Chapter 64 Just In Time
Dante's POV
The blood looked fresh and from the way the trail led, whoever owned it was dragged along. Meaning, someone has fallen.
I immediately followed the trail, noting how it had footsteps between them. They must have been chased.
I ran along with the blood till it thinned down to a smaller trail. The trail thinned till it disappeared.
I stopped, looking around for possible signs of where to go. Then I heard a loud bang from far off. That's where I must be.
Serena's POV
I don't know how long we'd been running or where we were going, as it was pretty dark.
But I do know that the attackers were gaining on us and it didn't help that Aunt Maria and I had to carry mom all the way.
It was a horrific sight when I found them with her bleeding from her foot. But we had to move as they didn't look to be stopping till they had our heads.
Nico trailed behind us, firing at the attackers while we struggled to go through the narrow path.
“You guys should just go on without me,” mom complained for the hundredth time since we left.
“Nonsense. I'll rather take them on with my hands than let you die here,” Aunt Maria interjected immediately.
“I'm slowing you guys down and if you don't go on without me, we will all die,” mom continued.
“Mom, please, just conserve your strength. We are not going to leave you behind, and that's final,” I said firmly.
“Exactly, keep your energy intact. The only problem I've noticed is that you've gained a thousand pounds over the years!” Aunt Maria remarked with a giggle.
“How far are we from any reasonable cover, mom?” I asked, also feeling the pressure from her weight.
Mom lifted her head and looked around but shook her head. “I can't tell, I can barely see anything and my head's spinning.”
I took a sharp breath and still kept going while gun fires kept coming from behind. We still had to be wary of bullets hitting us from behind.
We kept going and I soon maxed out all I had and got too weak to go on. “Aunt Maria, I don't think I can go on again,” I said as my steps grew weaker.
“No, my child. We can't stop now. Please hold on,” she replied but I was nearly fading.
Mom began to struggle in our grasp. “Let me go, Serena. Run and hide, it's better you live,” she said as she struggled her hand off my shoulder.
Aunt Maria tried to stop her and used her other hand to stop her. “Nessa, stop this. We are getting—”
She couldn't finish as mom's struggles led us to tangle and with how weak I was, I couldn't hold up my weight, talk more of mom's, so we went crashing to the floor.
“Come on!” Aunt Maria yelled, trying to get up.
Nico showed up a few seconds later. “What's going on here? We need to—”
A bullet from behind him cut him off, and he threw a hand to his shoulder as the gun he held dropped to the floor.
He fell to the ground and turned immediately, trying to scramble for his gun but he couldn't reach it in time.
One of the attackers stomped his foot into Nico's hand.
“Argh!” Nico yelled as the attacker grinded his hand with his foot, drawing more pain from Nico.
“Where's he?” The attacker asked.
“Fuck you,” Nico spat back, earning him another painful crunch on his hand.
“Defiant, but where's he, or you all die,” the attacker warned before stepping off Nico's foot and pointing a gun to Nico's head.
Aunt Maria shifted back instantly while I wrapped my hands around mom.
Instinctively, I knew Nico wouldn't even tell off Dante's whereabouts if he knew, and I guess we just have to be casualties in this case.
Nico clutched his hand around his chest and stared up at the attacker without saying a word. Just as I thought, he didn't budge to speak.
“So be it,” the attacker drew out and I closed my eyes, already expecting the worst.
I had thought it would be at the hands of Luca, or the Romanos, or even Dante. Never did I expect it to be at the hands of strange creeps who just have a beef with Dante.
A few seconds later, I heard a loud band as that of a gun firing. I squeezed my eyes shut and hugged mom tighter.
Three quick strikes followed the first and by this time, I was already down to tears. But after a few seconds of still breathing with no pain, I slowly opened my eyes.
“We are alive?” I asked, looking over to where Nico laid with his hand over his face. “We are alive,” I said again but with more affirmation.
“Yeah, we are. But I don't know how long I would remain alive with the way you're,” mom choked out and I let her go immediately.
“Oh, sorry about that, mom,” I giggled softly, then looked around quickly. “Aunt Maria?” I called out.
“I'm not dead yet,” she replied from beside my mom.
Nico slowly rose to his feet and looked to be staring down at what I believe is the corpse of the attacker.
The other three were down too, and all it took were four bullets.
I was about to tell Nico how good of a job he did in getting all of them down so quickly, but…
“You finally decided to show up,” Nico said while looking up, beyond the fallen men.
“What happened?” I heard a familiar voice reply.
I slowly got to my feet and my eyes fell to our savior… Dante, standing with his suit all roughed up and dirty and a gun in hand.
“We were getting ready for dinner and wondering if you both had gone when the house blew up,” Nico explained.
“We need to get the fuck out of this country,” Dante demanded.
“I'll call the men to send one of the planes down immediately,” Nico replied and walked off a bit.
“One of the planes?” I heard Aunt Maria say from behind me. “When I heard that these Russo motherfuckers are rich, I didn't know it was to this extent,” she added and for some strange reason, I smiled at that.
Dante approached me immediately. “You okay?” He asked.
“Yeah, I'm good. Lost you back there,” I replied.
“Yeah, I had to find a better way to get to them without making things more complicated,” he responded.
“You lost the rest of them?” I asked.
“All dead,” he replied bluntly.
Wow. I guess I see why he's the head.
“We need to get out of here,” Dante said, turning away from me to Nico who was fast approaching us.
“Don, I've got some bad news.”