Shocked, with her lips quivering in disbelief, she looked up and saw some men approaching her with the one with the scar at the forefront wielding a gun. She didn't bother going up the pier, she jumped into the water, quickly wading through it since she was almost chest deep in it. She heard Armando yelling to his men in Italian to go after her and she increased her pace despite that her stupid shoes were being sucked into the sandy bottom of the sea.
She finally reached the shore and kicked off her shoes, half of her body dripping with sea water and immediately, she started running, clutching her purse to her side.
The men chased after her and as she turned into several corners trying to escape for her life a second time in one day, someone suddenly seized her into a corner and clamped a hand over her mouth as she was about to scream in fright.
With her eyes wide and her heart thumping in her chest, she saw the men chasing her run past them, and when they were out of sight, the hand slowly moved from her mouth and she turned slowly to see who had grabbed her then frowned when she couldn't really recognize him. "Who are you?"
The man looked familiar but she couldn't place where she had met him before. "Just come along." He started to walk away towards a black car whose back door was wide open
She refused to move, not trusting a stranger. She suspected that he might be part of those who were trying to kill her and he might only be trying to lure her to her death. "I'm not going anywhere with you until you tell me who you are!" She said defiantly, poised to flee and the man stopped, turning partly to look at her.
"Andrea?" A familiar voice called and she turned towards the direction of the voice to see her father's assistant watching her from the car.
"Humphrey!" She called in surprise and warily glanced at the stranger again. "How did you find me?"
"This is not the right time to talk, just get into the car already." He said.
Andrea hesitated then glanced up at the man as she walked past him and got into the car. The man followed next, closed the door and got into the seat next to the driver. Andrea sat quietly as the car drove off and finally reached her father's mansion.
As they all stepped out of the car and the driver drove off to park in the garage, Humphrey said to her. "Go wash the blood of your body and change your clothes before your mother sees you and freaks out...after that, return to the living room, there's someone your father wants you to meet."
Andrea swallowed hard, glanced at the stranger again then walked away, taking the other entrance into the house where she was unlikely to run into her mother. Her body reeked of blood and she didn't just wash it off, she got into the shower and took her bath, put on a change of clothes and reluctantly went to the living room like she had been instructed to.
She saw her mother sitting in an arm chair and her father discussing with another man in the den. Andrea noticed that the stranger who had rescued her was sitting close by in a different chair browsing with an indifferent expression through a magazine he had selected from the stack on the coffee table and when her father heard her footsteps, he rose to meet her, so did her mother who quickly embraced her in a hug and the man her father had been discussing with rose too but did not move an inch from his spot.
"Thank God you are safe." Her mother said tearfully, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief and Andrea rolled her eyes.
"Father, you asked to see me." She addressed her father.
"Yes... there's someone I want you to meet..." He placed a hand on her back and guided her towards the man he had been discussing with, then said. "Mr. Salvatore, my daughter, Andrea. Andrea, this is Dante Salvatore."
Andrea's eyes widened when she recognized him. He was the man whose wristwatch she had stolen which she had kept as a souvenir. She glanced back at the stranger who had rescued her and remembered now that he had been the underboss scrutinizing her when she had bumped into Mr. Salvatore.
She swallowed hard as she turned to look at Mr. Salvatore but his expression never changed as if he had never met her before. Perhaps, he didn't remember her and of truly he did not then it was actually better that way. How could she have known that the man was an acquaintance of her father?