She whimpered. "Stop, please," was all she managed to rasp out.
He shook his head. "Not working on me," he forced his lips on hers, sucking them. Gastone didn’t care that she wasn’t giving in, nor did her tears move him in the slightest.
Her only resolve was to keep on listening to what was going on outside the room - by the window or behind the closed doors. It helped not to think of Gastone and his hands roaming her body. Shutting it all off was the only thing she could do, seeing as she wasn’t able to move an inch and that the physical pain was just as palpable as the emotional one.
Was this how she was going to die? Alone and scared out of her mind?
But then she heard gunshots in the background, making Gastone stop for a second. He turned his head back and before she knew it, the pressure of his body wasn’t there anymore. He had been kicked strongly and had landed a few meters away with a loud thump. The absence of his disgusting face revealed Flavio’s, standing above her, looking at her with troubled eyes. He gazed at the right side of the room, making Inèz follow his line of sight. Noah was hovering over Gastone, beating the living crap out of him. His eyes - a well of jet-black tar - held a chilling look. In one hand a gun was held loosely, his finger pressing against the trigger and sending a bullet a few millimeters away from the Capodecina’sface and into the wall behind him. His eyebrow raised in startling amusement and rage so vivid that one couldn’t help but wonder if Noah would be able to come back from it a sane person. He was seething and couldn’t stop smashing his fist into the man’s face, throat and chest once he’d hid the gun into his holster. Everything was covered with so much blood that the girl felt sick, even though it had never bothered her before. For the first time, she was about to vomit at seeing such a disturbing and inhumane scene. And she wished Noah would stop, just for her sake. She needed him to stop and to catch a glimpse of the person that she’d grown to care so deeply about.
Flavio focused on her once again. He examined the cuts on her stomach, but they weren’t what was bothering Inéz the most right now.
"I can’t move," she said, and the Underboss knew immediately that she wasn’t referring to the ropes that she was tied up with. They wouldn’t cause such desperation.
He nodded, and looked behind him, saying something that the girl didn’t catch. But a second later, Lynette showed up next to her and freed her body.
"What happened?" she asked.
Her question, however, went unanswered, as Inéz kept looking at Noah who was being restrained by his brother. Even Flavio had realized that having theCapo deal with the man wasn’t their biggest priority. But Noah’s rage kept him trying to hurt theCapodecina even more. Soon there would be nothing left of him with the number of punches and kicks he was taking. Noah didn’t even bother using a knife or a gun. He needed Gastone to suffer more and for a longer period of time, and using fists was giving the Caposatisfaction and a source to channel all his fiery emotions.
Inéz coughed. "Noah," she drawled, but her voice was weak and too quiet. "Please, stop," she added, trying her best to sound stronger than she was.
Nothing.
The Capokept on punching and kicking Gastone’s body all over the room without stopping.
Seeing this, Inéz knew that she would have to wait forever for Noah to be done, and she wasn’t going to do that anymore. She was done waiting for him to put her first when that was all she’d ever done.
"I hit my back. I had it badly injured when I was younger. And it feels almost the same now," she explained to Lynette, and let one of the soldiers take her into his arms and out of the room. That shouldn’t have happened as it could aggravate her injury, and calling for an ambulance would have been the proper thing to do. But it was still a crime scene and inviting outsiders to see more than they should, would have been a disaster waiting to happen.
Feeling the fresh air envelop her exposed body, she slowly drifted away, unable to keep her eyes open anymore.
CHAPTER 45
Never before had Noah imagined that the words coming out of the mouth of his penthouse building’s receptionist would have the power to destroy him. But that was exactly what happened when he called him as he was on his way to get Gastone. He’d thought there was no time to waste, yet if he had waited a little longer, stayed an hour more with Inéz, she wouldn’t have come out, and wouldn’t have disappeared.
Seeing the girl in front of such a well-known building must have come as quite a shock to the Capodecina. Coming to his Capo’splace, he’d had the same idea - to overthrow the boss, before it was him held at gunpoint. And laying eyes on the girl who’d suspiciously started working in his club, when she was hardly the type, could have made the man connect the facts and decide to grab her instead. Thus, sinking Noah’s black heart to the bottom of his even darker soul when he saw the surveillance video of her being knocked out by one of Gastone’s soldiers.
He was supposed to keep her safe, just like he’d promised. But he failed in so many ways it should’ve been a crime. And perhaps it even was. As was everything else in his world.
The worst thing was - he felt like it was his siblings’ kidnapping all over again. He had been just as useless then, as he was now. Age didn’t fucking matter. Twelve or twenty-four, experienced
