Chapter 40: Chapter 40

I placed a hand against my chest to try to calm my erratic breathing.

~There’s no need to panic, Catalina. This is what your training has been for.~

Even if my captors noticed I was outside my cell, it would take some time for them to get to me.

With that thought in mind, I quickened my pace and ran down the hallway until I reached the end. There was a set of stairs leading up, and I quickly climbed them and came upon another locked door.

I shuffled through the keys I got from the water man and found one that worked.

The door opened, and I cautiously cracked open the door to see what was on the other side.

I gasped.

It was a weapons room.

The walls were lined with a variety of guns. Ammo was stacked on the tables, and even grenades sat in the open.

I froze as I took a quick inventory.

~What the fuck?~

The door that I assumed led out of this place looked like it belonged on a storage unit or a shipping container.

Was I inside a container?

And why weren’t these weapons heavily guarded?

I was baffled.

Did they not expect me to escape? Or was it impossible for me to leave?

I frowned at the heavy door.

Maybe there were men waiting for me on the other side.

Even if there weren’t, I needed to be prepared.

I nodded to myself, resolved to picking a better weapon than what the water man had.

I looked at the different guns and considered my options.

A handgun was easy to handle, but useless if the situation turned chaotic.

Shotguns were for short-ranged attacks but would be hard to maneuver if I found myself in a tight spot, and I had no idea what was on the other side of that door.

The submachine gun had a higher fire rate and great control, but it was heavy. I wouldn’t be able to move around quickly to make my escape.

A rifle wasn’t a bad option. It was good for distance and if I was facing off with multiple armed men, but again, if I got cornered in a tight space, it’d become a problem.

After weighing my options carefully, I took a handgun. The Glock 19. In terms of practicality, it was manageable, effective, and wouldn’t be cumbersome to carry.

Also, it fit my grip better than the monstrosity I took from the water man.

My body was already weak from having no food for who knew how long. A heavy gun in this situation would get me killed.

I stiffened as the door was suddenly pulled open. The hinges groaned, and two men dressed in cargo pants and bulletproof vests popped into view.

I reacted immediately and shot one of them in the foot, startling them.

The man shouted in pain as he fell to his knees. The other man scrambled for his gun but froze when I shouted, “Move and I’ll blow your fucking head off!”

When he finally got a good look at me, his eyes widened. He raised his hands in surrender and took a step back.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s not make any rash moves here. We’re not the enemy.”

The other man cursed as he sat on the ground, clutching his foot. Sweat beaded his brow as he glanced between me and his partner. “Why the fuck was I the one you shot?”

It was only then that I got a good look at him.

I froze.

“Fernando?”

Fernando grimaced. “Your majesty.”

It was Fernando, who flirted with me at the Petrov party, and owned a cleanup company under the Roscotto name.

I hesitated but then chose to lower my gun. Fernando was a loyal Roscotto vassal.

Seeing that the situation had been de-escalated, the other man sighed in relief.

He lowered his arms and said, “Catalina Williams, congratulations on passing the third game, centered around loyalty. Your score is currently being tallied, but given how you went to such lengths to escape despite your task being to simply last a week without divulging any information, I’d say you passed with flying colors.”

He grinned and gave me a thumbs-up. “I admire your capabilities as my future employer.”

Fernando glared up at him and cursed. “Stop sucking up and fucking help me. I’m in pain here. Fuck!”

A wave of exhaustion slammed into me.

Now that it had been confirmed that this was, in fact, the third game, all my emotions caught up to me and doused my body in exhaustion.

“Where’s Stefano?” I asked.

The man glanced at me as he helped Fernando to his feet. “He’s on his way.”

“How far away is he?”

“I’m not sure. He was alerted the moment we realized you’d escaped your cell. It’s about a three-hour drive.”

That was too long.

“The nearest hotel?” I asked.

“Half an hour from here.”

I nodded. “Take me there.”

I needed a shower and a bed. And I needed them now.

I was too tired to care about anything else. The difficulty of these games continued to rise, just as Sam foretold.

I couldn’t imagine what the next game would be.

We left the weapons room, and I noticed that we were in a junkyard stockpiled with wrecked vehicles and twisted metal.

Later I would learn that this was one of the Roscottos’ junkyards, meaning that they really had planned the entire thing.

Rob hadn’t betrayed us; he was acting on orders, and Anton helped.

