“I will meet you there.” I have wrapped myself up as any other guard would and walk in a pattern that would seem normal, only making slight adjustments until I can make it closer to the main house and into Sage’s play yard. She comes down her personal stairs and opens the door to let me in.
I pick her up, and she wraps her arms around my neck so tight I fear she will never let go. “Dace, Austin is here, and I think Daddy is going to hurt her. I just saw her being taken to the bad place.”
“I know, Sweetie. Do you know where she is?” She nods. “Can you get me to her without anyone noticing?” She shakes her head. “Are you sure? Is there another entrance maybe?”
“No, there is only one way in. I never been down there. Daddy locks it and made me promise never to go there. A guard is always at that door.”
I sit back in a corner of her room with her sitting in my lap and lying against my chest, crying. If only someone heard the tears of her crying. I can’t imagine how many would come to save her. Only an entire police force, that’s who. “Sage, I need you to call for help. Tell them you are scared, that you hear screaming and you think the bad people are coming for you. Do you understand?” She nods. I hand her the phone after pushing 911, and … send.
“Nine, one, one what’s your emergency?”
“I’m scared. The bad people are here and they are hurting her and they are coming to find me to hurt me. Pease, I’m scared,” she whimpers perfectly. I make an expression to her, and she screams, and at the same time, I hear Austin’s screams. My heart and brain instantly engage in a battle. My heart won’t let anything happen to her, but my head knows I won’t make it anywhere near her before I am killed, ensuring Sage’s death as well. Michael will have her killed just for helping me get inside. He hates nothing more than betrayal, just ask my dead mother, his dead father, and his dead wife. I carefully sneak out of her room and toss her phone into the dumbwaiter that hasn’t been used since the old home was built. I hope it works. I pick Sage up and carry her, and her precious floppy dog that her real daddy gave her, out of the home and away from it all. Antony and Preston meet me at the road’s edge, and I place her into Antony’s arms. He seems awkward at first, but a smile releases with an exhaling breath, then he buries his face deep within her hair. She’s his, and he just now realizes that he’s a father, and so does Preston who also looks overjoyed. The sight places a brief smile on my face.
The good news is I barely make it back to the car before the cops rush into the home and tear it apart. The bad thing is, they don’t get in easily. There is a brutal gun battle. When the smoke clears, it is unclear who is still alive and who isn’t, but I wait and watch every movement that comes out of the place. From this distance, it is hard to tell who is being carried off in an ambulance and who is being carried out in body bags, but it is easy to see the people walking out on their own, and only a few do—one being Michael, another being Rowen, and someone I can only assume is another guard, but none are blond or female.
“Dace, it’s over. Come on, let’s get back to John so we can wait to hear news,” Antony urges.
“I need to find her.” I race towards the house and slyly sneak in, pretending to be a cop. Antony is right behind me, following my lead. Just look like you belong, I think to myself. I move through the home, searching and searching for any sign of her, and then I come to the now, wide open door to the basement.
“Dace, don’t,” Antony says, taking hold of my arm. “If she is down there …” He stops when we see the flashes of light coming up the stairs. “Dace, they are photographing the scene. That can’t be good. You don’t want to see that.” I jerk my arm from him and move down the stairs in a daze, not even feeling my legs as they carry me down. The scene takes me aback until I realize she’s not here. There is blood and blond hair wrapped within some chains, but she’s not here.
I turn to Antony. “If she was dead, they would still have her here while they photographed.”
He nods. “We’ll go to the hospital then.”
The hospital doors open in front of us. I walk through realizing that this is the first time I can be me—no hiding, no pretending. I am me. The first person I see is the man who pretended to be my father, John or whatever his name is. I walk up to him as he sits being looked after by a nurse. “You were the spy in his house?” he nods with a scowl. “You’re pretty good at pretending to be someone you’re not.”
“So are you. You had everyone convinced that you’re Colletto, but you’re something much less.” Antony comes from behind me. “Both of you. Two low-class bastards pretending to be royalty.”
I laugh, but before I can say something, Preston jumps out and punches the man in the face. “You’re an embarrassment to life,” he says, walking away from the shocked expressions surrounding him. I leave the situation, continuing my search, but the further I go, the more I feel like I am stalling. ‘Knowledge is power,’ they say, but sometimes knowledge takes away hope. I don’t want to lose hope. I don’t want to lose her. John manages to catch up with us, and I look up at him. The expression on his face seems to be that of understanding and recognition of pain. We aren’t allowed anywhere else, and I have searched for Aaron everywhere, called him countless times, and asked numerous nurses and doctors about Austin, but no one seems to know anything. I sink down into a chair as the world moves around me, still in disbelief that I left her. Why did I do that? She would have never been in danger if I had not left her. Aaron must hate me, and I can’t blame him.
