“I—I don’t know—” She gripped the rifle in her shaking hands.
“Francesca, look at me.” I grabbed her by the neck and directed her stare to me. “It’s going to be fine.”
Her eyes quickly shifted back and forth between mine. “How—how can you be so calm about this?”
“Because I’ve done it a million times,” I said. “And you’re a tough fucking bitch, remember?”
She continued to breathe hard as her forehead gleamed with sweat, her hands still trembling.
“Tough. Fucking. Bitch. Come on, say it.”
“To-to-tough fucking…bitch.”
“Attagirl. Now let’s clear out these assholes.”
She nodded. “Okay…okay.”
I readied my gun then walked out from behind the counter, moving closer to the front of the house and taking my position behind a wall. A hand reached through the broken window and unlocked the front door so they wouldn’t have to crawl through the window frame. The door flew open, and the first guy walked inside, carrying his rifle with it pointed toward the floor.
They probably expected Francesca to be here alone and defenseless, so I would be a big fucking surprise.
I waited for him to come close so I could stab him with my knife, but Francesca popped up from the counter, fired her shotgun, and hit him square in the chest. He wore a vest, so he jerked back, but she had another round so she shot him in the face next.
I couldn’t help but smile.
Once one of them was dead, more rushed in.
I stayed out of Francesca’s line of fire and came at them from the side, firing my AK-47 and spraying down the first wave. The windows in the living room were suddenly blasted with gunfire, and I quickly dodged out of the way before I could get hit.
I didn’t see how many cars were outside, so I didn’t know how many we were up against. But there had to have been at least five SUVs, so somewhere between twenty and thirty guys. Seemed like overkill just to take one woman. Probably needed the backup for when Don Mancini came running.
My goal was to kill them all before her family could get here.
I took the opportunity to reload before I leaned against the wall and waited for the next wave.
Then someone tossed a grenade through the open window. Either to kill us or draw us into the line of fire. There was astanding lamp right next to me with ornate arms sticking out of it, so I grabbed that and used it to hit the grenade back out the window. I swung the lamp like a golf club and hit the grenade right away, making it fly back the way it’d come.
It immediately exploded, so I’d struck it just in time.
“Cristo!” Frankie yelled.
Windows broke on the other side of the house. I listened to them shatter.
We were about to be surrounded on all sides. This was the kind of shit that I lived for, the dump of adrenaline that made me feel alive, the high I chased every single day in the hope of getting a single hit.
But I didn’t feel it.
All I felt was terror.
Terror that my girl wouldn’t make it out of here alive. I never cared about my own life—I was going to die at some point—but now even my own life had different value. I had to live long enough to know she would make it out of this.
Within the next second, more guys rushed into the house from the front.
Francesca had already reloaded her shotgun and took out one then another. But it was chaos, guys coming from the front and the rear, bullets everywhere. I fired my rifle, but this time, they were expecting it. In close quarters, the guns were actually more detrimental than helpful, so I used my gun to bash in a face before I punched another so hard he dropped. I pulled out my knife and stabbed another in the throat while Francesca continued to pick off whoever with her shotgun.
I felt a bullet hit me in the back of the shoulder, and I screamed before I turned around and stabbed my knife clean through the spine of the asshole behind me. Lifted him from the floor then used his body and his vest to protect myself from the spray of bullets that came at me like a tropical storm.
“Fuck off!”