Fernando left to get himself fixed up while a few men drove me to the closest hotel. Since I had no money on me, I let them pay for the room and left them outside to guard my door.

My entire body moved sluggishly as I dragged it into the shower. I stepped beneath the water and let it drown me from head to toe.

I leaned my forehead against the cool tiles of the shower wall as I watched the dirt disappear down the drain.

I had no idea how long I stayed like that, but eventually, the shower door slid open.

Stefano stood there, outside the fall of water.

His conflicted gaze met mine, and in that moment, my stomach growled.

His lips tugged into a straight line, and he quickly removed his clothes to join me.

I had nothing to say to him. I needed rest more than anything else. I was experiencing a whirlwind of emotions, and it made me numb.

Stefano stepped into the shower. I felt the heat of his body as his finger lightly trailed my side. He slid it upward to trace the underside of my boob.

He didn’t speak.

He poured bodywash onto the washcloth and wiped me clean.

I said nothing, simply watching as he gently rubbed the cloth over my body.

When I turned to face him, my eyes took in the words on his upper chest, over his heart.

~Libera il cuore~

I’d asked him what it meant the first time we’d had sex.

He had said, ~“It says ‘free the heart,’ meaning to love freely and without inhibitions. You only have one shot at life, so you should make it worthwhile and free yourself from the shackles of self-doubt.”~

His words had struck a chord in me, and I remembered joking with him and asking if I could get the same tattoo, in the exact same spot.

I looked at it again and considered everything I had been through up to now. My desire to get the tattoo came back stronger.

Stefano sighed. “I’m sorry.”

His words broke me out of my thoughts, and I blinked. I looked at his frown and used my finger to try and iron it out.

I shook my head. “Stop apologizing for something I agreed to participate in. Just praise me for doing good.”

He grabbed my hand and placed a kiss on my palm. The tickling sensation made me tug my hand away.

“Good job.” His lips quirked upward, and I could see the warmth in his soft gaze.

I smiled and wrapped my arms around his neck, pushing all my weight onto him. He grabbed me in surprise and held me up.

“I want sleep,” I murmured tiredly. “And food. Lots of it.”

He chuckled. “That can be arranged. Though I’m going to have to limit your food—your stomach can’t take much right now. I have a doctor-approved meal for you.”

He quickly finished washing me, then thoroughly dried me and wrapped me in a hotel robe.

An hour later, after eating the smoothie and toast the doctor sent with Stefano, we settled on the bed with me sprawled on his chest in exhaustion.

My eyes were closed as I tried to fall asleep, but the excitement of the day had yet to fade.

My mind kept running through everything that’d happened, including what Anton had said about my aunt.

“Stefano?”

“Hmm?”

I rested my chin on his chest so I could get a good look at his response. “I’m more than halfway through these games, which means that there’s only a few more months to go before I can be considered a Roscotto.”

“That’s true,” he agreed.

I took a deep breath. “Then you need to be honest with me, and I need to know everything. That’s the only way our relationship will work. Especially when it involves my family. I don’t care how minuscule the information is or whether it’s confirmed to be true or not. Hell, even if the knowledge is deadly, you have to tell me.”

He froze, his eyes widening in surprise.

“I am not weak. I can handle myself. You’ve seen this. Anton mentioned knowing something about my aunt’s disappearance, and that made me realize that I need to be actively involved. Don’t leave me in the dark. That’s how cracks begin to form in a relationship.”

I patiently waited for his response.

After a few seconds, he sighed. “What I found wasn’t about your aunt exactly, but about her boyfriend.”

I perked up. “Henry?”

He nodded. There was conflict in his eyes as he mulled over his next words. “There are signs linking him to the Perez family.”

I froze, my eyes widening in disbelief.

~Is that true?~

~Henry has ties to the Perez family?~

I shook my head. “But that’s not possible. Henry and Jalen are family. Jalen would’ve mentioned this to m—”

“You said Jalen was connected to a mafia family in the area, right?”

I hesitated, then nodded.

Stefano’s lips thinned out as he said seriously, “Well, he’s not associated with either the Roscotto or Petrov families. None of my men have ever heard of him. This could only mean one thing.”

My stomach dropped as the thought struck me.

Was Jalen…

Stefano confirmed my suspicions. “Jalen is affiliated with only one family. My guess is the Perez family.”

I stiffened.

If that was true, then Jalen had been lying to me this entire time.

Why?

Did he know more than he’d let on about my aunt’s disappearance?