John taps me on the shoulder and pulls me aside. “The key, if you want it, is yours.” I look up at him as the realization of his words begin to become clear. “Your father gave it to me with the intention of it, one day, being yours. It was only meant to be temporary until our oldest son was ready and only given to me in order to protect you. If, at any time I felt danger for you two, I would be able to prevent it. I can’t say I did the best job at keeping track of you, until I had the key. Then I had all the eyes I needed to watch out for you, but now you are ready to have that power if you want it. You can take charge and …”
“You would have to die for me to take it. I would have to have my father killed to take it. Isn’t that right, John? How can I possibly want something that causes me to lose something
more important to me?”
“Dace, I have cancer. That’s part of the reason I have struggled so much the last few years keeping track of you two on my own. I beat it once, struggled greatly with it. Even then I tried to keep tabs on you, but it was difficult. I think I only got better because I had hope that I would finally see my sons again. I have been doing my best to regain my strength. Only last week they told me it was back, and this time it is progressing fast. I can’t live through another round of chemo. I am still trying to recover from the last. All I wanted was the chance to see my boys again and my grandchild now. It’s a matter of time, Dace, and in that case, the key can be passed on to a stronger survivor of the family.”
“You don’t seem sick.” He laughs and hugs me until well after I stop fighting him.
“But, I just found you, and if I lose her too … I don’t know if I can …”
“You can, and you will. Besides, we don’t know yet how she is.”
“Dace,” Aaron calls out to me from across the room. I jump a few chairs to race towards him. “She’s hurt but alive. He didn’t get the chance to rape her. He felt the need to beat her first. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”
“But she’s alive and doing well?” I question. Aaron sighs, looking down at his feet, which doesn’t seem good to me. “Tell me.”
“She’s pregnant, Dace. She should live, but they aren’t sure about the baby. They have put her into a coma to keep her calm and try to stabilize her and the baby. It’s early enough in the pregnancy that they hope they can save it, but who knows.”
I step back from him, fisting my hair. “It’s my fault. I should have never left her. She wanted to come with me, and I said no. I thought …”
“It’s not your fault that the bastards lied to us all. We all trusted them. I would have made her stay behind too. I would have thought she was safer there than going with you,” Aaron says. “She’s going to make it, I know it. And so is that kid. I don’t know anyone stronger than you two, and that little fucker sure as hell has to be a fighter.”
I don’t even recall how I got there, but I find myself at Austin’s bedside, holding her hand and talking to her with ramblings of nothing. This is not where we were supposed to end up. Our lives deserve better, better than what the Collettos have done to us. I take the key out, playing with it, when John appears in the doorway. He doesn’t have to say a word. I know what he is waiting to hear. “I won’t force her to be with me or do anything she doesn’t want to do,” I say without looking at him.
“The family doesn’t work that way. I wish I could tell you that it is an easy role, but it isn’t. You will have to make tough decisions, sometimes decisions that no man wants to have to make. You will be in charge of … things that you may not like, that she may not like.”
“Is there an upside to this?”
“Yes. Revenge,” he says.
“Revenge isn’t everything.”
“No, but keeping your family safe is. You don’t have to ask me what I would do because I did. I did whatever I could to keep you boys safe. Your lives may not have been perfect, but you are still alive. Your friend, Nate, didn’t help you out of that house before it exploded just because you were part of his crew. The doctor that took care of you after didn’t help you because you had money to pay him. You think Antony got away from those men because of Ettore’s men? No, he was helped, by the family. Your father, Dominic, has given you an opportunity, and though I had my issues with him, it’s clear that he loved you and is looking out for you and Antony, above his own blood children.” I shake my head, looking over Austin and the deep bruises on her body, thinking about the child her body was trying to protect. “You can’t be there to protect them every minute of every day, but the family can be, Dace.”
How do you make a decision about your forever without the one you want to spend forever with helping you make that decision? Simple, you do what’s best for your family, right Dominic? Austin’s bruised hand shows signs of Michael ripping off her engagement ring as harshly as he could. Her whole hand is swollen from that one action. I can only imagine what he did to the ring. He may have destroyed our ring, but he won’t destroy us. My hands suddenly stop shaking, my head stops spinning and my blood begins to boil. I think it’s time for me to meet the family.
