AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What the fuck,” the man states, and sure enough, Lom fires his gun. The bullet goes straight through one of his kneecaps, and the man falls to the ground. He screams out in pain, and Lom begins moving closer to the house. When we get within a few feet of the man, he tries to go for his gun, but Lom’s faster than he is. Lom aims at his head, and the gun goes off again. The man’s lifeless body lies prone on the ground, and we proceed to head inside the home.
Lom’s driver is with us, but Lom’s taking the lead, which is interesting to me. I wonder why his driver isn’t going first. Maybe it’s because this is Lom’s operation.
We’re inside the house, and Lom looks right at me. “Where do you think the girls could be?”
“At this point, anywhere.” It’s not like their day is going to be going along as planned. The nannies would’ve tried to get the girls to a safe room by now, but Lom had people here sneaking up on the home, so I doubt they actually were able to get to safety.
“All right, we’ll head down this way. The rest of the team knows to be looking out for them. If someone finds the girls, they’ll call in, and we’ll extract them as quickly as possible.”
“Okay,” I reply, and Lom’s driver nods, scanning his eyes around the space.
We head down the hallway, and every single doorway is closed. I push on the doors, and some don’t budge at all, while others are easier to get open. We get to the last doorway, and my heart is beating so hard I can hear it in the back of my head.
Lom kicks in the door, and sure enough, the girls are huddled down below a coffee table while their nanny sits on the couch with a gun pointed at us. When she sees me, her eyes immediately go wide. “Mona, is… is this your doing?”
“I’ve come to take my children home. They don’t belong here with Duarte, Inez.” I call the nanny by her first name. Of all of Duarte’s employees, she treated me with the most respect. Everyone else thought I was an item, that I didn’t deserve any sort of respect… but not Inez.
“Girls, go with your mother, quickly,” Inez tells my little ones, who come crawling out from under the table. I bend down and throw my arms open as my baby girls come running over to me. Once their bodies collide with mine, I hold them tightly, practically taking every bit of air out of their lungs. “Take them and get out of here. Duarte is away, but he’ll catch wind of this quickly and be back before you know it.”
“I know. Thank you so much, Inez,” I comment, needing her to understand how much I appreciate what she’s doing for me right now.
“No need to thank me, Mona. I saw what he did to you. We all did… and I’m so sorry for not standing up for you before.” Inez swallows hard and shuts her eyes, then looks right back at me. “You know there’s nowhere I can run. Duarte is going to have me killed for what I’ve done. He has cameras in every room, and they have audio… I need you to leave the room, Mona. Take those girls out.” Inez opens her eyes once more and looks down at the gun in her hand.
I know what she’s trying to do. She believes it’s the best choice, but it isn’t. There are other choices here. “Inez, no. Come with us. You’ll have protection. I promise.”
She shakes her head over and over again. “Mona, I can’t. It’s my time to go, and I need to do it before Duarte sends someone to finish the job.”
Lom goes right up to Inez and swipes the gun off her lap. She looks at him with wide eyes. “Give that back, young man!”
“Sorry, can’t do that. Come on. You’re important to Mona, and I’m damn sure I’m under orders to bring anyone close to her back with us,” Lom states, staring right at Inez. In the background, gunshots are going off every few seconds, and the girls begin crying in my arms.
“Inez, come on! We don’t have time for this,” I urge her, and finally, she gives in.
Inez rises from the couch and rushes over to me, grabbing Vanina while I scoop Ira up into my arms.
We exit the room and head down the hallway, but two men are at the end of the hallway with their guns pointed right at us.
“Ah-ah, what do you think you’re doing?” one of them asks.
Lom and his driver don’t waste any time. They fire their guns, and then we’re met with gunfire. I rush with Inez into the room we just came out of to shield us from the shots, and once the gunfire comes to a halt, I peek my head around the corner.
Crimson red is soaking into the white dress shirt Lom’s wearing. He looks down at it briefly and then looks at me. “It’s just a flesh wound. Come on, we have what we’ve come for.” Lom starts walking down the hallway, and I motion for Inez to follow me. We all make it out of the home and get the girls into the car, then we all jump in.
Lom gets in the passenger seat and looks really pale, so much worse than he looked a couple of minutes ago. I make sure the girls are buckled in properly and that Inez is settled. Lom’s driver starts to drive, leaving Duarte’s compound.
Meanwhile, I’m grilling Lom. “What’s going on with you? You don’t look too good right now, Lom,” I comment, trying to get something out of him. If he needs help, I need him to ask for it. I’m not a doctor, so I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing right now.
“We need to get out of here, then we can worry about this slight mishap.”
“Slight mishap? You were shot in the fucking chest!” I grunt. Taking off my cardigan, I ball it up and press it against his wound. I don’t know a lot about emergencies like this, but I did watch my fair share of medical dramas back in the day. This is common sense, so hopefully, it’ll be enough to help him right now.
“This is nothing. I’ve been through so much worse.”
“I’m glad you think so. I can’t let you die. Not after you just helped me get my girls back,” I tell Lom, and he looks right at me as I’m hovering in the space between the driver’s and passenger’s seats.
“Relax. It’s going to take more than a tiny ass bullet to take me out of this world.” Lom laughs, but the second he does, he grimaces. I guess it must hurt him to laugh, but his humor tells me he’s okay. At least for the moment, that is.
“Once we get out of the city, I can make some calls. We’ll get you all fixed up, Boss,” the man next to him states, and a slight bit of relief washes over me. Okay, so this guy has a plan. That’s the best thing I could ask for right now.
