Heartbeats Amidst Chaos, Part 2

1. Chapter 1

Chapter one

“ Y ou took a hostage?” Vince thumped an exasperated fist against the wheel, and Elio winced as the car swerved slightly. His cousin had picked him up just moments after Elio had called him from the burner in the glove box and dumped the Honda in a restaurant parking lot. Slouched in the passenger seat, Elio would have loved to relax for the first time in almost two days, but Vincenzo’s driving was heavy on evasion and light on smoothness.

“I needed her to get away clean,” Elio explained briefly. There was a pit in his stomach as he thought about the way Rissa looked at him when he had pulled the gun on her. But then his thoughts turned to the way her lithe, lean body had arched against him as he kissed her, her lips eagerly responding.

His dick was still uncomfortably half-cocked, and he shifted in the seat again.

Vince hunched forward, glaring through the windshield as he swerved onto another side street. No sirens seemed to be following them.

“Taking a hostage is not getting away from anywhere clean,” Vince grumbled. “You sure she’s not going to cause more trouble down the line?”

“What do you mean?” Elio swung his head around to stare at his cousin. “Of course, she’s not going to cause trouble. How could she?”

The bulky man in the driver’s seat shrugged. Vince was an inch or so taller than Elio, and an inch or two broader. He also bore a few more scars than Elio—at least, he had until Elio was caught in the explosion. Lifting weights and bare-knuckle fighting were Vince’s hobbies.

He and Elio never had much in common besides their family and their looks. Both had the same rugged build, Roman features, and dark coloring. Judging from old family photos, Elio thought they also had the same tendency to glower in uncomfortable situations.

“I don’t know,” Vince said. “Maybe the two of you got to talking and you told her something you don’t even know you told her, something about the family that could start them looking into us.”

“They’re going to be looking into us anyway,” Elio said shortly. “I’m the main suspect in a mass bombing, after all. I’m surprised they haven’t already come knocking at the big house door.”

“Oh, they have,” Vince said. “Of course, they’ve got nothing on us, and Nonno told them you were estranged from the family, that we hadn’t seen hide nor hair of you in months.”

“Oh, hmm. That’s going to look real good for my case,” Elio grumbled sarcastically.

“Dude, you just escaped police custody by taking a hostage. Nothing’s looking real good for your case at this point.” Vince glanced sideways again before turning his attention back to the road. At least he was driving slower now, gradually circling the city. Elio realized they were heading towards a part of the city he wasn’t sure he was ready to return to.

“Where are we going?” he asked uneasily. He hadn’t really thought through the logistics of what would follow his escape, he realized. At least, not beyond the parking garage, the car, and then calling Vince for a ride when his head started swimming too much to drive in a straight line. At this moment, he wanted nothing more than a steaming hot shower and a good meal. If he hadn’t spent most of the last twenty-four hours handcuffed to a bed, he would also have been grateful for a nap.

He was tired and aching all over, despite the pain meds Rissa had given him. The wound on his torso felt raw, and blood saturated his flannel shirt which was now drying and sticking to his skin. His left calf, where the bullet had grazed him, burned with a low fire that he was sure would have been excruciating without the medication. And his head—as it had since the moment he had come to after the bombing—throbbed.

He remembered Rissa’s anxious warning: Something is still seriously wrong with your head to make you keep passing out like this.

How, he wondered, had she still been anxious for him after all he had done to her? She had also been hungry for him, just as he was still hungry for her. The realization both baffled and bewitched him. He thought again of the kiss, the thrill that flooded through him when she had not only accepted it but returned it, her mouth sweet and full against his. He could still taste her—

“You sure the hostage doesn’t know anything?” Vince said doubtfully, ignoring Elio’s question about their destination. “Maybe you should have kept her a little longer, threatened her if she talked to the police.”

“She was just a hostage,” Elio exploded, scowling at his cousin. “She doesn’t know anything and she’s got nothing to do with anything anymore. I traumatized her enough using her as my ticket out of there. She’s to be left alone.”

His heart was beating erratically in his chest, and he knew he was overreacting. If Vince hadn’t been suspicious before, he was certainly going to be now. There was no way Elio wanted Rissa on the Accardi family radar. She didn’t deserve that.

“I think that will be for Nonno to decide,” Vince said coolly, and Elio felt the chill settle over him.

The two said nothing further as they breached the outskirts of the city and turned into a lush, dignified neighborhood. A few seconds later, they stopped at the gate leading to Angelo Accardi’s private residence. Vince rolled down the window to address the camera.

“It’s me,” he grunted. “And the escapee.”

Elio sank back against his seat as the gate opened and they started down the long, paved drive. He didn’t feel much like an escapee. He felt as if he had simply been transferred from one prison to another.