Luciano never made it to the room that night. When it was five minutes past the time I had told him, I gave up on trying to get to him.
I believed that he knew that agreeing to my terms would leave him with no other option but to terminate the contract, and he didn't want me to have it that easily.
Just when I was about to go to bed, my phone rang. It was an unknown number, an international one.
With skepticism, I picked up the phone and placed it against my ear.
"Hello?" I finally said, breaking the silence first as the person on the other end didn't want to.
"Jasmine," the man called, but his voice was not familiar in the slightest bit, making my skin crawl with uneasiness and caution.
"Who is this?" I questioned with a frown, ready to hang up the phone if I got an even worse feeling than I already did in that moment.
"You may have heard of Luciano D'Angelo, and maybe even Matteo D'Angelo, but have you heard anything of Carusso D'Angelo?" It felt as though someone had found the 'off' switch to my body and had flipped it with how sudden my body was to freeze.
Carusso D'Angelo was Luciano and Matteo's father.
How did he get my number? Why did he get my number?
"Now, I know you're surprised by the sudden call. You might be asking yourself what you owe the pleasure to, but I'm afraid this is not going to be the most pleasurable call for you. I know you're in Luciano's house right now. What I want you to do is slowly walk into the balcony," he ordered.
Following his instruction would be like inviting him to get rid of me, but so was standing still and doing nothing, so I settled for walking to the balcony.
According to Luciano and the country code on his phone number, he definitely wasn't calling me from the country, so I took that as something to hold.
"You're there," he said as soon as I stepped out onto the balcony.
Something was twisting my stomach into knots, telling me to turn around and leave, but there was nothing I could do so suddenly, unless I wanted to die.
"Now, look down, to your left. Towards the water fountain."
I did as he said, craning my neck and squinting my eyes until I saw what he had invited me to look at. I gasped, almost dropping my phone as I saw a man in all-black, aiming his gun directly at me.
I recognized the man as one of Luciano's guards.
"Just because I'm all the way in Sicily doesn't mean I don't have my spies all around, Jasmine. That man right there will not hesitate to pull the trigger," he said.
"No, please!" I pleaded. "You can't tell him to do it, I'm begging you. I have—"
"Oh, I'm not going to tell him to shoot you yet. I just want to ask a favor from you. If you don't do that, then I'll be forced to get rid of you."
"What do you want? I'll do it if I can," I said, hoping that he would tell me to do something that I could do in the blink of an eye.
"You will walk up to that son of mine and tell him that I order him to terminate the contract. Make sure to remind me that I have eyes on him everywhere. Also, tell him to call me right now. You have ten minutes to convince him to talk to me on the phone, or he will have to carry your body in his arms."
He hung up the phone, and my eyes went over to the guard who was standing downstairs, only to see that he had now put the gun down but was still staring at me.
Completely controlled by panic, I ran out of the bedroom and headed for Luciano's, banging on the door and shouting out his name because my life depended on it.
"What is it, Jasmine?!" Luciano barked at me as he opened the door, and I pushed my way into his bedroom.
"You need to terminate the contract. Call your father. He sent orders. He's going to kill me. He has spies around," I rambled, only making Luciano walk towards me and place his hands on my shoulders in his attempt to calm me down.
"Tell me what's wrong, but try to be slower and calmer this time," he instructed.
"I got a call from your father," I blurted, and the frown on his face told me everything I needed to know – it was not a good sign.
"What do you mean you got a call from my father?" he asked.
"He told me to tell you that you should terminate the contract, and it's a direct order. He has his men here, Luciano, and they're going to kill me if you don't call him in less than ten minutes, so please!" I pulled my phone up to show him his father's phone number.
"Call him," I whispered with tears flooding my eyes.
He took the phone from my hand and dialed the number, never taking his eyes off of me even when his father picked up the phone.
"Father," he said.
I couldn't hear what Carusso was saying on the other end, but whatever it was didn't sit right with Luciano.
"I am only going to terminate the contract on my own terms. I won't do it just because you commanded me to. If that'll be all, I'll be hanging ho to sort things out in my house and restore things to order."
He hung up the phone, but before I could talk his ear off about refusing to follow his father's command, he walked towards his drawer and pulled out a gun, loading it and walking out of the room.
"What are you doing?" I asked, running after him. "Where are you going and what are you going to do with the gun?"
"Benjamin!" he called, ignoring my questions.
Benjamin opened the door to his bedroom, and Luciano barked an order; "Get your gun. We need people to get rid of."
Benjamin didn't even ask questions. He simply went back into his room and returned some seconds later with a gun of his own and followed Luciano down the stairs with me running behind them both, asking questions that didn't have answers.
Luciano walked out of the house and shot down the first guard he saw, signaling Benjamin to do the same, which Benjamin didn't hesitate to do.
"Oh, God!'" I exclaimed, covering my ears with my hands and turning away from them until I didn't hear the sound of gunfire anymore, causing me to turn around and find bodies scattered all over the floor.
They had both killed all of the guards without a single warning.
"I don't think all of them were…" I paused, wondering what my words would do when they were all dead. I didn't believe that they were all spies for Carusso, but Luciano didn't seem to care.
"We would not have figured out which one of them was a spy and which one wasn't anyway," Luciano said, and that put even more fear in me. Anybody could be working for Carusso, and if he was that dangerous, I didn't want to be a part of it.
"Benjamin, make a call to Matteo," Luciano ordered. "Tell him that our father's spies are all dead. Inform him that our father will take no time in coming for war."
He took my hand, leading me back to the house as he said one last thing to Benjamin that almost had me doubling over at the way my stomach violently lurched:
"Tell him to take whoever and whatever he intends to keep safe by tomorrow and take them as far away as possible."