37

18.5K 440 183
                                    

My blood ran cold the more I replayed what just happened in my head. I knew trusting Harry was never an option, a man that draws a gun to your face just to prove some sick point isn't trustworthy. He's been gone for approximately two hours now and honestly, for the best. My reaction to trauma that he caused shouldn't have been handled the way that he chose to handle it.

He helped me control my panic attack, but all of that went to shit way too fast. I knew Harry had a short temper, but this was unacceptable. I had been sitting on the bed with my back to the wall since the moment he walked out of those doors. My brain ran with thoughts and I couldn't keep up with them.

For some reason, my mind went back to the time when I fell off a tree as a child and was scolded for it. I didn't break any bones, but I did have to be looked at for medical attention due to a mild concussion. My father was angry and didn't speak to me for a whole week. He always told me he hated stupidity and people who did stupid things.

That was the first time I felt stupid.

As I'm hugging my knees to my chest, there's rushed knocks on the door. I quickly look up, somewhat startled by the sudden noise. Maybe it's Harry? No, Harry doesn't knock. I decide to sit still and hope that whoever it is, goes away. My eyes quickly go to the bag in the floor that contains all the loaded guns Harry was working on earlier.

The knocks didn't seem to stop and I quietly get out of bed, unzip the duffel bag and grab one of the black heavy guns. My breath is steady as I tiptoe to the door and right as I'm about to look through the peephole, I hear an all too familiar voice.

"Valentina?" I stop in my tracks, my breath hitching in the back of my throat. When I pull the door open, my father stands on the other side. I drop the gun in my hand almost too quickly and wrap my arms around him, almost making him stumble.

My father's protective arms wrap themselves around me but the hug doesn't last, it never does. "What are you doing here?" I ask as he holds me back with his hands on my shoulders, he inspects my face for any injuries and surely he finds a few.

"You have no idea how long I've been looking for you for." He says and begins to look around the room, his gold plated gun in hand. I watched as my father pushed the bathroom door with his foot, the door bangs loudly against the wall. My eyebrows furrowed in confusion and I follow behind him as he goes around the room looking for something. "You tell me where that son of a bitch is!"

"I don't know," I say truthfully. "He left two hours or so ago." Why was my father so worked up about this? Maybe he's upset Harry left me by myself. "What's going on?"

"What did he say to you?" My father throws yet another question at me and this leaves me even more confused than the last.

"He didn't say anything, he just pointed his gun at me and left." My head was beginning to spin, I had no idea what my father was doing here or why he was suddenly so angry. I haven't seen him for a good few months and now that I do, his only emotion is anger? My father says nothing else as he grabs my wrist and pulls me towards the door. I didn't know what else to do so I just followed, if Harry didn't care enough to leave me alone after shooting at me I don't think he'd care much that I was gone.

Right as we were reaching the door, bullets ricochet throughout the room making my father cuss and push me down to the floor harshly, I fall on my side with a thud as my father and whoever it was shared bullets. "Motherfucker!" My father shouts and I notice he's been shot.

"Dad!" I say as I begin to crawl towards him but he stops me.

"Stay!" He orders and I do as I try to shield myself from being hit by a bullet. There was no way I could hide under the bed this time. But I couldn't sit and do nothing, my father was very clearly injured and whoever was shooting at us clearly wants us dead. Maybe this is who Harry and I were running from. Despite my father's wishes, I grab the gun I dropped and leave the room. "Valentina, get back here!" My father shouts behind me.

I might be acting on impulse but I'm sure if I stay put, I will die. There was a black truck outside, men shot the opposite direction and it was hard to know where the main source was coming from. Just as I'm hiding behind a freezer with ice, a pair of hands come up behind me trying to hold my arms back but I'm quick to move away.

When I turn, it was Harry. "We need to leave, now." He says, I flinch when more there's more gunshots. Harry grabs my hand and leads me towards the back of the motel where the car was already waiting for us.

"Wait, my dad!" I turn to Harry who speeds off without a care. "What are you doing?" I say as Harry drives with no intent to stop, I look back to the hellfire we left behind. "My dad was shot! We need to go back!" He only ignores me and takes out his phone, dials a number and holds the phone to his ear.

"Fall back but make sure he can't follow us." He hangs up, his gaze was hard and eyes looked directly at the road. I stare at Harry in disbelief in hopes that he notices and when he does, he turns to look at me momentarily before looking back to the road.
"Sit back." He mumbles.

"What is going on, Harry?" I ask. "Make sure who can't follow us? My dad?" Harry doesn't say anything, but I can only assume that it was my father who he talked about to the person on the phone. "Answer me." I grit.

Harry glances over at me and glances back to the road, takes a deep breath and sighs in annoyance. I can tell this was a subject he didn't ever want to touch on with me. "Fiore Lombardi isn't your father." I furrow my eyebrows at his response.

"Excuse me?" I must've misheard him. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Exactly what you heard me say." He retorts rather rudely, taking me aback. He glances at me. "Do you remember that night when I took you to a strip joint with me to drop off the cocaine?" How to forget that night? Because of that, I was taken. My mind also remembers some dialogue that at the time, I found strange.

"I can see why your father is moving hell and earth
for you, I can't imagine the hell you've been through. All these years confined? But just know we're working to get you back to your father. I'm sure your reunion with him after so many years will be touching."

"She doesn't know."

Harry takes my silence as an opportunity to keep talking. "I was instructed to keep you safe and in order to do that, I had to keep the truth hidden from you to prevent you from endangering yourself." He says and I sit back on my seat. I tried my best to comprehend whatever it was Harry was saying, but nothing made sense to me.

I shake my head. "No," I begin. "That's not true."

I can hear Harry audibly sigh in annoyance. "I'm not in any position to lie to you."

"I don't buy it," I say, turning to him. "Stop the car." I didn't want to be in the car with him, not after he shot at me and left my father to die back there. "Stop the fucking car!"

"Or what?" Harry seethes, turning to me with a glare. "You going to jump out while I go ninety miles an hour?" At this, I turn to the door and pull the handle but Harry is quick to add the child lock. "Are you fucking kidding me, Valentina?"

"Let me out!" I shout, my hands go towards the wheel and jerk it to the side causing the car to swerve. When Harry grabs a hold of the wheel once again, I begin to hit at him. "Stop the car! Stop the fucking car!"

"You are such a fucking brat!" Harry shouts as he pushes me back on the seat as best as he could. "Sit the fuck down!"

"You're a fucking liar!"

"Don't blame me just because your father didn't want you!" He shouts at my face making my face feel hot. Somehow, that manages to hurt me. The relationship between my father and I has always been distant and now that Harry has dropped this bomb of lies on me, it has me overwhelmed.

I sit back down and bring my knees up to hide my face between them and my hands. I hated crying but more importantly, I hated people watching me cry.

Nobody spoke for the rest of the car ride.

Get The Girl [h.s] AUWhere stories live. Discover now