Page 5 of Keeping My Girl

CHAPTER3

Nicholas

IPUSH GINO Carbone’s lifeless body off of the woman. Then, I wipe the blade of my knife off on the dead man’s shirt before securing it back inside my suit jacket.

“What about in and out undetected did you not understand?”Aldo hisses in my earpiece.

“Just a minor complication,” I mutter.

“A dead man is not a minor complication, Nico,” he chides.

“He was hurting Lina.”

“You don’t even know if the girl is Lina.”

“Well, even if it’s not her, he was still hurting an innocent woman.”

Aldo has no response to that because he knows I’m right. In the end, I had to intervene. There was no other way.

I reach down and press my fingers to the girl’s neck. There’s a pulse, but it’s very faint. “I need to get her out of here,” I inform Aldo while grabbing a blanket from the bed and wrapping the poor girl in it.

“And how the fuck do you propose we do that, Nico?”he asks angrily.

Obviously, nothing is going as planned at this point, and I know Aldo hates it when things deviate from a certain path. But it’s too late to turn back now.

“You’re gonna have to work some magic, man,” I tell him before scooping the woman’s limp body into my arms. Her head falls back, and I stare down at the heart-shaped birthmark on her neck just below her ear. “Lina,” I gasp, my chest aching. A million different emotions flood through me just then all at once. Fuck, I can’t believe I finally found her.

“It’s her?” Aldo asks, and I can hear his fingers tapping rapidly on his keyboard.

“Yes, it’s her,” I manage to say. Swallowing hard, I cradle Lina against my chest, holding her tightly.

“There’s a service entrance,”Aldo says urgently. “You need to hurry, though. The guards are going to be doing their rounds soon. All of the video is still on loop, so they won’t see you on the cameras, but I can’t protect you from running into the wrong guy.”

“Got it.”

“Coast is clear in the hallway. Go out of the room and turn right. Go to the end of the hall and down the staircase.”

I follow Aldo’s instructions carefully. I stop when he tells me to stop. I disappear into various rooms when he alerts me to a guard nearby. And my chest doesn’t stop aching until we’re finally out the back entrance of the mansion and onto the street. It takes sheer willpower and a lot of luck, but I manage to carry Lina the whole five blocks back to the van without incident.

“Were you followed?” Aldo asks when he pops open the side door. His dark hair is disheveled like he’s been running his hands through it for hours. I probably took ten years off of his life tonight by pulling all the shit I did, but I don’t care. It was worth it. I would do anything, and I mean anything, to save Lina.

“How the hell should I know?” I hiss before gently setting Lina’s limp body down on the floor. The blanket falls open, revealing her bloody dress and the bruises beginning to form on her arms and temple, and I cringe at the sight.

Aldo’s eyes grow wide. “Okay, okay. We need to get the hell out of here before someone discovers his body. After you left, I took off the looping video and cleared the entire security system of all the footage for the past few hours since you arrived. When we get back to the compound, I’ll work on the CCTV footage in the area, but I might not be able to erase everything. Someone could have already seen you carrying her for that distance and reported it.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” I growl before closing the side door. Then, I run to the driver’s side and jump into the seat and slam the door shut. Ripping off my mask, I throw it to the floor. Then, revving the engine, I pull out of the parking spot and speed down the street back towards the compound.

I glance back at Lina lying on the floor, and I have to blink several times to make sure I’m not imagining her. “You’re safe now, Lina,” I tell her softly. “I’m taking you home.”

* * *

The moment Aldo and I return back to the compound that we call home, I see a huge, dark figure standing in the driveway.

“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath.

I park the van and step out. Benito walks over, tall and menacing with tattooed-covered muscles. He is my father’s number one, and he’s a huge, mean-looking son of a bitch, but he holds a soft spot in his heart for my family and my family alone. He’s actually my godfather and has always been like an uncle to me, watching over me and protecting me over the years while I was growing up.

His huge muscles bunch under his t-shirt, threatening to rip the seams as he stares me down. Aldo climbs out of the side of the van and shuts the door. I can practically see him trembling from here.

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