Chapter 16

Gunfire broke out. The glass from the booth crashed onto my hands and knees as another bullet sent more to the floor. I screamed and ducked low. I found myself silently praying whoever was firing hadn't got Will. The door swung open and someone yanked on my arms, half-dragging me behind our large SUV. It was Joe.

"Where's Will?" I asked, searching frantically. He didn't hear me. He looked around the corner of the car and fired a shot towards the docks. I grabbed onto his shoulder forcefully.

"Where is Will?" Another round of ammunition was fired towards the car and my hands clasped over my ears.

"I don't know!" He yelled. "We need to get you out of here, now!" my pinned-up hair was now all over my face. My dress was torn in several different places.

"Will!" I screeched. "Will?!"

"Shut up!" Joe put his large hand over my mouth.

"I'm here." I whirled around. Will came around the car and crouched beside me. I don't know why, but I flung my arms around him. He winced and I realized his arm was bleeding.

"Oh my God, they shot you!"

"It's fine!" He warned. "J, who the hell is firing?"

"Two men. Two of the 'fishermen'." Another bullet chinked the metal on the car. "We need to go." Will said. Joe nodded and ran around the left side of the car. The engine roared to life and the back of the Cadillac opened. Will pushed me inside and slammed the door.

"Go, go!" He ordered. Joe spun the tires into the gravel and the car bolted out of the lot. One last bullet shattered the back glass and my head instinctively went to my knees.

"We'll loose 'em for now." Joe said. Will winced holding onto his arm.

"Call Woody and have the plane ready for takeoff." He told Joe then turned to me. I could feel myself paling at the sight of his blood. He was losing a lot of it and fast. When I tried to help he pushed me away.

"It's part of the job. I'll be fine. It hasn't hit an artery." His hand lifted up, revealing the gash. My hand went to my mouth in horror.

"Listen, Eva, this isn't the time." He shook me back to life with his one good arm. "What was the last thing Gio told you?" My eyes began traveling as a wall of tears threatened to fall. My body felt like it was going into shock.

"I—I don't know." I thought, hard. But for the life of me I couldn't remember. All I could think about now was that fateful sound of a bullet going through the glass windows of the old phone booth. One more inch and I could have been dead, or Will.

"Eva!" I focused back on him.

"I...I don't know!" I repeated, still feeling lost. His fingers pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Well, remember soon because those men probably heard what you were saying."

"What?"

"I found a clipped the wire from the inside of the shop. They knew you were meeting here which means it was someone who knew on Gio's end, not ours-" He breathed heavily. "Which means they could have got him too." I gasped. Is he dead? Is he alive?

"Call him! Write him!" I said, feeling a deeper panic setting in. My hands were painted red. It was only then that I realized my hands and knees were bleeding from the shards of glass. I was lucky there weren't any embedded in my skin from what I could tell.

"We'll take care of that on the plane." I looked into his eyes as twin tears rolled down my cheeks. He lifted his hand to my face and wiped it away.

"What if he's—" I blinked the tears away and bent my head to the floor. No not yet, but I know where it is. All of those years trusting Gio and I spent the last few moments lying to him.

"All you need to worry about is yourself. I'm going to check on Gio right now." Will was too calm and collected. I slumped over, resting my face in my arms.

When we arrived at the airport, Joe and Will worked in unison to get the bags on, then Will ran up the steps and inside with me. Woody looked horrified at the sight of his arm and me.

"We need to get you cleaned up before that gets infected." He left in search of the first aid kit. My shock was finally settling down and somehow replaced by a searing sensation in my hands and knees. Will's injury being the worst, Woody started pouring alcohol on a cloth for his arm, but Will pushed him away forcefully.

"Her first!" He ordered. He took my hand and instructed me to sit while he applied the alcohol-soaked cloth to my legs. I screamed out from the pain and gripped his shoulder tightly. It was worse than when I had skinned my knees learning to ride a bike and Gio had completely doused my knees in alcohol afterwards. Will took off his suit jacket and tore off the entire sleeve of his white dress shirt. I shuddered seeing the wound. He wrapped my knee in bandages from the first-aid kit then applied the make-shift bandage, tearing the edges of the sleeve in two to tie it.

"You're lucky there are no glass shards in the wound."

Woody spoke next. "We're setting course for Manchester."

"Manchester?" I almost screeched. "Gio told us to wait for him in Athens." My thoughts immediately went to Dad's funeral, which was still set for tomorrow. I was praying this wouldn't turn into a funeral for three.

"Manchester is our rendezvous point. If he's alive, that's where he's headed." Will responded. I glared icicles into him. "And what if he's not?"

"He is." Will promised. For a moment, I couldn't tell if he was re-assuring me or himself. Woody finished wrapping bandages around Will's flesh-wound in his left arm. The bullet had made a clean exit but he had lost a lot of blood. I wasn't used to Will looking this helpless leaning back in the chair with his arm wrapped. His lips turned upward when he noticed me watching him. "Do you have this effect on all of your bodyguards? That's two injured arms now."

I grit my teeth and slapped his good arm.

"Ouch!" He smirked. "Don't worry, I'm not a sissy like Charles."

I gaped at him. If he wasn't injured— "Charles is not a sissy. He's twice the man you are." Speaking of Charles, I wanted to check in on him. I pulled out my phone to write him, then remembered what Gio said about my cellphone being bugged...

Will leaned back, looking pleased with himself. "Charles is safe. I've already talked to him."

I was practically seething, wondering why I was ever worried about Will during the shooting. I stood up and sat next to Joe just as the plane began taking off. I fastened my seatbelt.

If there was one thing I learned from all of this globe-trotting, it was how much I hated flying. The plane was unusually rocky and Woody stayed in the cockpit longer. I guessed we had passed Athens and were over the Adriatic sea by now, judging by the large stretch of ocean. I was growing more anxious by the second worrying, fidgeting with one of the tears in my dress and worrying about Gio.

"You know-" Joe's voice surprised me. "I've known Gio for over 20 years. If there's one thing that man can do, it's take care of himself." I offered him a half-smile. If only he knew how we spent our last minute on the phone. I noticed Will on his phone in the opposite chair. He looked distressed about something.

A while later to my surprise, Will stood up and walked over to where we were sitting. "What do you want?" I quipped in an icy tone. I was known to hold grudges for long periods of time. I could only imagine how I would have greeted him had his shirtless body still been on my mind. He leaned on his good arm while his hand rested on the overhead luggage compartments.

"When you're finally done being angry, I think we have a poem to inspect."

I gasped. The poem! After all that happened at the phone booth I nearly forgot that we still had a safe to find. I groaned. That was another thing that was going to have to wait now that we were already halfway to England. I had this horrible sinking feeling that Gio wasn't even going to be there.

"It's in my purse over there."

The plane jerked slightly and I closed my eyes, telling myself it was just the turbulence. Moments later a horrible sputtering sound came from one of the engines outside and the plane jerked to the left, more violently.

"What the hell was that?" I gripped my chair, feeling the color drain from my face. Concern flashed over Joe's eyes and he left the seat to check on Woody. Will came back looking pale, my open purse and a blank piece of note paper in his hand.

"Eva, the poem isn't in here."