My Mafia Madness 3

Chapter 14 - Sighted and Surrounded

The concert was almost over as the final song played on in the background.

Knowing just how busy things would soon get with everyone there all wanting to leave at the same time, Dante thought it wise for his group to depart now instead.

Giving his gestured signal to Nicola, the security team of henchmen were all given their order via their ear pieces for the Don’s immediate departure.

This of course included Alexa, Willow, Roberto, Matteo and Roxy.

They would need to exit the way they had come, in order to avoid the large crowd of people huddled together in front of the giant stage.

Taking hold of his new fiancé’s hand, the Reaper was led along by his security team, from their VIP section back along the original path they had come from earlier on.

Unfortunately, they could not have foreseen what was about to happen.

At about half-way through the crowd, an unexpected fight broke out from within the large audience between several drunken men.

People screamed and were pushed in all directions as the intoxicated fools swung about aimlessly at one another.

Their friends attempting pointlessly to separate them and break up the fight.

Unfortunately for Dante and his group, the fight happened to block off their intended pathway leading out of the stadium.

They were trapped right in the middle of the crowd gathered there that night; of over twenty-thousand people!

Dante was abruptly halted mid stride, along with a rather surprised Alexa.

As Dante’s men worked to sort out the mess now in front of them, attempting to break up the fight and usher the drunken people out of the way, everyone around the area was squished together by the unfortunate circumstance.

Momentarily focused on clearing a path in front of them, Dante hadn’t noticed as a group of people were shoved towards him, bumping Alexa aside and quickly separating her from the Don.

Shocked and a little surprised by being shoved aside, Alexa gasped as she suddenly found herself amidst a sea of complete strangers.

Everywhere she looked she didn’t recoignise anyone!

As her breathing increased in speed, so did her pulse. The fear of being left alone in such a massive location, with so many strangers began to concern her greatly with each passing second.

She began trying to scan the tops of heads, searching for the unique hairstyle of her loving fiancé, Dante.

But somehow, there appeared to be no sign of him at all!

How had she lost him in such a short amount of time?

“Shit...” she whispered to herself.

Deciding the best thing for her to do was to walk in a straight line and head in one direction, she began trying to move through the dancing audience, one person at a time.

She brushed past several people who all didn’t seem to notice her appearance whatsoever as they enjoyed themselves innocently.

Pushing her way past one more, she came face to face with a stranger with a tall Italian looking man with brown eyes and a five-o’clock shadow over his jaw.

His eyes peered directly into hers as she stood watching him for a moment, sizing him up so to speak.

Alexa couldn’t understand why this man’s attention was solely on her instead of the exciting show currently playing on around her.

As he lifted his jacket to the side and reached into it, her eyes widened at the reason for his interest in her.

There, grasped in his hand was a gun!

Sucking in a sharp breath of air in panic, Alexa quickly turned and began heading back in the opposite direction, intending on getting away from this armed stranger with his sights set on her.

With each person she pushed past, she began to grow more and more terrified of being followed by whoever this man was.

Why did he have a gun?

Who was he?

Why was he watching her?

Where the hell was Dante and the others?

Quickly turning to check and see if she was being followed, Alexa noticed the man still gaining on her, pushing his way through the crowd as well, just as she had.

With wide eyes, she turned back around to continue on pushing her way through the crowd, but stopped when she came face to face with another stranger with dark, soulless eyes.

He too staring directly at her.

But this stranger was right in front of her!

Before she had the chance to try and make a run for it, he reached out and grabbed onto her left arm, pulling her in against him as he lifted his gun up and jammed it into her ribs.

“Hey, what the hell are you doing!” she demanded angrily.

“Let go of me! LET GO!”

The armed stranger leaned in, whispering his dark words for only her to hear.

His voice sounded raspy and his breath smelled strongly of vodka as he spoke.

“Come along quietly or I will shoot you.”

Her heart accelerated with tremendous amounts of fear, her head thudding loudly over and over as she felt him yanking hard on her arm, signalling for her to follow along with him through the crowd.

But Alexa stood fast and refused to budge.

She immediately knew that she was in serious danger, if the gun hadn’t been her first clue.

And what’s worse, she still couldn’t see Dante or any of the others!

