AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I tried to deny it as we crept up on yet another unsuspecting pair of Berlusconi men. I tried to rationalize it as I grabbed the dark-haired thug by the back of his head and jerked my knife across his throat.
But I knew.
Deep down, I’d known that they’d come for everything that was important to me one day. I could have protected them. All I’d had to do was keep my distance. No ties. No bonds. Nothing for them to take. But I’d failed.
I held on tight as the thug flailed while blood gurgled out of his mouth and his neck. The struggle was futile. After a moment, I laid him down quietly on the ground beneath one of the warehouse’s broken windows.
I could see shadows creeping around cars and moving silently toward the building. Two hulking shadows came from my left, followed close behind by what could only have been the much smaller shadow of Greta. On my right and a little further back, I could see the familiar dark shape of Salvatore moving in tandem with Dante Luca.
Every step seemed to drag on forever, every second that ticked by was like an eon. The knot in my stomach grew and twisted up tighter. We were right here.
Raven and Gabe were just on the other side of the wall, but all I could do was wait. Wait for them to catch up, wait to infiltrate the building in tandem—all of us, all at once. There would be no second chance to get this right.
But it’s taking toofuckinglong.
“Cardio ain’t got nothing on this,” Leo joked in a whisper that was barely louder than the light breeze.
Despite myself, I smiled. It was true. Movies might have made slitting throats look like easy work, but it was tiring. Even with a man’s throat slit, he could put up one hell of a fight, even if not a long one. All three of us were dripping sweat. It mingled with blood spatter as it dripped down the sides of our faces.
Vito, Greta, and Marco disappeared around the left side of the building at the same time Salvatore and Dante vanished around the right. My insides sighed—it was time to move, time to act—but the knot in my stomach stayed twisted up tight.
There’d been one gunshot.
One execution.
One of the most important people in the world to me was gone.
All at once, the night lit up in blinding brightness. The shock wave hit me, knocking me back like a blow to the chest as shards of rubble flew in every direction.
All three of us fell.
And it looked like one of us wouldn’t be getting back up.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Raven
The explosion lit up the interior of the warehouse, so bright I had to squeeze my eyes shut. The ground shook, making Tommaso’s lifeless body quake on the floor as a deafening roar made me clamp my hands over my ears. But the sound of screaming men was so loud, it permeated my hands and the ringing in my ears. The light, the sounds, the putrid, charred smells—they overloaded my senses.
I couldn’t think.
I couldn’t move.
I felt like I was in the middle of a World War II movie.
“It seems our guests found my surprise,” Diego said. He didn’t look shell-shocked. He didn’t look the least bit perturbed by the explosion that had ripped the far side of the building wide open and blown his men to pieces.
And then his words found their way into my brain, and my knees threatened to buckle.
Thiswas the trap Gabe had been talking about.
The explosion, the flames, the heat.
There was no way Nico could have survived.
“No!” I screamed like I could scream the explosion out of existence, banish it, undo it.
The fire continued to crackle. Flames danced in some sick undulating ritual, growing taller with each passing second.