Chapter 23
Dace
Ettore is sitting pretty happy right now. He has gained everything he needs, all except one thing. While Michael was in jail, Ettore broke into the Colletto network and had plenty of time for his hired experts to break into Michael’s system and transfer all information and control to himself. Everyone is so up in arms over their governor being arrested for horrible crimes that no one is paying attention to him. He has already killed the Aksakovs, every single one of them, and is on his way to doing in the rest of his competitors. I can only imagine how long it will take him to get to me. I guess he assumes I am too busy worrying about Austin and making sure Michael doesn’t have anyone retaliate and kill her off for good, but with my new title, no one is getting close to her or my child.
Yep, Ettore is being completely ignored right now. No one is paying attention to what he is doing, and more importantly, paying attention to me going after him. The things I know now, the people I now control, give me opportunities I never thought possible. Ettore’s entire block goes black, the security system goes dead, and any backup power he had is dead. His security team is dealt with and anyone left … runs. When the power comes back on, Ettore is loading his shotgun.
“Going hunting?” I ask him from his own desk chair.
He nearly jumps through the ceiling. “Motherfucker, you know I hate when you do that!”
“I don’t care.”
He finishes loading his gun and aims it at me. “I am in no mood for a smartass. Now get out of my chair. I don’t want your blood to spill all over it.”
“Don’t worry, it won’t. You just loaded that gun with blanks. About the most you’re going to be able to do is cause the room to get smoky. Don’t do that.” He fires at me anyway. Smoke goes everywhere. “You see? Now why did you have to go and do that, make all that noise for smoke?”
“I will have you skinned alive and buried so deep your bones will melt into the earth,” Ettore promises.
“Wow, that’s some anger,” I laugh, getting up and walking over to him. “I have to say though, Ettore, you were never my favorite brother, but I will give you credit. You stayed true to who you are and never claimed to be anything different. And because of that, and only because of that, I am going to shoot you right in the head so you die quick.” I allow him just enough time to process my words before shooting. He falls to the ground, lying on his back, still with that shocked expression on his face. I leave his home and allow the family to do what they need to. There will be no funeral, no service to say goodbye, just a memory in my mind.
Michael has hired the best attorneys, and they are doing their damndest to get him out on bail. They claim he was high on drugs and didn’t realize what he was doing. Problem is, they found evidence in his house of multiple times he must have been high on drugs. Not to mention, they find him with the wife he said was dead. The media is outraged by the idea that he had his wife hidden from the world for his own pleasure. Michael’s attorneys are in way over their head. Their last idea is to try to claim that, since Michael is an elected official, it would be best for everyone if he is not in jail with criminals who are doing everything they can to kill him. The amount of money it is costing the state to have round the clock security to protect him is becoming too great a burden. Allowing him bail to wait out the trial at home would force Michael to pay for his own security and relieve that burden. Once he is in jail, they believe he will be given the death penalty with all the evidence they have on him now. It’s amazing how many people will turn on you when you have no power to touch them anymore. Nonetheless, his last proposal finally worked. He spent nearly a year in jail before he was able to get out. I would h
ave had him killed in jail, but for one, it wouldn’t have been justice, and for another, it would have caused an investigation. We can’t have the family secrets put into jeopardy, so I have been waiting patiently for him to get out. With the beginning of his trial right around the corner, Michael is released. I am there when he walks out, with Austin at my side and my son, Cade, in my arms. I am able to meet Michael’s eyes for a moment, long enough for us to exchange an understanding of where we both stand, long enough for him to know. He didn’t beat me. He didn’t win, but I haven’t won either, not yet. Our eyes might have met only briefly, but it was long enough to know all I needed to know about his plans and long enough for him to see my smile. Michael climbed into his car, and no sooner was he out of jail and on his way home, does his car explode. He and Rowen both were supposedly inside. I laugh at the sight and the media’s coverage of it all. For now, I allow it to be as it is. I have more important matters at the moment. For one, we have a wedding to plan.
I meet everyone at the plane, and we fly to the long awaited destination wedding I have been planning since I met her. Austin flew in ahead of me with her best friend, Preston, and Aaron’s girlfriend so they could get the church setup to her liking. Although, it was actually and excuse to have a bachelorette party without Austin wanting to run home to our son before the son went down. From what I understand it worked, but I also learned Fonseca planned the party, which didn’t make me happy at all. Nonetheless, Antony, Aaron, and I all fly in with the two little ones a few days later. Sage has adapted well to her father and his husband. She actually laughs out loud now. Preston, the man that never thought for a second about staying home on a Saturday night, now stays home more often than not because Sage needs him to read to her before she goes to sleep. Thankfully, Antony does well enough as a senator to allow Preston to stay home with their little girl. I do have to admit, Antony is a better father than he is senator. Not that he is a bad senator, he just happens to love tea parties with cookies more than dealing with the Tea Party and their cookies.