A Taste Of Italy. Fiona McArthur
as she rounded a bend.
She skidded to a halt, reversed, leaned over to the passenger’s side and opened the door. She breathed deeply in and out several times. She wasn’t surprised when she looked in the rearview mirror and Leon’s car was behind her.
Stinky’s tongue was hanging twice its length as he gulped air. ‘Get in, Stinky.’ Stinky leaned his paws on the frame and sighed. Such was his dedication to chasing the boys he didn’t have the energy left to jump in.
Tammy pulled on the handbrake, opened her door, dashed around the car and picked up the little dog, but before she could bundle him in, Leon pulled up behind her. He was out of his car in a flash.
‘Do not follow them. That’s an order. You do not understand and will cause more harm than help.’
His words dashed over her like a bucket of cold water and she didn’t reply as he went on implacably. ‘Your son will be safer if you do not confront them.’ His voice lowered. ‘And so will mine.’
Her footsteps stopped beside her car, as did the frozen focus that had consumed her, and she slumped, horrified again at what had happened and chillingly aware of how the fear in her chest was almost choking her. She turned and leaned her face on her arm against the roof of her vehicle and then she felt Leon’s hands as he pulled her back into his body.
She almost sank into him until she remembered he’d brought this on her. They’d taken Paulo and now he’d brought this agony to her when they’d taken Jack too. He wrapped his arms around her stiff body, but there was no yielding, no relief he could give her. Nothing would help the cold that seeped into her as if she were being slowly submerged in an icy blanket of dread. Her son had been abducted.
Her chest ached with the spiralling fear started by Misty’s call and the empty yard.
And they sped away further as she stood here. She yanked herself free of his embrace. He was letting them get away. ‘I could have caught them.’ She threw her head back and glared into his face. ‘Seen where they went.’
His voice was flat. Cold. Implacable. A stranger. ‘I will know where they went. Those who follow them are better prepared to apprehend than you or me. I told you I had people protecting my family.’
Great. That was just great. ‘And what about mine? Whose protection does my son have?’
‘My protection too, of course,’ he ground out. Her eyes flashed a deep fear at him that tore at his faith in his men and his belief he’d done the right thing to stop her. He’d done this to her. Why had he left Paulo again today? He’d created a pattern. The first rule of prevention. So much for his belief the threat had passed. So much for his efforts to not be too protective of his son. Now his nightmare had spilled over onto Tamara.
But he hadn’t believed they’d follow him here. It didn’t make sense. Why would they do such a thing? Was it not easier to wait until he returned to Italy? Even Gianni had thought danger in Australia highly unlikely. But thinking these thoughts brought no solace at this point.
She was waiting for a crumb of reassurance and he was too slow with it. ‘Of course he will be safe. You have to trust me.’
She stepped back, further out of his arms, and spun away. ‘You’re asking a lot,’ she threw over her shoulder as she paced. ‘To trust you with the most important person to me in the world.’
He knew it was such a huge thing she entrusted to him. Her shoulders were rigid with it. ‘I know,’ he said.
She narrowed her eyes as she turned to face him. With her arms crossed tight across her breasts as if to hold in the fear, she searched for a hint of unsure-ness or ambivalence on the rightness of his actions. He hoped there was none.
Did she trust him? It was achingly important she could. Her chest rose and fell in a painful rasping breath full of unshed tears that tore at his own pain like the claws of a bird.
He saw the moment she accepted there was nothing physical she could do. He’d taken that away from her but he’d had to, for her own safety, and for the boys. She sagged back against her car. ‘What happens now, then?’
‘We go back home and wait.’
She shook her head angrily at the passiveness of the action, then threw herself off the car and back into action. ‘I’m going to see Misty.’
‘MY MUM’S going to rip your arms off!’
‘And my father will see you in hell.’
Both boys looked at each other and nodded. The captors, three dark-clothed Italian men, laughed as they drove.
Jack screwed up his face at the men and patted Paulo’s leg. ‘Don’t worry, Paulo. She’ll come.’
Paulo hunched his shoulders. ‘It is my father who will come. And these dogs will pay.’ The bravado was wearing a little thin but it still helped the fear that crept up their arms and settled around their tight little bellies as they sat wedged between two burly men. Two small boys in a situation they shouldn’t have had to deal with.
‘How have we two of them?’ The Italian accent was coarser than Paulo’s dad’s and his partner shrugged.
‘Didn’t know which to take. We can get rid of the other one.’
In the back the boys huddled closer together.
Tammy parked her car outside Louisa’s house and left the door gaping as she ran straight into Misty’s arms. Ben came out of the house to meet them.
Leon heard Misty say, ‘I feel they’re fine. Honestly,’ and he grimaced at the strange comment. He passed Tammy’s open car door and shut it with tightly leashed control before he followed her in.
He felt suspended above himself, detached and icy cold as though he were peering down a long tunnel when all he wanted to do was find the people who had taken their sons and crush their throats. But he needed to stay calm for Tamara—and for the boys. He’d been speaking to his bodyguards and they had caught up with the car but were keeping distance between them. They had to find a way to stop the vehicle and keep the boys safe.
When he entered the residence it seemed the room was full of people. Louisa, her lined face white and shaking, stared at him as if she didn’t understand. Kidnappings and violence were not in her life and Leon moved swiftly across and folded her in his arms. He stroked her hair. Nothing like this would have ever happened before in Lyrebird Lake.
Leon remembered his hope he wouldn’t need to call on his brother’s help for just such a situation. Gianni wasn’t here but it seemed he’d get as many people as he needed. But for the moment he had to trust his own men and, now that he’d just contacted them, the Australian police. They would ring him if he could do anything.
And past his fear for his son was Tammy, and her son’s kidnapping, leaving Leon devastated he’d brought this on her by association, and regretful of her pain. His own agony was like a gaping wound in his chest and no doubt it would be as bad if not worse for a mother. Louisa shuddered in his arms and he rested his chin on the top of her grey head. Poor Louisa. Poor Tammy. And what of the boys?
The afternoon stretched into evening and then to night. Six hours after his return to the lake Leon stood tall and isolated in Tammy’s den. He searched her face for ways to help but he knew she wasn’t able to let herself relax enough to take the comfort he wanted to offer.
He carried the coffee he’d made her from the machine in the kitchen and the strong aroma of the familiar beans made him think of home. At home he would have more access to resources.
His arms ached to pull her against him and trans-fuse the strength she needed in the closing of this tumultuous day. Her distress left him powerless in a way he wasn’t used to and he placed the