“It’s not affection, but respect. Most of the other guys in the game have no respect for anybody. They solve violence with violence. Will shoot a kid in the head if he’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. Don’t have class or manners. I’m crazy and I have no boundaries when it comes to the business, but there are lines I won’t cross. They have no such lines.”
“Your mother was in your life for such a short amount of time,” she said quietly as she looked at me. “But you can see the impression she made on you.”
The second she was mentioned, I felt a pause in my appetite. I felt a rush of guilt and sadness and loss, and then it was gone. Bottled back inside and locked behind the steel door to the vault hidden so well inside me I didn’t even know where it was. “I’ll figure out who it is. I always do.”
I was dead asleep one instant, and like a snap of a finger, I was awake.
My eyes remained closed and my body still, but something had caught my awareness, and I couldn’t distinguish what it was. Francesca was asleep partially on top of me, her face on my shoulder with her leg tucked between mine. We shifted around the bed while we slept, but we always ended up tangled together in one way or another.
Then I heard it, the sound of a moving vehicle outside.
My eyes flashed open, and I got out of bed quickly, not caring about the harsh way I’d moved her out of the way. I tapped the screen of my phone and saw it was shortly after three in the morning.
That was not a good sign.
I moved around the bed to the window as I heard Francesca stir at my abrupt departure. I pulled back the curtain and looked at the dirt road…and I saw a line of blacked-out SUVs approaching the house.
Our house.
“Francesca, get up.” I left the window and grabbed the clothes I’d left on the floor. I tugged everything on quickly and then stepped into my boots.
She sat up in bed. “What?—”
“Get dressed. Now!”
I’d never yelled at her before, so she tumbled out of bed in her rush to get up.
I didn’t help her. I headed down the stairs and took them two at a time to reach the bottom. I knew where Francesca kept her guns, so I opened the door to the cabinet in her living room that was filled with rifles and handguns and ammunition. I grabbed a rifle and hooked it over my shoulder, put a handgun in the back of my jeans, stuffing magazines and rounds in my pockets.
Francesca raced down the stairs then stopped when she saw me in front of the guns. Her eyes went to the windows, the drapes closed but the sounds of vehicles becoming audible outside. “Shit.”
“Baby, come over here.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
I knew she was in shock, so I grabbed the vest, moved to her, and started to strap it onto her. “Listen to me.” I secured it in place before I shoved the key to my Range Rover into her pocket. “You go out the back where my car is parked. Get in and take off. I’ll hold their attention until you can get away.”
“What?”
“It’s bulletproof?—”
“I’m not leaving you.” She looked at me with wide eyes, like I just told her the craziest thing she’d ever heard.
“Francesca—”
“I’m not leaving you.”
I didn’t have time to appreciate her loyalty. I had to move. I hooked the strap of the rifle over her shoulder, along with ashotgun. “Come here.” I directed her into the kitchen behind the counter. It was the only place in the house where no one could sneak up on her from the rear. “Cover me from here.”
“Cover you?”
I went back to the cabinet, grabbed all the guns and ammunition I could carry, and then came back to the counter.
Gunfire rang out as they shot out the windows.
“Cristo…” She was pale as snow now, already drenched in sweat.
“Your family will come when they hear the gunshots,” I said. “I need you to cover me until they get here.”
