Vince’s POV
Her face tightens with pain as he continues to kick her, a sob threatening to escape her mouth.
Then, she loses consciousness as a scream pierces Tessa’s lip.
I shut my eyes as I hang up the call and clench the phone tightly.
Anger burns in my veins.
Hurt blooms into my chest.
They are hurting her. That silly Mark is hurting my baby. I’m going to fucking shoot his brains out.
“Vince, what’s the meaning of what you just did?!” Fernando barks at me. I throw him a scathing glare before marching past him to the tech guy.
I installed a chip in Annette’s body because I knew something like this would happen someday. I just didn’t expect Isaac to be the one to have her, though.
I knew something was up when Tessa called, so I alerted the tech guy.
Everything they were doing. Everything they were saying. We saw and heard them.
I saw Tessa trembling with fear and how brave Annette was trying to be. The way she told me not to come was daunting.
I was tempted to bark at her for telling me that, but I knew I had to be smart. Isaac is brilliant. He wouldn’t ask me to come if he didn’t have a plan to get both Ann and me.
This is why I planned to tell him I was not coming. That way, they would not see what hit them.
Focusing on the unconscious Ann, I grip the seat of the tech guy, Mathew, just as Fernando taps me again.
“Vince?!” This time, his voice is softer. I can’t tell if he is this mad because I am risking Ann’s life by telling them to get rid of her or if this is because of Tessa.
I shouldn’t have let them go away like I did. I should have insisted on talking more to Ann. I should have grabbed her against her will, threw her into the car, and drove off home.
Maybe all of this shit wouldn’t have happened.
I knew Mark was acting fishy and suspicious, but I didn’t expect to find out he was Isaac’s second son.
Fernando called me after Annette left to inform me about that. Isaac had a secret son doing what Carter was responsible for before his death.
We were trying to figure out who it was when the call came in.
“Trust me,” I say to him, my gaze not leaving Annette’s from the screen.
Wake up, girl!
Suddenly, her leg jerks, and she moves.
“That’s my girl,” I mutter with pride. Signalling to Luca and Fernando, we move out quietly.
The tech guy follows. We need him to come with us to know what is happening inside.
Now that Annette is conscious, it is time to strike. If she were still unconscious, they wouldn’t be able to do whatever they wanted to do to her, but now that she was conscious, there was no time to waste before they hurt both women more.
“I told Tessa to go straight home,” Fernando mutters beside me, confirming my suspicion about his worry.
To be honest, I am worried about both women, but I can’t deny that I think more of Ann than Tessa, so I wouldn’t blame Fernando for doing the same.
That is what happens when you care so much about someone. They will always come first and this has confirmed Kyra’s statement and fueled my confidence about my feelings for Annette.
There was no denying it anymore. Even if she doesn’t believe or accept me, what I feel is real and true.
And she needs to know that.
When we step outside, a van halts, and Luca instructs the men to go in while Caleb loads the truck with weapons.
It has to be today.
Isaac Rossi must go down. Mark is going down with him, too.
I am going to take revenge for Ann’s mother by killing him tonight. And blow off Mark’s brain for touching my woman.
Luca jumps into my car, and I enter. I let Fernando take the front seat while Mathew and I sit at the back. My focus is on the screen.
Ann is weak.
She looks around and sees Tessa’s head hanging low. Panic strikes her features as she moves her leg to alert Tessa.
They must be alone.
Tessa jerks upright with fright. When her gaze lands on Ann, she begins to cry. Ann signals her not to make a noise, and her cry turns into a whimper.
Annette glances around, probably staring for something to get her off the pole she is tied to and the strings on her feet.
“Is there a location yet?”
“Yes,” Mathew responds as if expecting the question. “Here.”
It’s a red signal.
“50 kilometres from here. It’s a minidump.”
“That will take how many minutes, Luca?” I shift the question to Luca.
“I should be there in 20 minutes,” Luca responds, converting the kilometres to minutes.
I shake my head. “I need to be there in 10, Luca. Do what you can. Drive fast.”
He nods intermittently as he increases the speed of the car. There are two vans behind us. Even though this is unplanned, I trust them to do what’s right.
All we need to do is lay an ambush for them. Once Luca and I confirm that the coast is clear, we will storm in.
But I can’t wait to go in there and bring the women out first.
The silence in the car is irking. It makes me want to grab the system from Mathew and speak into it so Annette can hear me.
She huffs in exhaustion after glancing around for several minutes for an object to help her off the hook.
Isaac isn’t a fool. He must already know that Ann is trained, looking at how she is tied compared to Tessa’s.
“We are almost there, boss,” Luca informs me as if reading my mind.
Isaac and Mark will soon be there. We need to get there before they do. We need to get the girls out.
“Mathew,” I call. “Give me the precise location of the girls.”
He nods and gets to work. I watch him click on the location twice before it pops up with another red signal.
Without a word, he clicks on send and my phone dings.
“Good job, Mathew,” I say, grabbing my phone to check out the GPS location he just sent to me.
I tap my leg nervously.
Fernando is extremely quiet. When I lean forward to see what he is doing, I see him biting on his fingers nervously.
A scream jerks me back to reality. Fernando jumps from the front seat to the back, squeezing between Mathew and me.
That was Tessa’s voice.
There is a gun pointed at Annette’s forehead.
Shit!
“Luca!” I yell as I feel a sudden flare of rage. A dark dread begins to creep over my heart. “F***ING gets off the seat. I’m going to drive.”
I try to move to the driver’s seat to kick him off, but Fernando shakes his head at me.
“Let Luca drive. You and I will go in together,” he mutters, surprisingly calm.
My blood is boiling. And a hard tremble shudders through me in panic.
“Nothing must happen to Ann. I won’t forgive myself if anything happens.”
The car stops abruptly.
“What the hell, Luca?!” I thunder, ready to punch his face, as he turns to me.
“The mine dump is right ahead. We don’t want to alert them.”
Realization dawns on me, and I jump out of the car. The two vans also stop behind. Luca grabs my weapon and tucks it behind me. Fernando holds a pistol and a bomb.
There is a long knife stuck to my boot.
Luca instructs the men on what to do as Fernando and I approach the building.
Everything is pitch-dark, and we move stealthily without a word. When we get to the entrance, a light flickers, and we move behind a wall.
We need to split.
I signal to Fernando to go in through the back.
He nods and moves quickly.
After 5 seconds, I bring out my silencer and walk towards the entrance again. The GPS location shows Tessa and Ann are in the middle of the building.
We need to get there before something happens.
In haste, I dash into the building, looking around for a sight of a camera, but there is none.
I raise a brow in suspicion.
Is Isaac truly dumb?
Before I can follow, a shadow moves past me, and I turn back, pointing the gun at nothing.
What the hell is happening? Is this the location or just a form of trap?
I move forward, my ears piercing with the scream from Tessa before we leave the car. I have no idea if it was just because of the gun pointed at Ann or because something else had happened.
Nothing must happen to them.
At this point, I am beginning to hope Fernando will get there before me.
One of us needs to rescue the girls.
I halt when I see another shadow. When I try to take a step, I find myself falling to the ground with a thud, my gun falling off.
There is a rope hooked to my legs, dragging me out into nothingness.
Fernando! I almost scream as I grab my phone and send a quick message to Luca.
“EME” means EMERGENCY ENTRY. I need him to make an entry quickly.
Before I can press send, a voice stops me. “Welcome to the land of the living, Vicente Di Alberto.”
It sounds familiar.
When I look up, my jaws drop to see Nadir, of all people here.
Not Mark. Not Isaac Rossi. But Nadir, the Don of Albania, with a gun, pointed to my forehead.