Submission Specialist(Still a Bad Boy #2)(58)

Chapter 28

Skylar

It was almost as if hell itself had been waiting for the signal from the referee in the New Ashby event center. The bell rang and then the room I was held captive in shook with an explosion.

The lights flickered for a second and the TV signal cut out, replacing the feed from Austin’s fight with nothing but static. A second after that, I heard gunshots.

“What the fuck?” said Enrico.

“Come with me! Renato, watch this fuckin’ whore,” said Gavino.

The two Bertolinis swiftly exited the room, closing the door behind them and leaving me with Renato, who cursed through his teeth. Outside, it sounded like open warfare.

People screamed and shouted, footsteps sprinted all over the place, and all the while the steady crackle of gunfire reported the scale of the assault that must be happening out there. It sounded like pitched battles were being waged on numerous fronts, some closer than others.

Renato pulled his own gun out and shoved it against my head. “Thehmufucka goh smmmtdo wihish, bich?” he asked.

The words were mostly lost to me, but I got the gist of it. I had no idea if, or even how, Austin could have anything to do with this. We both saw him on the screen when this all started. I shook my head and shrugged, trying not to look him in the eye.

Gradually, the sounds of war outside became more scattered, more sporadic. Somebody was winning.

With Renato’s handgun pressed against my head it felt like an eternity, but eventually, even those sporadic gunshots stopped completely. There was still yelling, still running footsteps, but I had no idea what was out there.

Neither did Renato. He gathered himself and pulled the gun away from me, approaching the door as if it might be a demon in disguise.

With air hissing in and out through his teeth he reached out and put his hand on the doorknob, turning it slowly and then pulling. The hallway came into view.

From my perspective in the chair, I couldn’t see anything different. Renato cautiously stuck his head out and looked one way, then the other.

Faster than I’d seen almost anybody else move before, Renato cursed in a screaming tone through his wired-jaw and whipped his head back as a thunderous roar of some kind of gun splintered the door frame. Shielding his face from the wooden shrapnel, Renato slammed the door shut again and frantically retreated behind me.

Misplaced hope ate away at the acceptance of my own death. I gritted my teeth and squinted my eyes, still wondering if I would feel it when the bullet tore through my head, even as I watched the door for somebody to come in and end this nightmare.

Adding to the chaos going through my mind, Renato was undoing my handcuffs for some reason. Once I was loose, he yanked me to my feet by my hair and dragged me backwards, until he was in the corner of the room with me standing in front of him.

Resting his gun-bearing arm on my shoulder, he pointed it at the door and waited, breathing hard. The door burst open and Renato fired.

This close to my head, the sound was almost deafening. With ringing ears, I tried to see what had just happened, but nobody was slumped dead in the doorway.

“Let her go, Renato, and I’ll let you die with some dignity,” yelled a voice I recognized.

Austin! Austin was here! I almost howled in triumph.

“Fuk-oooo!” Renato screeched.

A head appeared low in the doorway for the briefest moment and I bumped Renato’s arm upwards, making him miss his shot.

“Ooofukinbich!” The Picolli mobster hit me just under the eye with the butt of his gun.

Pain bloomed there, but it was nothing compared to the ache in my heart when I saw that it wasn’t Austin out there. I could still die, and it would have been such a relief to see him one last time.

“Over here! Over here!” that voice, eerily like Austin’s came again.

With one eye shut against the pain from the pistol strike, I saw another head peek around the corner, even faster than the first. It wasn’t there long enough for Renato to get a shot off, but it was enough for me to see that it was Austin this time.

“Imakihdisbich!” screamed Renato, frantically alternating between pointing the gun at my head and at the door.

“Skylar! I’m sorry!”

His voice for sure! He really was here. I sobbed with relief. If he was here, I could tell him. I could let him know I meant what I said. He could rely on me to the very end.

“Austin! I love you!”

“I love you too!”

“Wahduhfuk! Thsnomuhfukin’ cuppohscunslin’!”

“Think, Skylar! You’ve been here before! Remember the gym!”

What was he talking about? I’d never been held prisoner by the Mafia before. Had he lost his mind? The gym?

The gym!

All those hours Austin spent teaching me self-defense in the gym after the mess in Las Vegas! He’d been through all the most common scenarios, and one of them was being held from behind like this.