Another hard yank on her arm before the end of the silencer’s barrel jabbed into her side again, this time much harder than it had before.

“Ow!” she panted painfully.

The man snarled into her ear viciously.

“Do not test me, Miss Myers! Now move it!”

That confirmed it and her heart sank with dread.

This man knew who she was. This was a planned kidnapping, it had to be... they had come specifically for her.

With little choice in the matter, Alexa was pulled along after the armed man as they moved undetected through the dancing crowd of people surrounding them.

Apparently oblivious to the kidnapping happening right before their very eyes!

“DANTE! Dante help!”

Even as Alexa tried to shout out for her man, her attempts proved pointless against the noise level of the band playing on in the background added with the cheering crowd.

She felt helpless, once again.

Something she had promised herself she would never again feel. But here she was, unable to prevent it.

A sudden wave of anger washed over her as she was pulled along, past one person to the next.

Anger at being the victim yet again.

In the heat of the moment, caught up in the adrenalin fuelled atmosphere of the concert, Alexa decided to try and make a break for it from her would-be-kidnapper.

She would use the packed-together crowd of people to her advantage, as a way of blocking him off and making it more difficult for him to get to her.

But first, she would need to free her arm.

Thinking on the spot, she noticed a woman’s drink she was holding in her hand as she danced about and decided that it would work.

Reaching out, Alexa grabbed the alcohol bottle from the nearby woman’s hand and swung it directly at the stranger’s head.

The glass connected with the man’s skull in a ‘smash’ of splintered pieces of glass as they shattered across the floor and all over the people around them.

And of course, the hit had momentarily startled him, long enough for him to release his hold on Alexa and allow her to slip away.

Darting through the crowd and ducking herself down beneath the sea of shoulders, she managed to hide herself from the man’s view by the time he turned around to find her, outraged and angered by his assault.

His dark eyes searched the surrounding areas, but he could not see her anywhere!

“Cazzo!” (f**k!) he cursed aloud.

Deciding he would have to backtrack through the people, he began shoving people aside, one by one on a search for Alexa.

-

Meanwhile, Dante had quickly realised that Alexa had been separated from him during the sudden fight breaking out and immediately went into Reaper mode.

His men were in the middle of searching for her as Dante himself scanned the crowd for any signs of his beloved fiancé.

“Anything?” he called out to Nicola.

The underboss merely shook his head before he continued parting his way through the crowd, one person at a time.

Dante lifted his phone up, thinking quickly and dialling Alexa’s phone number.

Lifting it to his ear, he waited as it rang several times to connect.

“Come on bella... come on...” he whispered to himself.

-

At that very moment, Alexa was ducked down, crouched in the middle of the crowd of dancing people around her as she noticed the two armed strangers were beginning to close in on her.

If she remained where she was, they might just happen to pass her by... she might stay hidden from them.

But her hopes quickly died with the sound of her ringtone as it played loudly, simultaneously giving away her hiding place.

And of course, she wasn’t the only one who heard it amidst the loud noises going on around them.

Both men heard the sound of the phone ringing and quickly homed in on her.

Alexa, frantically pulling out her phone, quickly saw that it was Dante calling her and promptly answered the call.

As she lifted her phone up to her ear she spoke quickly, in desperation, as she heard his voice call out her name.

“Bella? Bella, where are you?” Dante called out.

“Dante! There’s men, they’re coming!” she tried explaining in a hurry as the two men quickly closed in on her.

Unfortunately, what Alexa hadn’t counted on was that there was a third man who had been watching her the entire time.

A third man working with the other two.

He silently moved in from behind as Alexa cautiously watched the other two slowly approaching her.

Gasping in fear at how close they were now getting, she stood back up, turned around and tried to push her way through the crowd.

Instead, she ran right into the chest of a well-dressed man who stood before her like a tower of pure muscle.

Lifting her eyes up to meet his sinister gaze, Alexa quickly realised that he was not a friendly and cried out into her phone in an attempt to try and warn Dante.

“Dante help-” was all she managed to get out before the phone was snatched from her hand and tossed to the floor by his third giant of a man.

“Hey!”

He looked down at her as his large shoe stomped onto the phone using the heel of his foot, which of course broke it.

