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“Royce?”
Royce’s head snapped up at the sound of Garrett’s voice. His friend stood just a few feet behind him on the stairs, gun up as he scanned the open hallway.
“Take the right and clear the bedrooms. I’ll take the left. She’s got to still be here.”
Garrett grunted and crossed to the right, stepping over Nick’s dead body and carefully heading down the empty hallway. Royce hurried in the opposite direction and paused outside the first bedroom door. His mother shouldn’t be in this room, but the other bedroom at the back of the house. However, the door was shut, and Royce didn’t want to leave the room unchecked.
Putting his shoulder against the wall, he reached out with his left hand and pushed the door open. The light was on and he caught a glimpse of what appeared to be the corner of a queen-sized bed in the center of the room before he darted back out of the open doorway.
“Come in, Alesandro. We’ve been waiting for you,” Corbin called out, sending a cold chill down Royce’s spine.
“Front bedroom,” Royce muttered for his companions before he slowly moved into the open doorway with his gun clutched between both his hands.
Corbin stood in the center of the room, using his mother as a shield. Cathy was a small woman, barely standing over five feet, so she was a poor shield, but the gun pressed to the side of her head was enough of a deterrent to stop him from taking a shot. She flashed Royce a weak smile that crumbled from her lips the second it appeared. Her normally pale skin looked almost gray, and there were a couple of healing bruises on her face. Greasy, limp brown and gray hair hung around her slender face, threatening to block her vision.
“Mom,” Royce breathed. He was relieved to see that she was still alive. While Corbin might have shown that she was still breathing a couple of days ago, he wouldn’t have put it past the old bastard to shoot his mother the second he’d discovered that Royce was attempting to steal her back.
“Royce, baby, I’m so sorry. I—” Her voice cracked on his name. She blinked, and fat tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Not your fault. None of this is your fault.”
“Of course it’s her fucking fault!” Corbin bellowed. The hand he had clamped on her upper arm tightened before he shook her. “If she hadn’t taken you from the family, I would never have had to do this. You belong to me, Alesandro!”
“I don’t belong to you. You’ve disgraced the Karras name. My father never would have wanted this. My father would never have accepted hurting a woman. He would never have accepted turning his children into criminals if that’s not what they wanted.”
“Don’t lecture me about my brother—”
“You’re not worth a tenth of your brother! My father was a good man.”
“Your father was weak!” Corbin lurched forward, spittle flying from his lips as he spoke. He suddenly remembered their standoff and pulled Royce’s mother tight against him again. “I loved Alesandro with all my heart, but he was never strong enough to run the family business.”
“You’re probably the reason he and my brother were killed. Or maybe you just arranged for that tragic moment…”
“Fuck you!”
“Brett was just a kid, but what did it matter to you? Just a power-hungry bastard, willing to kill his own brother and nephew to get what he wanted.”
“You don’t know anything about what happened to your father, and you’re killing your mother if you don’t put your gun down.”
Royce slid farther into the room, putting the wall to his back. He’d not heard any other shots, so he had a feeling that they’d taken out all of Corbin’s thugs, but he didn’t want to risk someone coming up behind him. As he moved to his right, Corbin forced his mother to shuffle slowly toward the left, so they stayed directly in front of Royce.
“If I put the gun down, you shoot me and then my mother.”
“I can shoot your mother first if you prefer,” Corbin offered with a twisted grin. Sweat covered his forehead and upper lip. There was a small tremor to the gun he was holding, as if his arm was growing tired. The man was definitely sick, but Royce was not content to let whatever disease was ravaging his body finally end his life. Royce had no intention of leaving the house with Corbin Karras still alive. He didn’t know if Corbin had killed his brother, but the bastard was a threat to his mother and his friends. And Marc.
“Let my mother go, and I’ll stop fighting you. Come work for you.”
“No, Royce!” Cathy cried but her pleas were cut off when Corbin gave her another shake.
“Mom—”
Everything happened in a flash then. Anything Royce might have wanted to say to his mother become lodged in his throat. The glass in the lone window shattered a second before half of Corbin’s head exploded. His body went limp, falling forward onto his mother. Royce snapped out of his shock and grabbed her. He jerked her roughly against him, freeing her from Corbin’s dead weight before she could become trapped.
