Twin Tormentors By RARE

Chapter 58 LORENZO POV The trepidation piled up with each heartbeat, my knee kept bouncing rapidly against the hard ground and my muscles clenched so tight | felt like | was going to have dead ass cramps all over my body. | didn’t even want to look at Verzi to know how he was, | already knew. He was a whole bughouse with emotions sending him over the edge.

A lot of things flashed through my mind like a tape recorder, the otiose trip to Milan, had it been Xander’s plan? To get us away from Ari so that he can take her? And my girl, where was she? Was she still... God forbid that.

| couldn’t even begin to imagine what | was going to be if anything happened to her. The loud rumbling of our Chevy Camaro sounded from a distance. | looked to Verzi to find him already gathering his paraphernalia with a very angry face. | felt for him, in more ways than he could ever imagine. | wasn’t being a dick for not being his shoulder. It wasn’t that and it would never be that. But | wasn’t the strong one this time, | was the weakest. And he had so much power to holdup or else | was going to crumble. As soon as the sound was near, we piled out of the limo and ran towards the midnight black beast. We hopped on and Valerie stepped on the wheel, none of us said anything, but the tension in the car was so thick. While she was swerving and maneuvering through the heavy evening traffic, Verzi and | were busy clamping ourselves with our toys. Guns and blades. A small vibration madehalt, | fished my phone from out of my suit pants to find a text from an unknown number.

Opening it, | found the GPS with a red dot that was blinking.

“What?” Verzi asked from my side, | showed him the phone and his brows furrowed, “It’s a location.” He pointed out. | zoomed in on the GPS to get a clear view of things. The location was at least an hour from where we were currently.

“To Ponza.” | barked at Valerie who stepped on the gas immediately, “Boss, | think we shouldn't just go there. It might be a trap.” Val warned looking at us in the rearview mirror. Be it a trap or not, | wasn’t going to take any chances. Our girl was currently all by herself in the hands of spsychomaniac who wanted to kill her. | didn’t want to think of the situation she might be in, | just needed to get to her.

“I'll send people to check in first.” Verzi chimed in already punching on his phone. From then on, the ride was full of Verzi barking orders to his men to surround the place and see if there are any traps. 30 minutes later, we got a call from Ciello, that they'd found where she was kept and that they already surrounded the abandoned warehouse, waiting to ambush at our commands.

Upon hearing this, | felt a rush of relief washing over me. Whoever sentus the location, may God be with him. | wasn’t sure of his plans yet, but | was thankful because he led us to our girl! | was sitting beside myself until Valerie expertly swerved the car into the parking lot a good distance from the warehouse. In a heartbeat, we were out with our guns ready to fuck anyone and anything in our way.

We were swift on our feet, very light without making even a sound. Although I so wanted to g o head-on into the building and maim whoever was in there, | didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize this in any way. We had to be clever, we had to be su A shadow flicked on my right, | aimed my gun in its direction ready to burst its head up when Ciello shot up the signal that everything was well in place. We approached the building stealthily until we were right in front of it.

| stole a glance at Verzi and he looked at me, then we nodded at each other and signaled our t the iron door down. The door was sealed shut with gazillion giant padlocks. Working on them was going to alert whoever was inside, and that could be dangerous to Ari.

With that, we cleared the way for our men who placed a shit-ass bazooka down, then waited o n us. | covered my ears as a loud bang rang out, the bomb tearing through the iron door shattering it into pieces. We didn’t wait for the flames to subside, just threw ourselves inside t o find Xander on top of Lorik, hitting the living life out of him.

1 Out of the corner of my eye, | saw Ari who was strapped down in chains, struggling to get free. My heart shattered at the sight of her, all so bound and helpless, waiting for her death.

“You son of a bitch!” Verzi roared as he took giant steps towards Xander and kicked him right i n his guts, causing him to roll over and fall a foot from Lorik.

“Verzi, Noooooo!” Ari's cry unclued my feet where | was standing, | rushed to her and cradled her head, so that she looked at me.

“Baby. We are here, you are safe now.” | said trying to avoid the blood and she was covered in. She had suffered so much! “It is not him. He's innocent. He didn’t do it.” She kept on repeating the words like a mantra, but my mind was utterly focused on getting her out of the chains.

“Lorenzo stop him! He is hurting him.” She screamed into my ears causingto halt, “Xander saved me.” She revealed shockingto the core. | straightened up to find Verzi having the sreaction.

“What?” | finally asked when | found my voice.

“Xander chere to rescue me. It's Lorik who kidnapped me.” She said looking at Lorik through teary eyes. At that moment, | felt like the whole world had stopped rotating. It was as if thas abruptly stopped, pausing everything.

| turned to Lorik to find him snaking on the floor. Ciello quickly pinned him down and held a gun against his head.

