472 Ba
ch 66

Andrea was sleepy, sleepy and cold, and she only knew that it was still nighttime because of the little bit of black sky she could see through her window. But the first light had barely appeared when the door to her cell opened. “Let’s go outside. Time to go,” the guard said, and Andrea rubbed her eyes without understanding. Zack had told her that he would be there for a week for her protection. Why did they want to take her out now? “Let’s go! What are you waiting for!?” the woman growled from the door, and despite her fear, Andrea didn’t make her repeat it because she didn’t want to be beaten again. They pushed her stumbling into a room and gave her the clothes she had been wearing the day she had been arrested. “Get changed if you want to get out of here. You have five minutes.” With her heart in her throat, Andrea changed immediately, and shortly after, the same guard was pushing her through the corridors surrounded by electrified mesh toward the prison exit. She felt like she was going to faint when that door opened and on the other side was Zack, leaning against the truck, moving his foot as if he were going to fall from sheer nerves. Andrea didn’t hesitate for a second, she ran towards him and hugged him crying. Zack held her in his arms as he felt her sobbing against his chest. “Everything is okay, my love, we are together, we are together…” he whispered in her ear and then kissed her desperately on the lips. They were cold and cracked, but he didn’t care, he was already with her to give her all the warmth she needed. “We have to go immediately,” he heard Loan’s voice behind him and Zack took Andrea in his arms and put her in the truck. They took off at full speed as the lights of day turned on behind them. Andrea’s heart was beating fast when she looked in the rearview mirror, but there was no one behind them. Zack breathed a sigh of relief and smiled at her: “No one is going to chase us, love.” You’re free now, really,” he reassured her. “Where are we going?” she asked, still scared. Thank you for reading on LeeNovelas.com. “To the airport,” Milo answered from the pilot’s seat. “I want to leave this country already!” Andrea was feeling a very strange mix of emotions. She was happy to have survived prison, but she was terrified, as if she still couldn’t believe it was true. She was holding Zack’s hand as the car sped towards the airport. The private hangar almost greeted them with the plane in motion and the Keller boys got in to give the order to take off. Zack asked Andrea to get in and then approached a car that was parked a little further away. Ben got out of it and gave her a tight hug. “When will we see each other again?” his best friend asked her. Remember. Read this novel only on LeeNovelas.com, not on other sites. —As soon as you come to see me, but if it depends on me coming back… I don’t think it will be soon, Ben, Zack replied. —Don’t worry, you’re a millionaire, you can pay for a few tickets a month, his friend laughed, and Zack nodded.—I leave the company in your hands, he said. I’ll take Canada alone better, but the company is completely under your power. In the end, that was always the plan, wasn’t it? Ben nodded confidently. They had always planned for him to stay and run the Canadian branch, so Ben was prepared for that. They said goodbye with the affection they had always had for each other and Zack climbed the steps. When he entered the plane, his brothers had sat together and he sat next to Andrea. After a few moments of silence, he sighed and gave the order. —We’re ready. We’re leaving, —he said. The plane began to move down the runway. Andrea, with her eyes closed, grabbed Zack’s hand and they hugged, while the plane rose into the air. As they flew, Zack tried to reassure her, stroking her arms up and down to stop her from shaking. —We’re safe. No one can do anything to you now, baby, no one. Andrea gulped because she couldn’t hide her fears from him. —And what about Mason? —she asked with a trembling voice—. I know you broke me out of jail and we’re going far away but he… he won’t stop chasing us, Zack. He’ll come looking for us wherever we are! —It won’t be like that, I promise you —Zack answered sadly, because he didn’t know how to tell her that he had paid a million dollars to have Mason killed and it was probably already done—. Mason must be being arrested right now, the CIA was after the organization he belonged to… Andrea opened her eyes in shock. —The CIA? —she stammered. —The Organized Crime division —Zack explained—. I helped them a little in exchange for them keeping Mason away from us for good. I promise you that we’re going to be okay. Andrea nodded but didn’t ask more because she really didn’t want to know, and they both fell into a silence full of relief. They hugged each other tighter, knowing that the only thing left to do was to get away, and Zack tried to get Andrea to sleep a little on the way. There were still a couple of hours to go to Zurich when Zack opened his eyes, flushed, and put his hand on Andrea’s forehead. “What’s wrong?” Milo asked, seeing his brother’s worried frown. “What’s wrong?” “Fever. He has a fever,” Zack replied, alarmed. He’s very hot and sweating. Call the flight attendants and bring them a fever pill. Milo nodded and went to the back of the plane where the crew were to ask for help. After a few minutes he returned with a pill, Zack gave it to Andrea along with a glass of water and she took the medicine without saying anything. A minute later a flight attendant brought them some wet cloths and Zack tried to get her to rest as much as possible so she could get to Zurich without problems. “Maybe she caught some virus in there,” Loan murmured. “I hope it’s just that,” Zack replied while he prayed with all his heart that there would be no more serious consequences than a cold. It was still daylight when they landed in Zurich and they immediately headed to Chiara and Noémi’s apartment.“Thank God you got here safely!” the twins exclaimed when they saw them arrive, realizing the relief they felt when they saw Andrea coming with them. Andrea ran to hug her little daughter and lifted her to her chest, crying and kissing her, unable to believe that they had almost lost each other. “How are you, my beautiful little girl? How is mommy’s little girl?” she asked, kissing her, but it was more than obvious that the baby was doing very well. “Well, we need to have dinner,” Chiara announced as the twins began to prepare dinner. They all sat together to talk about what had happened. Needless to say, Milo and Loan were impressed by the change in their sisters, which ranged from chronic disheveledness to more sincere smiles. That night, they all stayed in the apartment, divided between the guest rooms, and Zack felt calmer when Andrea’s fever did not rise again.That night Andriana slept between her parents, who held hands trying to hide the great desire they had to join their lips and bodies together as they had not been able to do for days. The next day everyone felt better and more alert, and Zack dared to call Gazca. He had no idea what he would get by asking for news about Mason Lee. “Hello, Gazca?” Zack asked, greeting him. “Hello, Zack. Did you get there okay? How can I help?” Gazca replied. Zack sighed deeply. “I need to know if anything has happened,” Zack said. “Is there any news about Mason?” The lawyer told him everything that had been on the news, about the arrest of the Montreal mafia boss and his extradition to the United States. “Listen, you shouldn’t let this affect you, but you’re going to replace out anyway, so it’s better if I tell you. Mason Lee is dead,” the lawyer told him. “Dead?” —Zack asked surprised. How…? —According to the reports I had access to, it turns out that Rizzuto drowned Mason in cement and killed him —Gazca answered in a broken voice, as if he had a hard time saying these words—. He literally turned him into a statue, but that’s not the worst; when the CIA searched his garden, there were dozens of cement statues with… corpses inside. Zack was shocked to learn of the horrible death Mason had suffered, and understood that this was a burden that would be on his shoulders forever. —Mason had been involved in criminal acts for a long time, so I’m not surprised that he ended up paying, but I honestly didn’t expect such a violent end —he murmured. —Police reports say that Rizzuto ordered his subordinates to drown him in cement to kill him slowly, cruelly and painfully —Gazca said—. So if that man owed something in this life, he paid for it with a terrible death. Zack talked to him a little more. Apparently everything else was very calm. No one had asked about them even out of curiosity. That somewhat reassured him, but he still had to replace the right way to break all this news to Andrea. He didn’t know how he would tell her that he was responsible for Mason’s death. What would he tell Adriana if she ever found out that he had paid to have her father killed?