Page 86 of Isle of Seduction
“Nico?”
He moans softly and I know I didn’t imagine it.
“Cervantes! Call the ambulance, he’s alive!” I yell at the Head of the Security and Protection Department of Capaldi Security.
It takes long minutes for the ambulance to come here. Meanwhile, I keep monitoring Nico’s pulse and Giulia’s dot on the tracker app. When the paramedics arrive, they take Nico to the nearest hospital to take care of the bullet wounds and perforated lung. I send Marco with him and refocus on my vengeance.
Louis Marshall is a dead man.
* * *
We do the briefing on our way. The red dot indicating Giulia’s position stopped moving while we rescued Nico, but she’s now four hours away, maybe three if we hurry up.
I address the six men on the rescue team with a solemn tone.
“I’ve shared with you the location of our target.” It’s four in the morning, I haven’t slept in twenty-four hours but adrenaline fills my veins like a drug, keeping me awake. The downfall will be brutal, but all I care about is getting to her.
“The target for the retrieval is my wife. Everything about her is in the file. If a hair on her head is missing in the process, you’re dead. The man who got her needs to be caught alive, but I don’t care in which state. I’ve sent you his description.”
The rest of the way is spent on how we’ll enter the place. There will be a downtime for recognition that I don’t feel we can afford, but Cervantes reminds me entering without knowing our enemy or the place is too dangerous.
Rational thoughts are barely making their way into my mind, I’m too wired to think carefully so I hand over the operation and listen intently.
I got too wrapped up in our isle of seduction to care about potential threats of her past, only focusing on the threats of my present. If she gets hurt, it will be my fault.
My throat clogs and I can barely swallow around the bile creeping up, much less breathe normally. She’s my only oxygen and I won’t be able to get air into my lungs until she’s safe in my arms.
The early hours of the morning paint the sky with pink hues and I thank whatever God watches for the absence of rain. The air is crisp and wet with morning dew around the little house we’re observing from behind the screens of multiple monitors.
My whole body strains with tension under the camouflage clothes I’m wearing, waiting for the signal, for my time to dive into that shit house and get to my goddess. The visuals have me ready to jump out of here and into the forest to kill the man with my bare hands.
Through the window, the camera shows Giulia seated at a table that looks like a replica of the one we have in our cottage, eating but I can’t see what. The motherfucker looms over her, taking her hair in his before pulling it to his face, as if smelling her. All I see is red. I can’t wait to paint my skin in his blood.
She doesn’t recoil, but she has her back turned to the camera. She’s playing along. It’s smart to use his obsession against him, playing the long game.
The waiting is agony, and the pain intensified when Louis leaves the frame and I notice the bandage around Giulia’s shoulder.
“Fuck.” I get out of my chair and it falls behind me with a loud smack. “That bastard hurt her.”
“Capaldi, if you can’t keep your cool, I’ll strap you to a chair and you won’t get in on the action,” Cervantes says. He’s the most senior of my men, ten years my senior and a mountain of a man. He knows his shit, but right now, I want to hit him.
The look he gives me tells me he’s very aware of it. He raises a brow, as if taunting me to do it. I wouldn’t win.
He comes to me and lands a heavy hand on my shoulder, his voice lowered so only I can hear it. “If you don’t get a grip right this fucking second, I bench you and you don’t get to get your wife. You don’t get to be the one to save her. Do you want her to think her man isn’t strong enough to get his emotions in check for her?”
I grit my teeth and take another breath. It does nothing to calm me, but he’s right. I need to be the man she needs, and that means taming the wild beast inside my chest. I close my eyes and keep breathing. When I open them again, steel shines through and Cervantes nods, satisfied.
“We need to wait until sundown,” he declares as the sun rises above the clouds in the early morning.
My body vibrates with the need to order him to storm the place now, but I stay silent.
“Capaldi, you’re going to get some rest.” An order from a man who’s used to being in charge. I won’t be able to sleep but there will be enough time to think of all the ways I can fuck Louis up, how much time I can get him to survive while I torture him to death. “We’ll keep our eyes on her. If she’s in danger, we’ll go in but right now, you can see in Marshall’s demeanour that he’s consumed with his fantasy of having her. If he shot her in the shoulder, as I suspect, we don’t know what he’ll do. He could be the type of lover who’d rather have her dead than not at all.”
The next eight hours pass agonisingly slow.
THIRTY-FIVE
FURY IS A COLD MISTRESS