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“Why?” Her teeth chattered. “You can’t still want to...to marry me?”
“Marry?” His lip had twisted scornfully as he came closer, until she could smell the sickening stench of old sweat half masked with musky cologne. “I’m way past that now. Your husband made this personal. He ruined my life. Now I will do the same to him.”
Snowflakes fell softly against her skin. But that wasn’t what froze her to the bone. “How?”
“He loves you.”
“You heard us argue—”
“Yeah, I heard it all. It’s perfect.” His smile became venomous. “Now when you disappear, he’ll blame himself for the rest of his life and think he drove you away. He’ll always wonder. He’ll never know.”
“You can’t!”
“Watch me.” With his gun still trained on her, he snatched her crystal-encrusted clutch bag from her hand. “My car is around the corner...”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.” She straightened. “Shoot me here.”
“You’ll go. Or my next stop will be at your house. Your baby is there, with no one but the housekeeper to protect him. Shame if they had a little accident. If the doors were blocked and the place went up in flames.”
“No!” she cried, whimpering at the thought. “I’ll go with you. Just leave them alone...”
“That’s more like it.” Blaise motioned with the revolver. “Over there, in the alley...”
But as she started to move, the front door of the palazzo banged open. Quick as a flash, Blaise grabbed her, placing her in front of him, holding the gun to her forehead.
Scarlett nearly cried when she saw Vin had come out of the palazzo. His black eyes went wide when he saw them. Then his hands clenched into fists.
“Let her go, Falkner.” Vin’s dark gaze focused on Blaise. “We both know I’m the one you want to hurt.”
“Not just hurt. I want to destroy you. And hurting her—” he gripped into her shoulder painfully, causing Scarlett to gasp aloud “—is the best way to do that.”
Vin took a step toward them. “We can talk about this. Negotiate...”
“There’s nothing to negotiate, and if you take one more step, she’s dead.”
Vin stopped. His voice was low. “You’ll die the second after she does.”
Blaise gave a cackle. “You think I care? You took everything from me, Borgia. My whole life. I can never go back. And now neither can you...”
Blaise pressed the cold barrel of the revolver sharply into her skin.
Vin threw Scarlett a brief glance full of meaning. “You’d attack her from behind?”
And she remembered that rainy afternoon in October. Here’s how to use your own body weight against an attacker who grabs you from behind... She gave him a single trembling nod, and then everything happened at once.
The door of the palazzo banged open as Beppe and two other bodyguards rushed out. As Blaise whirled to look, Vin planted his feet, lowering his body into an instinctive crouch.
With an exaggerated sigh, Scarlett sagged as if she’d fainted. It wasn’t hard at all. She was so terrified she was perilously close to fainting anyway.
Her unexpected weight broke his hold, and she fell hard to the cold, wet sidewalk.
With a loud curse, Blaise pointed the gun at her. He cocked it. She saw the deadly intention in his face.
As snowflakes whirled around her, Scarlett’s life flashed before her eyes. Her mother. Her father. Her baby. All the love she’d had. And Vin. Always Vin...
As she closed her eyes, bracing herself for death, she saw a shadow fly across her field of vision. But there was no mercy. The gun went off with a jarring bang, and she flinched, gasping.
But she felt nothing.
Was this what it felt like to be dead? Scarlett’s eyes opened, then she quickly ran her hands over her body. Somehow, though he’d shot her from four feet away, he’d missed her!
But Vin and Blaise were still struggling for the gun. The revolver fired once more, echoing loudly in the night.
“Die, you Italian bastard!” Blaise panted.
Vin! Scarlett scrambled to her feet, desperate to save him, terrified he’d been shot. But even as the bodyguards descended from all sides, Vin flung Blaise over his back like a sack of potatoes. For half a second, Blaise was suspended in midair with a shocked, stupid look on his face. Then he crashed hard to the concrete, where he lay still.
