Chapter 73 Chapter 73
Chapter 73 Chapter 73
Ayanna
Taking a page from his book, I sidle toward the side of
the stage. If I could just make it backstage, I’ll be able to sneak away before anyone notices I’m missing. I’ll find a way to reunite with Massimo once the coast is clear…
“No you don’t!” Salvatore snarls, snatching me by the arm. He yanks me backward and makes me stumble on clumsy feet. “You’re my insurance should anything go awry, dollface. Your hubby’s not the stablest guy. But if you’re my shield, then there’s no chance he’ll try anything.”
I twist and squirm in his clutches for only a few seconds, then I give up such a useless effort. If I’m to escape Salvatore, it’ll have to be in a cleverer, more underhanded manner. It’ll have to be a moment where I take him by surprise.
Massimo and his men burst through the door as expected.
A mafia standoff ensues. The soldiers of the D'Angelo family with their guns trained on the soldiers of the Rinaldi’s.
Though both families have many more men than the ones present today, the situation still feels volatile and out of control. Tension cinches the theater, even more tangible than the solid objects in the room.
Salvatore welcomes Massimo and the others with a cocky grin—and a cock of the hammer of his gun as he points it at my head. “Not so fast, Massimo. Take another step, and this gets real messy, real fast.”
Massimo’s glare is darker than I’ve ever seen it. Forget the stormy grays usually coloring his eyes. In this moment, they’re a frightening black abyss that feels unending in its hunger for brutality.
His muscles are taut and clenched, veins protruding, his breath heaving. He’s barely holding himself back from launching into a full blown rampage.
“Let my wife go,” he says. A few short words that are a precursor to what he’s really capable of.
“We’ve been over this. She was never yours to begin with,” Salvatore says. “You never bought her out of her contract. Because I’m her owner—I own all the dancers at the company, and if I don’t want to put ’em up, guess what? They’re not for sale!”
Massimo takes a single step forward. “Ayanna is her own woman. She will go where she wants to go. Regardless of your fucking contracts. Something tells me she would rather leave with me than stay here with you.”
“It doesn’t matter what she wants. This is business! She’s worth more than everybody in this building! Your family thinks these business negotiations are a game. It’s no wonder you’ve done so abysmally. Disc Co would be nothing if it wasn’t for me.”
“Enough talking. Let my wife go or we will be slaughtering every last one of you.”
Salvatore’s grip on me tightens. The barrel of the gun pressed harder into my temple. “Careful what you’re about to start, Massimo. We may have the same number of men now, but my family’s five times as big and powerful as the Rinaldi operation. I can annihilate your family without even breaking a sweat.”
“You think I give a shit which family is bigger?”
“You should give a shit which family holds all the power. And mine does, Massimo. Your ballerina was the last thing I needed to gain control. All that negotiation about Disc Co. ends today. I don’t need your asses anymore now that I have the key to it all. The new medicine we’ve had in development. I’ll become the richest man on the planet. And you… you’ll be left a deathly ill fool that was nothing but a puppet for your father.”
Through the haze of Massimo’s vicious fog, I’m able to catch his attention. He senses my gaze on him and shifts his ever so slightly to meet mine.
Salvatore’s too busy blathering away to notice. I speak with my eyes, praying Massimo will understand what I’m trying to communicate.
The fact that he allows Salvatore to prattle on uninterrupted tells me he does.
With a deep inhale, I resign myself to the deadly chance I’m about to take. Thoughts of what could go wrong are shut out. The nerves churning inside me about how I could be making a grave mistake. I dissociate these thoughts and feelings when I take the biggest risk of my lifetime.
As Salvatore boasts about the power of his crime family, I twist in his grip and grab the barrel of his gun, catching him by surprise and pointing it skyward at the ceiling. My knee jerks up to slam into his gut. The gun goes off above our heads with a resounding bang.
It’s all the invitation Massimo needs. A split second is all it takes for the theater to fill with the dizzying hail of bullets.
Salvatore’s men take cover behind the many rows of seats. Massimo’s men rush to do the same. All while both sides fire back at each other the second something’s within their line of sight. Men drop like flies once they’re struck.
I’d have a front row seat to the carnage if I weren’t locked into a scuffle with Salvatore. For being a mafia don that bullies and intimidates for a living, he’s not much in physical combat. Even with my basic training, I’m able to hold my own… at least for the first few seconds we’re struggling for the gun.
Strength is on his side as he muscles control over the gun’s handle. I’m not to be defeated so easily—I fight like I was taught, focusing on evening the playing field, using any maneuver to my advantage.
As he wrestles my grip away from the gun, I’m sweeping my leg out to send him crashing onto the floor. He grabs me by the ankles and yanks me off my feet in immediate payback.