Page 49 of Damaged & Deadly
The repercussions of our ineptitude tonight are significant. Giovanni officially knows Dante and I have turned against him. I can only imagine the level of his rage when he discovered our deceit. Well, Dante’s. He’s had me pegged since day one as a traitor. Like father, like son, after all. It will have been a bitter pill to swallow to realize your own son—one he spent years trying to break and sharpen into a weapon—turned against you. We’re no longer safe here, and we’ve lost any protection we may have had.
Not that we were ever really safe before. If Giovanni decided to put a bullet in our heads—well, mostly mine—no one would have stood in his way. Even Dante wouldn’t have been able to persuade him otherwise, and any interference on his part would only have resulted in him signing his own death warrant. Still, there was some level of comfort in being accepted by the rest of the Famiglia, in being one of them. Now we will be branded traitors. Giovanni will send men to search all over the city for us. He’ll hunt us down like we’re wild animals until he’s got us trapped in a corner with no escape. Our only chance of surviving is if we run far and wide. Leave Black Creek behind and hide in some podunk town in the back ass of nowhere Hicksville.
I shiver in horror at the thought of the two of us dressed in jeans and boots, working blue-collar jobs to blend in. It’s just so fucking… ordinary. I may hate Giovanni and the Antonellis, but I love the lifestyle. The adrenaline rush that comes from watching a man’s life extinguish in your hands. The sense of awe and fear at knowing you’re the biggest threat in the room. The feeling of empowerment that washes over you when people shrink away from you. I don’t pretend to be a good guy. I feed off the power and fear just as much as Dante. As much as Giovanni. We were all born in blood and raised on violence. It’s who we are.
The difference between Giovanni and me is that I know when that ire is justly deserved. I haven’t completely lost myself to the darkness. The line of morality, while thin, still exists for me. I’m not incapable of empathy or love or shut off to it like Dante. I’m just highly selective with who I deem worthy of such an emotional investment. And as the elevator doors slide open, they reveal the one girl I’d move heaven and earth for. The one woman worthy of my love, my concern, my empathy. The one woman who could not only withstand the lifestyle we live but would thrive in it if given the chance.
At our arrival, Sawyer spins in her heeled boots. Her eyes run over us as we step out of the elevator, and her shoulders seem to relax a bit when she finds us unharmed. My eyes roam over her, noting some dried blood smudged on her face, but she appears unharmed so I’m guessing it’s not hers.
“Did you get your brother?” I ask, reaching out to rub my thumb over the bloodstain, needing to reassure myself it definitely doesn’t belong to her.
“Yeah.” Although she seems tired, she gives me a relieved smile that reaches her eyes, making them sparkle a deeper blue than normal. Her teeth sink into her lower lip as she mulls over her next words before saying, “But Cain and Oliver haven’t returned yet.” I can see the concern brimming in her eyes, even though I couldn’t care less if Santos killed them both—other than the fact it would mean one more person is alive and out for revenge.
Dante steps up behind her, pulling her back against him as he offers her silent support. Even though his facial expression mirrors my inner thoughts, neither of us gives a shit about the gangsters. However, we do care for the girl currently standing between us, so we offer her the only support we can.
Her eyes dart around the confined space of the tunnel, narrowing before she tilts her head back to look up at Dante. “Did you kill Giovanni?”
“I fucking wish,” Dante snarls.
When he doesn’t elaborate, she turns her questioning gaze on me. “He wasn’t there. It appears he had a plan B in the form of a hidden escape route that led into one of the tunnels.”
With her brows drawn together in confusion, Sawyer processes my words beforeshe speaks, “He can’t be in the tunnels. He would have come across Cain’s men, and they’d have alerted Cain.”
“He’s in the tunnels.” The flat tone of my voice brokers no argument. “He either took out Cain’s men before they could reach him, or they weren’t doing their jobs, and he slipped by unnoticed.” Her lips thin, although I’m unsure whether it’s at my accusation or the thought of Cain’s men not doing their jobs properly.
“Wh—”
Sawyer doesn’t get a chance to finish whatever she is going to say as the elevator doors slide open and Cain storms out. The second he sees us, his face morphs into one of pure unadulterated anger.
“Did you two fuck us over?!” he shouts angrily. I barely get a second to register the blood covering his hands and arms and the splattering across his face as he crashes into me. He fists my shirt as he shoves me backward into the tunnel wall, snarling like a rabid dog. Cain is built similar to me with his broad shoulders and muscular body that he obviously takes pride in, but anger fuels his movements, giving him the energy required to sequester me.
The second his hands are on me, Dante moves around Sawyer and shoves Cain away. “Watch yourself, gangbanger,” he warns in a low, threatening tone that would have other men backing away and apologizing profusely. Not Cain. The idiot either has a death wish or fuck all brain cells left in his head, as he immediately shoves Dante’s shoulders, sending him back a step and regaining his balance.
“Was this a fucking setup?!” he bites out.
“What the hell are you talking about?!” My own anger gets the better of me, my voice rising with every word. I don’t fucking appreciate this lowlife accusing us of double-crossing them when Dante and I have just thrown away our fucking livelihoods over this shitshow of an evening.
Cain’s nostrils flare, but it’s Oliver, who appears to be the more level-headed of the two, who bothers to clue us into what Cain’s problem is.
“It was like a fucking maze up there. Hidden doors, secret hallways, and a stairwell weren’t on the plans you showed us.”
“Yeah, we found the stairwell too,” I admit while pondering what he just said. Even though Dante has an apartment here, we’ve never spent much time inside the building, preferring to keep to ourselves and away from Giovanni’s watchful eyes and listening ears. I haven't been in any of the other units besides the penthouse, Santos’ apartment, and Dante’s. I just assumed they were all the same.
Still looking like a raging bull, Cain’s head whips around the tunnel, noticing one very important person missing. “Where the hell is he?” he barks. His eyes dart between Dante and me before he roars, “WHERE THE HELL IS HE?!”
“Gone,” I snap irritably. “He wasn’t fucking there. He escaped down the stairwell and into the tunnels.”
Cain steps toward me, his posture threatening. “He can’t be in the fucking tunnels because my men haven’t come across him, and there’s no way out of the tunnels without getting past them.”
Unbothered by his posturing or the hate rolling off him in angry, hostile waves, I tilt my chin up and glare into his churning green eyes. “Then your men are either lying, or they suck at their jobs because it was the only way for him to escape that building.”
His hand once again snaps out, wrapping my shirt in his fist. “You double-crossed us, you motherfucking assholes!” Cain’s fist pulls back, but before things can escalate, Sawyer dives between us. With her back to me, she presses up onto her toes and slides her hand up Cain’s chest to rest over his heart.
“Cain,” she murmurs softly.
With his fist hanging in the air like he’s still debating throwing the punch and hoping Sawyer has the good sense to duck in time, he rips his hostile glare from me, his eyes softening slightly as he looks down at her. It’s only because I’m watching him so intently, half expecting him to follow through with that punch, that I catch the flash of gut-wrenching, soul-crushing pain before he masks it. Even though it only lasts a second, the depth of it is so intense that I feel it slam into my chest with the force of a wrecking ball.
Sawyer must have some sort of magical power, or she owns the key to Cain’s anger because right before our eyes, he seems to deflate, all of the fight falling out of him as his shoulders sag and his fist falls to his side.