With her phone now crushed into smaller pieces, Alexa turned to run from the third man, but was quickly cornered and grabbed by the other two who had finally caught up to her.

“NO! Someone help me- mmmph!”

Swinging her arms at them wildly as they fought to subdue her, Alexa was quickly silenced by one of the men’s large hands as it covered her mouth.

His other arm was wrapped snuggly around her waist as she struggled against him.

By now Alexa’s desperate actions had begun to alert the people standing around that area, and they all seemed to turn and take interest in what was going on.

“Hey man, what are you-” one younger man asked, but was quickly silenced.

“-Shut the f**k up!” one of the armed kidnappers barked, shoving the gun into the curious bystander’s face and instantly forcing him to back off.

By now, the trio had begun to manoeuvre their way through the crowd, pulling a struggling Alexa along with them as they headed for one of the doorways leading out into the main lobby of the building.

Just as they passed through the doorway leading out into the main lobby, the first kidnapper was suddenly caught off guard and punched square in the face, sending him faltering backwards!

‘SMACK!’

Startled by the sudden assault, the first attacker lifted his confused gaze upwards to meet with the one who was responsible for delivering the powerful punch just now.

And when he sighted who it was, his frowned in confusion and disbelief.

At that very moment, standing directly between the three kidnappers and their only way out, was none other than Nicholas Valentino!

The two men up front sized Nicholas up quickly, readying themselves for a confrontation.

Meanwhile, the third remained behind them, still holding onto Alexa who was being forced to watch.

She reached up, managing to pull her assailant’s hand away from her mouth long enough to call out a singular remark.

She needed to try and warn Nicholas not to do this! That it was far too dangerous for him to try and risk his life for her sake. He would be foolish to do so.

“Nicholas, run!” she screamed out at him.

But he had no intention of running.

For this was nothing but a show, an elaborate hoax put on to help convince those needing to be convinced of Nicholas’ loyalty.

“Don’t worry, Alexa.” Nicholas assured her with a smirk as he took off his tuxedo jacket and dropped it onto the floor beside him.

“This won’t take long.”

Confused by his confidence, Alexa couldn’t understand why this man she had only met this evening would be doing something so foolish as going up against three armed men with no weapon whatsoever!

He was either incredibly insane, or incredibly brave!

“Let the woman go.” Nicholas commanded sternly.

“This doesn’t have to get ugly.”

The two men up front chuckled darkly, shaking their heads.

“Get out of the way, old man!” the one up front barked.

“Unless you want to die tonight?”

Alexa began to panic even more now, after hearing them mention killing Nicholas.

That was the last thing she wanted! No one needed to get hurt for her sake.

“Nicholas, don’t! They’ll kill you!” she cried out, still struggling in her captive’s strong arms.

But Nicholas surprised her by reaching up behind his back and unsheathing a large hunting knife from wherever it had been hidden away until now.

Her eyes fixated on the sharpened blade as he held it by the handle, moving into a fighters stance.

Grinning, Nicholas spoke to further taunt his opponents.

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of an old man?”

And then everything happened so suddenly, as if time had been altered and everyone before her moved at superhuman speed.

Alexa was forced to stand by and watch as Nicholas took on his opponents, one by one...

And somehow managed to take out both within the matter of seconds!

Within moments, Nicholas stood victoriously over the two men now lying on the floor beneath his feet.

The blade of his knife was coated with fresh crimson blood as it dripped onto the floor.

Alexa was stunned by what she had just witnessed.

This mild-mannered man she had just met this evening was apparently incredibly dangerous with a knife!

It made no sense.

It was only as the third man holding onto her spoke that she once again realised he was even there, as she was suddenly snapped out of her stunned daze and brought back to reality.

“Stay the f**k back!” her captor demanded, now holding out a gun which was aimed at Nicholas.

“You killed them, man! You killed them!”

“Let her go.” Nicholas spoke in a very calm manner, given the fact that he had a loaded gun pointed directly at him.

“No! This wasn’t the plan!” her frantic kidnapper barked, now becoming much more concerned as he realised he was all alone from here on out.

“This wasn’t the-”

‘BANG!’

The sound of a singular gunshot going off echoed throughout the lobby as Alexa screamed and closed her eyes.

She waited patiently for the pain to come...