Chapter Fifty Four
Camilla POV
I'm once again jerked around, and the man grabs my hand, squeezing my much smaller fingers with his strong grasp. His hand hold is anything but gentle. "I change my mind, we go in through the back," he says, jerking me towards an alley way entrance to the building we stand behind. The other guy pulls out some kind of tool kit and starts messing with the door lock. I take this time to look up and down the alley for any opportunity I can. I can see cars whizzing by at one end, while the other appears to be a dead end, a large dumpster in the shadows of the buildings. No sign of any people or exits, other than the way we entered the alley.
The door suddenly swings open, and I'm pushed forward. We have entered what appears to be an industrial-sized boiler room. Large furnaces and maybe hot water heaters of some sort. It's hard to tell, it's extremely dim. I can hear the hum of an air conditioner unit working as I'm pushed forward, my hand still firmly held in a vise grip. I tripped over something on the floor and would have fallen on my face if not for the goon who held my hand. He jerked me back and then grumbled aloud, "Can we use a light in this shit hole?"
"Yeah, just a minute," the other guy says before clicking on his flashlight on his phone. "I don't know where the light switches are in this place."
"Did you try inside the door when we first came in?" I couldn't help but ask. It earned me a slap to the back of the head. Coincidentally, I watched as he took a few steps back in the direction we had come and found a switch, turning on some low lights that barely illuminated the pathway between large machines. The room was warm, the sounds humming and buzzing around us. It was definitely the heart of the building we were in. It was where electrical fuses and big machines worked to keep the place powered and either cooled or hot, depending on the time of year.
Just as we were rounding the corner, the door we had come through flew open and my captors stopped in their tracks and looked behind us. "Stop right there, or I will blow your head off." The voice of my brother, angry in a way I'd never heard, echoed down the corridor. I'd never felt such relief and fear all at the same time. I had every right to feel both as I felt my body being dragged against my captor like a shield. The cold steel of a knife blade threatened to pierce my skin at my neck.
"I don't think so," was the response from the man who held me against him. "Not if you don’t want to see this sweet piece of ass bleeding at your feet," he pulled me tighter into him, his hand tight across my body, squeezing the bones in my hand so hard I thought my hand was going to break.
"She's my sister, so I'd appreciate it if you let her go," Michael said quietly as he surveyed me.
"Your sister, huh?" the man asked. "So, you must be the great Michael Patron. The boss would be happy to have you in his clutches." Michael said nothing, just watched intently. I wondered where his crew was, where Nicholas was.
"I will let you live if you let my sister go," Michael finally offered.
"You're mistaken, Patron. You don't get to make the rules. You are outnumbered, and you are on Cain's turf; this isn't Vegas."
"Maybe," Michael said. "But I can kill you both before she's dead, so here is your chance to live." Michael took a step forward, and the door closed behind him, sealing us inside. "Let her go."
"Can't do it. The boss will kill us anyway. She's the answer to all of his problems," the man says.
Michael laughs. "Is that what he told you? That's insane. This is a decade old desire of his, to possess Camilla. She can't be possessed, though. She's never going to marry him and give him what he wants. Never," Michael hissed.
"I'd rather die," I whispered. I watched as the two men exchanged looks.
Michael took another step, the knife pressed tighter to my throat. "Stop, or I will slit her throat," the man said. I believed him. I looked at Michael with a pleading look. I didn't want to die, but I also didn't want to marry Thomas Cain. I didn't want Michael to die either. Again, I thought, where are his men?
"You shot one of my men," Michael said. I assumed he was trying to distract the guy, but he held fast to me and to the knife. I felt him shrug.
"So, I had to get inside the house. The only way to do that was to take out your guards. It's nothing personal, man, just business."
"Oh, it's personal, alright," Michael said.
I hear a noise behind us, and the other guy suddenly dashes past, jostling me and my captor. I feel the tip of the knife press against my skin, and warmth trickles down my neck. Oh my god, he's cut me, I think. And then I am getting dragged backward rapidly. My eyes flutter as I see Michael lunge towards us just as I am released and fall to the floor. I feel my head make contact with the floor and then blackness, stars dancing in my eyes. "Camilla," I hear Michael's voice next to my ear before gunshots ring out around us, and then nothing but silence.