Page 207 of Stalking Ginevra

“Girl,” he barks. “Come to the fucking window!”

My blood runs cold, my gut twisting with fury and fear. Is this the moment he forces Carla to shoot me in the head as punishment for leaving the keys?

“If I have to drag you…” he says, his voice a low growl.

I can almost hear her whimper during this tense standoff. My throat tightens. What if Carla left those keys on purpose andresponded to his advances to give me an opening? An opening I wasted by waking up the dog?

Options flicker across my mind like playing cards, making my brow break out in a sweat. When Valentino turns his head, I take a tentative step backward.

He yanks Carla closer, his fingers twisting into her hair. “This is your doing, cunt. How did you let her talk you into escaping?”

She squeezes her eyes shut. “Please, Dad?—”

“I told you not to call me that,” he snarls through broken teeth and presses the gun into her temple.

My stomach plummets. Survival instincts urge me to take advantage of this opening and run, but I can’t let him murder another woman.

“Hey,” I snap. “Why are you blaming her for the hatch?”

His gaze snaps to meet mine. “Which hatch?”

“What kind of abductor doesn’t know the exits in his own lair?”

Confusion flickers across his features. It’s just enough for him to release Carla’s hair and return his attention to me. Somewhere in the back of my mind, my survival instincts are calling me an idiot, but I’m tired of being a coward.

Cowardice was what broke up my relationship with Benito and twisted his love for me into contempt. Cowardice was what kept me in an abusive engagement with Samson. I’ll be damned if I allow yet another man to intimidate me into submission.

I raise my chin, glaring up into the window, where he takes the gun off her temple and points it back to me.

“Benito will want proof I’m still alive,” I say.

He flashes what’s left of his teeth. “He might pay more if I send a picture of your gaping bullet wounds.”

My jaw clicks shut.

Bellavista presses the gun into Carla’s trembling fingers. “If I find out you did something to help that ginger bitch escape, I’ll make sure a bullet finds its way up your cunt.”

“Dad,” Carla chokes out.

He smashes his fist into her cheek. “Stop calling me that!”

She drops out of view, and Valentino disappears from the window. Without meaning to, I turn around and run toward the trees.

A gunshot cracks through the air, and the barking stops. I whirl around, finding Carla back at the window pointing the pistol.

“Dad is on his way downstairs,” she says, her voice wavering. “Don’t move.”

I freeze again, my heart racing in manic circles, watching Carla mishandling the gun. She’s trembling so much that the barrel wobbles, looking like she might twitch and pull the trigger. Her eyes are wide, and filled with desperation, fear and a haze of something I’ve only ever seen on Mom.

Is he giving her drugs?

Raising my palms, I take a tentative step back. “Carla, put down the gun.”

Her grip tightens, making the pistol jerk. “He’ll kill me if I let you go.”

“How, when you’re the one who’s armed?”

I inch back, my feet crunching against the loose gravel. Valentino is almost certainly on his way down. I’m not sure if I can outrun the old bastard—he’s stronger than he looks. I have a better chance of talking sense into Carla.

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