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“Fuck you,” the man says. “It doesn’t matter who I am. All you need to know is that you’re going to die tonight.”
My mind is racing as I aim the gun at the man. Jovan lunges forward and catches the man around the waist, slamming him into the ground. He scrambles to get on top of the masked man, throwing punch after punch.
The man throws Jovan off and is on top of him in an instant. My heart skips a beat but this is my chance. I try to will the shaking out of my hands. I can’t risk missing and hitting Jovan.
You need to take the shot.
I don’t want to kill him.
It’s then that the man pulls out a long knife. He advances on Jovan as Jovan grabs the lamp from the nightstand and smashes him over the head with it. As soon as the man is disoriented, Jovan drops his shoulder and tackles the man into the floor. His face twists up in pain as he tries to stay on top of the man.
The man flips them over, his mask falling off in the process. Carlos grins down at Jovan, raising the knife high above his head.
I have to do it. Now.
As my finger squeezes the trigger, I don’t think about the fact that I’m going to kill a man. Instead, I think about the life of the person I’m saving. The man I love. The father of my child.
Carlos shouts, the knife clattering to the floor as the bullet connects with his shoulder.
I know what kind of man Carlos is. A bullet to the shoulder isn’t going to stop him for long. He wraps a hand around Jovan’s neck and squeezes as I take aim again.
The bullet hits Carlos in the side of the head. Jovan pushes Carlos off as blood cascades down the side of his face. I stare at the body slumped on the floor and the crimson blood staining the hardwood.
My chest starts to constrict as I look between the gun and Carlos. While I might not have been a fan of the man, I didn’t want to be the one to kill him. In a perfect world, this would have been someone else’s problem. I wouldn’t have shot a man dead.
This is what I get for getting wrapped up in the cartel.
Felix Domingos wants Jovan dead. He has no reason to bother with me. I shouldn’t be here. I need to protect my baby.
Although, I know that isn’t true. Felix has some sort of interest in me, though I’m not sure what. He wants me dead because I’m connected to Jovan. But maybe it has something to do with my parents too.
Stop thinking about it. You’re not doing yourself any favors by getting more entrenched in the cartel.
I take a deep breath as Jovan stands in front of me. He gently takes the gun from my hands and disassembles it. After he sets the gun down on the bed, he looks at me, his gaze flickering around my face like he’s searching for something.
“Hadley, are you alright? Did you get hurt at all?”
“There is a dead man in our bedroom.” I look at Carlos’s body and shake my head. My vision starts to blur as I continue to stare at him. “There is a dead body in our room and I’m the one who killed him. I killed a man. How could I do that, Jovan?”
“Listen, you did what you had to.” Jovan tries to take my hands in his but I pull them back. “Carlos was going to kill me. He might have killed you and the baby after. You did what you had to. You kept us safe.”
“No.” I take a step back and stare at what I’ve done. “No. I killed a man. Our child was put in even more danger. Carlos was able to get in our house. He was able to stand over our bed and wake us up. Where the hell is everyone else?”
“That’s what I’m going to find out,” Jovan says as he puts the gun on the bed back together and tucks it in his waistband. “I want you to stay here until I get back.”
“No.” I head for the closet and take a suitcase down from the top shelf. “I need to leave, Jovan. Our baby almost died tonight. I’m not going to sit around and wait for that to happen again. Not when I can do something to stop it.”
“Hadley,” he says, his voice low. “I have to go clear the rest of the house. I’ll be back in a minute and then we’re going to talk about this.”
I don’t say anything. As much as I want to be with him, my mind is made up on the matter. I’m not going to continue to put our baby in the path of danger when I can do something to protect them.
I have to make sure the baby is safe and that is the only thing that matters. If that means that I have to give up the man I love, then that is what I’m going to do.
It’s going to gut me every single day, but I care about our baby and keeping them protected more than I care about my love life.
We might find our way back to each other eventually, but right now, this is what needs to happen.
“Alright, the house is clear. I have men unconscious outside but none of them are dead. Alessio is on his way with more men and then we are going to get this mess cleaned up,” Jovan says as he walks back into the room.
