AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“All right.” Vitari raised his hands. “I’m sorry.” The words burned, but it didn’t matter. They were just words. “Let him go. He’s nothing to you, it’s me you want.”
“And the priest.” Sasha’s gaze skipped to the short corridor Vitari had emerged from.
Vitari gritted his teeth. He had to keep Sasha talking. A half-empty bottle of wine sat on the coffee table between them. He might be able to make a grab for it, smash it and use the edges to cut Sasha, but it would be slow and messy. If he got this wrong, Sasha would shoot him, but not kill him, not yet. He’d make sure Vitari was down, then shoot Francis while he slept. Sasha would kill Vitari only after he’d broken his heart.
It was what Vitari would have done. Vengeance.
“He’s not here.”
Sasha’s laughed rumbled. “I followed the police, watched you. The priest is here.”
Catalina Diaz had led Sasha to their front door. They all should have known it wasn’t over. Sasha knew how to fake his own death. Catalina should have looked harder, Vitari shouldn’t have let his guard down…
“I said sorry.”
“But you are not sorry.” The big Russian got to his feet and loomed over Aldo. “I will make you sorry.”
“Wait, don’t!”
Aldo snuffled, tears streaming from his wide eyes.
“Sasha, wait, fuck, I’m sorry! All right? I’m sorry. My father—Giancarlo shouldn’t have snubbed you, you were wronged. We both know he fucked up. You should have stayed in the family, the Battaglia would have been yours. Yours and Little Toni’s—that was your plan.”
“He turned on me. Betrayed me.” Sasha’s lip curled. “He did not deserve Stefania, did not deserve the family. ”
“He feared you since that day—spent the rest of his life looking over his shoulder. You did that. You dropped Giancarlo to his knees. You were always stronger. Better than him.” Shit, Vitari would tell him he was a god if he took his aim off Aldo. “I’m his son.” Vitari inched closer, maneuvering between Sasha and Aldo, and tapped his own chest, right over where Toni had shot him. “Me. I’m the one who hurt you. You’re here for me. Kill Giancarlo’s son and win. Vengeance, right?” Sasha looked up and adjusted his aim, pinning it on Vitari once more. Vitari had him. “Justice tastes a whole lot like vengeance, doesn’t it?”
Fuck, what was he doing? Sasha wasn’t going to leave without killing them all. The kitchen and its knives were now behind Sasha, further from Vitari. But Aldo was safer behind him. No more kids were dying for Stanmore. Ever.
What he needed now was a goddamned Hail Mary, some kind of divine fucking intervention, because in the next few minutes, Sasha would pull that trigger.
“I regret Giancarlo is not here to watch you die,” the Russian said with a heavy sigh.
Vitari swallowed, hands raised, unarmed, exposed in just a shirt and underwear. He held the Russian’s gaze and peered into the man’s black soul. Giancarlo had done the right thing, he’d cut out a tumor that would have poisoned the Battaglia from the inside out. Sasha had no honor, no integrity. He was not Family and never would have been. And the Russian knew it.
“Lower your gun,” Francis said from behind the kitchen counter, behind Sasha, shotgun shouldered and aimed at the back of Sasha’s head.
Vitari had seen him sneak in and deliberately kept all Sasha’s attention on him and Aldo.
“Padre Blanco—” the Russian began.
Francis cocked the shotgun with a satisfying cha-chunk. “Lower the gun or I will paint the walls with your blood, Zhokov.”
Vitari still held the Russian’s gaze, who still had his gun pointed at Vitari’s chest, close enough he wouldn’t miss.
“You will not shoot, priest,” Sasha said.
A smile tugged at the corner of Vitari’s mouth. Everyone made the same mistake when it came to Father Francis Scott.
“How confident are you of that?” Francis asked, never more calm than in this moment. “Luca Espinosa was confident too, so was Don Antonio, Little Toni. Where are they now?”
Sasha’s eyes narrowed on Vitari. Did he want to live more than he wanted Vitari dead? That was the only choice here, because the second he pulled the trigger, Francis would blow him away.
Sasha lowered the gun.
“Drop it,” Francis ordered.
Sasha turned, gun still in his hand. He met Francis’s dead-eyed glare down the barrel of the shotgun.
