DAMIEN: Book 2 of The De Luca Brothers Series [COMPLETED]

26:

We crouch down and let the natural shrubbery camouflage us, the thickness of the trees shield us from the prying eyes, however I can't see a certain vehicle anywhere- did Gufo already drive off? Surely we haven't been ten minutes already. Leone indicates for us to travel further away from the mansion and we proceed as he instructed, watching as a couple of red vehicles drive towards the mansion with tinted windows that conceal the identity of the other gang.

We begin to run still bent over, praying nobody notices the irregular fast movements in the foliage. Suddenly, we hear movement to our left. Instantly, we drop down onto the ground and still. The cold metal of the gun digs into my side and I wince, slowly moving to pull it out of my waistband of my jeans. Mimicking Ashley and Leone, I flick off the safety and swallow the lump in my throat, placing my finger to the side of trigged and wait.

We hear more movement, a single set of heavy footfalls coming closer to us. My heartbeat increases as dread fills my veins and the steps come closer, and closer, and closer.

"Leone?" Comes Toro's familiar gruff voice. My eyes widen with recognition and a prompt sigh of relief exits my lips, I send a quick thanks to God before I get up and wipe dirt off my jeans.

"It's good to see you mi fratello," Leone whispers, gripping Toro's outstretched hand and pulling him into a shoulder hug, patting each other's backs. "We're close to Gufo."

"I'm happy to see you're safe," I smile at Toro. "Lets go to Zachary."

He nods once and takes my elbow, guiding me over the twigs and roots. What? I'm clumsy. We hear movement from behind us just as we began approaching a slight clearing and the shouts of our enemy in a different European language that I recognise slightly. We begin to sprint as the first shot of gunfire echoes throughout the woods. I let out a surprised scream and instinctively duck, Toro's pace increasing sufficiently and pulling me towards the revealed car.

The minibus roars to life and the sliding doors open revealing Gufo holding a rifle. He begins to shoot and I must admit- he looks good. I sprint towards him with Toro's assistance, but I trip and fall face first onto the soil, the gun still gripped tightly in my hand. Toro curses as he grabs me and picks me up, practically throwing me over his shoulder and sprinting. My eyes widen as I notice the amount of people with guns heading our way, waving around guns and shooting rapidly, mostly hitting trees of the dirt.

A bullet pierces Toro's shoulder blade and he cries out, the jolt causing his grip to falter and me to slip out of his grasp head first. I land on my shoulder and cry out, Toro turns to help me but Gufo yells, "Stop! Get in the minibus! I'll cover her!"

I look to see Leone safely inside, Toro's pained face as he struggles, especially since he's right handed and got shot in the corresponding shoulder. I push myself up, loathing the feeling of my shoulder blade in agony. I follow Toro and take his good wrist, tugging him into a sprint towards the rest of the way to the minibus. Gufo moves aside as Toro and I barrel into the vehicle, he slides the door shut and shouts at Leone to go.

I let out a sigh, only to shriek once again as a bullet pierces the door and strikes to the left of my head. Gufo throws himself over me, "Get down!" The wheels audibly squeal as Leone speeds the car up and swerves us towards the appropriate path, the momentum sending the unbuckled passengers sprawling over the floor. My head hits the wall and I hiss in pain, Gufo winces and picks himself up on unsure feet, tugging me to a seat and strapping me in. The car halts and his eyes widen, getting flung backwards and landing on his arse next to Toro's pale form.

Zac mutters profanities as I realise he's next to me before unbuckling his seatbelt and moving over to Toro before helping him up despite the shaky environment, guiding him safely over to the seat just before Leone's driving would topple him over again. Meanwhile Gufo takes his rifle and slips the top roof window open, an automatic ladder falls down and he allows his feet to climb the levels until his upper body disappears. I hear his shots of gunfire and my throat swells, worry taking over my mind.

"Let me take a look at that," I recognise the voice of the gang doctor tending Toro's wound, pulling out a bright red medical kit and pouring rubbing alcohol on the area. Toro lets out a pained hiss, Zac plays with his hair and gently calms him down.

The minibus is rather large with six seats at the back with two rows that are divided up by two and one with the aisle in between. There is space in front where the sliding doors are before the front seats are; this is more the size of a van than a minibus. Ashley sits behind me fiddling with her fingers whilst the doctor sits next to the kid that had warned Gufo of something a couple of weeks ago about Rita.

"Are you okay?" I ask Ashley lightly.

She stares at me like I just grew a second head before scoffing, "Like you actually care."

I blink in surprise before tutting, "You know what Ashley? Fuck you, I don't care who you think you are but like hell I'm going to let you speak to me like that. I was trying to be nice, you should try it out sometime, 'cause you know, I am actually human." With that, I get up abruptly as the van shakes slightly and I storm to the passenger seat next to Leone.

He doesn't even glance at me and focuses on not killing us all which I appreciate. I glance at the mirrors and my mouth dries, "They're following us."

"I know, I'm going to try and lose them in the city."

"Will we be able to safely drop off Ashley?" I ask quietly, hoping that I don't have to stay at a safe house with that class 'A' bitch. Now I'll admit, I'm a bitch- but at least I'm a bitch with class.

"Probably not, we're going to be having ourselves a bit of a car chase. The police should be called, now if we can just cause diversions and get them caught and not us then we should be good."

"We won't be able to use backroads efficiently," I remind him. "We're in a big ass van for Christ sake."

"Main roads will be difficult due to traffic."

I pause, "What if we can control the traffic?"

He takes the moment to look at me, "You're a fucking genius."

"I am getting a PHD in chemistry," I jest before turning and tapping Gufo's leg. He slips down the ladder with his rifle in one hand and gives me a bright grin.

"That was fun."

"Was it?" I question quietly, leaning into his warmth.

"Yeah, Everyone I aimed at I shot successfully," he boasts. "You should have seen it, you would have been majorly turned on."

I bite my lip and raise my arms to wrap around his shoulders, only my shoulder blade spasms and I curse up a thunderstorm, catching Gufo off guard and popping his macho bubble, "Uh... you good?"

"Does it look like I'm good?! God! That hurt so fucking bad!" I growl as I press a hand to my shoulder. "Get on that laptop of yours now and hack into some tech system bullshit about changing the traffic lights. We're going to lose them."