But she’d left that life in her rearview mirror months ago, and now she had to face the coldness of her reality. She wasn’t Lark. She wasn’t Sage.
She folded her arms around her middle, hoping they would help hold her together. Because, holy hell, she was definitely not holding it together right now. “My real name is Dahlia Bellisario.”
Cam staggered to his feet. He was limping badly, which made her think of Vaughn snarling at her because she was worried about his leg. God. She’d never see his grumpy ass again, and boy did that ever hurt. Tears burned in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. Not when Giuseppe could arrive at any moment.
“You need to leave,” Cam said. “Go, get out of here. If something happens to you, Vaughn will lose his mind. He came close when you disappeared on him.”
“No. I’m not leaving. He’d never forgive me if I left and something happened to you.”
In a move that was very much like his twin, Cam banged his fists on the cage, making the links rattle. “Goddammit. We can’t both die today. He’s going to need one of us.”
“And that will be you.” She finally unglued her feet and hurried to the cage, searching for a way to let him out. “You’re more important to him than I’ll ever be.”
“If you think that, you’re delusional. He’s in love with you. Has been from day one. And love means something to him. You know him, Lark. You know how deeply he feels.”
She let the name slip go, mainly because her throat was too closed up to allow for words. She nodded. She heard what he was saying, but still couldn’t believe Vaughn would feel as strongly about her as he did for his brother. Not with the way she’d treated him.
The cage was locked, but locks had never stopped her for long.
She glanced over her shoulder to check on Cristiano and Tommy, but they were both standing at the door, waiting for Giuseppe with their backs turned. Idiots. She reached underneath her hair at the back of her neck and found her trusty bobby pin. After snapping it in half, she got to work on the lock. It didn’t take much. Just a bit of wiggling, a twist of her wrist, and the door opened.
“Impressive,” Cam said. He was struggling to stay on his feet, and she hurried in to help.
“Can you walk?”
“It’s just a sprain.” But he sucked in a sharp breath between his teeth whenever he put the slightest bit of weight on his left foot.
A sprain? Yeah, right. If he had a pain tolerance anywhere in the same ballpark as his twin, that ankle was definitely broken.
“Let me help.” She looped an arm around his waist and nudged a shoulder into his armpit, but they only made it a few staggering steps out of the cage before a voice from the doorway stopped her cold.
“Bravo,” Giuseppe said. “You’ve learned a few new tricks in the last five years, haven’t you, Dahlia?”
She looked up and met the gaze of the man she’d been running from for most of her adult life. The man who had haunted her nightmares and terrified her into insomnia. Save for some gray streaks in his once-dark hair and some extra lines around his mouth, Giuseppe didn’t look as if he’d aged a day since she’d last seen him. He was a blast right out of her past—living, breathing, and walking toward her with a gun in his hand.
She tightened her grip on Cam because she was afraid of what would happen to them if she let him go. “I’m here. I’ve held up my end of the deal. Cam’s free to go.”
“What’s the rush? We have all night.” Giuseppe motioned with his gun. Cristiano and Tommy pried Cam out of her grasp, and he went down hard, his bad ankle giving out underneath him.
“He needs to see a doctor.”
Tommy laughed, and it was an ugly sound. “He don’t need no doctor where he’s going.”
She whirled on Giuseppe. “We made a deal.”
“One you knew I wouldn’t keep.”
“He has nothing to do with this.”
Giuseppe stormed forward and grabbed her by the throat, throwing her against the side of the cage. “He had everything to do with it! Vaughn was fucking me around. I need to send a message.”
She clawed at the huge hand choking off her airway. “Then use me,” she gasped. “Let…him…go.”
“Oh, believe me. I have plans for you.” He glanced casually over his shoulder at his nephew and held out his gun. “Tommy, paint the walls, will ya?”
Tommy took the weapon and pointed it at Cam’s head. There was nothing she could do but watch as Cam defiantly stared down the barrel of the gun, his expression so much like Vaughn’s….
The warehouse door banged open.
Everyone froze in a weird tableau of violence and surprise. Giuseppe loosened his grip on her throat, and she was able to suck in a rasping lungful of air. Tommy swung the gun toward the newcomer, and Cam swept out with his good leg, taking Tommy’s feet out from under him. There was a brief wrestling match on the floor, but Cam came out on top, gun aimed at a cowering Tommy.