Chapter 45

ELLA

It was hard to think with the panic screaming inside my head. Thoughts flooded into my mind in the thousands, charging aimlessly around, blockading my reason, making it nearly impossible to think straight.

Andrea was right there, and in his hand, the weapon that could potentially kill somebody I loved. But I was frozen right beside him, paralyzed by fear.

~Pull yourself together, Ella~, a little voice in my head hissed. She sounded a lot like me, but a version of myself I had lost weeks ago. ~You’re stronger than this. Don’t you dare let a man make you feel weak.~

To hear the sharp, assured tone of her voice was refreshing. Somewhere, although deep inside, she was still there.

And she was right. ~What had become of me?~

At that moment, I felt the powerful effect of my own persuasion or maybe simply just a surge of adrenaline. Either way, it brought me to my feet and to turning to the forest.

I wasn’t weak, but I couldn’t beat Andrea. The fact was simple. But distract him? I could certainly do that.

“Blanca,” he growled. “Get your arse back here.”

He grabbed my wrist, but for once, I didn’t listen to his order, and I didn’t let him drag me back.

“Get the hell off me,” I growled in the darkest tone I’d ever heard myself use.

Even Andrea seemed taken aback for a second. He stared at me dumbstruck for half a second before his face hardened again.

He pulled my wrist down hard so that I slammed forward into his chest and was firmly in his grasp.

“Speak to me like that one more time, I dare you,” he said, squeezing my hands in an excruciating grip.

I hesitated, and he smirked before turning back around to watch the clearing and repositioning his gun.

Distract him.

“Get. The. Hell. Off. Me,” I repeated this time, even more intensely deep and clear.

The surprise in Andrea’s eyes satisfied me. I didn’t so much enjoy the slap in the face a few seconds later, but at least his hand was now on me, not the trigger.

My eyes began to water from the impact, but I wasn’t going to cry. I held a straight face and glared up at him as he grabbed my cheeks in his hand and glared at me with his dark eyes.

There was a sheer layer of sweat across his forehead, and he squinted his long eyelashes a little as the sun poured through the branches above us, but it didn’t make him any more human. He was as cold and psychotic as ever.

“I don’t know what’s given you this sudden burst of confidence, but you better get rid of it. I’m not gonna tolerate this,” he replied, every word slashing across his lips.

I slapped his hand off me and pushed his chest as hard as I could. “And I’m not going to tolerate you treating me like shit anymore.”

He raised an eyebrow, but I wasn’t going to back down.

“You’re challenging me, Blanca?” he asked. “Again? Do you not remember what happened last time you tried this?”

Alessio was murdered. That was what happened.

“You plan to murder my people anyway,” I hissed. “That’s why we are here. What difference does it make?”

He let out a short, frustrated breath. “You’re getting brave, huh?”

I didn’t break eye contact.

“Is it because you know Mr. Alpha is near, and you think he might protect you?” he scorned.

“Because he won’t. All he’s going to do is fall to the ground with a bullet in his head, leaving you hopelessly with me forever. So unless you want the rest of your life to be hellish, I suggest you shut up and sit down.”

He then began pulling me back to the ground, but I launched my knee into his stomach. He didn’t even flinch, and barring the slight exhale of air, he was entirely unaffected.

He hit me again, but I only hit him back across the face. I went to kick him, too, but this time he caught my leg and pushed me to the ground, straddling me in the process.

He brought his hand to his lip and dabbed it with his fingers. My slap had somehow inflicted a cut across his bottom lip that oozed blood.

He stared down at his now bloody fingers, and his eyes snapped down to me. I was trapped underneath his weight, unable to move, and my heart beat fast. Not with fear or anticipation anymore, though.

But instead with the pure fury that had unknowingly been building up in me for weeks to which I had now opened the lid to, and it was now all pouring out.

“You are so done for,” he growled.

I didn’t care. His hands were no longer on the gun, and his eyes were well distracted from the clearing.

“What are you going to do?” I hissed, trying my best to provoke him more. “What if I’m not scared of you anymore?”

“Then I’d be concerned that you’ve finally lost your mind,” he replied. “You should be scared because you know what I’m capable of.”

“You certainly have a lot of confidence,” I stated. “You think that you and your army of rogues can beat Alpha Loren? You’ve already lost to him in a challenge once, what makes you think you stand a chance, you arrogant twat!”

He suddenly grabbed hold of his gun again and held it straight to my head. “Don’t say another word,” he snarled.

“Or what?” I spat in response.

His finger snapped onto the trigger. I didn’t know if he would have pulled it. His anger was certainly high enough for murder.

I wasn’t taking any chances, so I reached my hand up and shoved the barrel off my head, causing his finger to slip on the trigger in the process and to shoot the ground.

The shot sound alone was tremendous even without the squawks of a million birds as they fled the forest.

A few seconds later, Luciano’s voice came through on the walkie-talkie. “Andrea, they heard that shot. Looks like they’re coming in prepared.”

“You’ve blown our cover,” he hissed, getting immediately to his feet and hauling me with him.

He then shouted something out in Spanish, and all the men fled their stations and into the forest.

“Abort!” he shouted into his walkie-talkie, and a few minutes later, the trucks were back.

“Congratulations,” Andrea said, shoving me into one of the trucks. “You won this time. But your Leonardo’s time will come.”