“You ungrateful motherfucker.” Xander coughed out as he got up in a standing position, spat the blood from his mouth, and walked beelined past Verzi while clutching his stomach. He stopped next to Ari and kissed her forehead.

“I guess my job is done here.” He mentioned and then limped towards the shattered entrance.

“See you around sweet cheeks. And you two, | am going to fuck you up for this!” His voice echoed through the warehouse as he exited and disappeared into the night.

What the hell was happening here? “Is it true?” Verzi’s voice boomed around the eerie silence, pullingfrom my daze. | felt so inanimate and lifeless. How could he do this? How could our father hurt the only thing that mattered to us? “You fucking know why | did it.” He spat under Ciello’s hold trying to turn over. | couldn't listen, | needed to get Ari out of here.

With that, on very unsteady feet, | walked towards her and dropped in front of her, then unhurriedly removed the chains off her. While she was free, Valerie walked by and covered her in a small blanket, and then passed her to Raquel. She was safe. She was okay! “ARI WATCH OUT!” A loud scream joltedout of my skin.

From somewhere, | heard a sudden outburst of laughter followed by a loud gunshot.

Everything happened so quickly and in a blink of an eye, Ari fell clutching her stomach with s o much blood gushing out of the angry gun wound. Everything played in slow motion as | screamed, running to her to catch her.

Her body dropped in my arms and we both fell down. Her body began convulsing in my hold, blood gushing out of her mouth.

“No! God no!” LEIGH-ARI | was tired, | was finished. | couldn't keep holding on any longer. Even when Xander popped u p, the glimmer of hope had surfaced just a bit, but then he had crushed it and stomped on it when he told Lorik that he wasn’t going to stop him from doing whatever he intended on me. | didn’t know what to feel at that moment. | just gave up. There was no point for Xander to savebecause he didn’t oweanything.

And there was really no point holding on when | was locked here with two psychopaths.

Right when | was about to surrender to my fate, Xander leaped into the air and kicked Lorik i n the stomach, sending him flying pastwhere he landed at the table he kept his toys on with a very loud crash. | have never been so perplexed and confused. Xander himself had stated that he wasn’t here to stop Lorik, so why the hell fight him? He was just so unpredictable it felt maddening trying to understand him.

Lorik had gotten up and fought back, and he did have smoves there. The fight went on, and | never knew Lorik could fight like that. They hit each other and cursed out loud, but never stopped At that moment, it finally dawned onthat Xander had cfor me.

The spark of hope glimmered and sizzled hot, | was going to make it.

When | was busy praying to God for a miracle, a loud explosion went off, fire raging at the entrance. | had sat there scared like shit when my boys busted through the flames, with eyes s o wide they looked like night owls.

Enzo spottedand crunning towards me. Hope! Salvation.

My heart had skipped a few beats. They were here. | was safe.

From there, everything didn’t matter. Lorik and all the things he had said, Xander and his infuriating self, they all didn’t matter. But | was so grateful for what he has done. He didn’t have to. God he didn’t risk his life to csave me. But he did. And | was indebted to him.

After being freed from the chains, | had smiled to myself, | was safe. Alive. For the second time, | had escaped Lorik’s hell traps and survived.

That was all until a loud bang went off, and then | was laying in the pool of my own blood with Enzo cradling my head. One minute | was standing beside Raquel, and the next she had pushedoff and shotright in my guts. Raquel the woman who was entrusted with my life shot me. | tried to find all the words that could explain why she did that, but I didn’t. 1 | raised my head and looked at Enzo through very tired eyes. | was feeling it. Life was slowly slipping through my fingers. “Ari, no0000!” My boy wept as he cradled the wound with me, trying to stop the blood that was flowing like a calm steady stream. Extra pair of hands joined in, and | turned to find Verzi’s handsface staring down at me.

“Don’t you fucking dare Leigh-Ari. Don't leave us.” He rattled pushing down on Enzo’s hands. | raised my bloodied hand and cradled his cheek. He leaned into my palm and kissed it, the wetness from his cheeks wetting my hand.

| turned my head to Enzo and laid further into him.

“I am so tired,” | informed him in a very weak voice, “Ari, please. Stay with us.” He cried out, his teardrops hitting my cheek. | smiled at him, feeling so depleted to even keep my eyes open. They fluttered close and | let them, and then said the only thing | needed them to know. In case they had forgotten.

“Verzi, Enzo. | love you...” “BULLSHIT LEIGH-ARI DON'T YOU DARE CLOSE YOUR EYES,” Verzi yelled yanking my heavy head from where it was cradled on Enzo, and then roughly shook me, “soooo much...”