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I tried to release Sofia, but for some reason, couldn’t quite pry my arms away from her. Strong hands reached down to me, pulling me up and into Rian’s warm chest. He wrapped his hands around my gun and lowered it before peeling my fingers from the grip, taking it away from me.
“Easy, princess,” he murmured as I shook in his arms, taking deep, shuddering breaths as adrenaline surged out of me, leaving me bereft and exhausted. He ran his hands down my back, and I gasped in pain as he grazed my ribs.
“What’s this?” he asked, tugging my shirt out of my pants and rolling it up.
I grimaced as he revealed the oozing red streak where a bullet had scraped by me. Even though I knew the searing fury in his gaze wasn’t for me, I took a step backward. “Is Sofia okay?”
We both looked over at her, sobbing into Luca’s chest.
“She will be,” Rian answered, his voice low and angry.
“I’ve got one,” Lorenzo shouted. Together, Rian and I made our way over to him, our hands clasped together like teenage lovers.
When I pulled away, Rian tightened his grip on our interlocked fingers. “Stay with me, princess. I’m about to lose my fucking shit over you getting shot, and the only thing keeping me from murdering this guy right now, is your hand in mine.”
An unwelcome warmth suffused me at his protectiveness.
His blue eyes were dark with rage as he stared down at the bruised and bloody body on the ground. Lorenzo made quick work of duct taping the man’s hands and feet together, until he lay trussed like a Thanksgiving turkey.
“I’ll take him back to the Russos’,” Lorenzo told Rian, who nodded his assent. “He’s the only one who survived.”
“Did anyone escape?” I asked, my voice raspy as I came down from the adrenaline high.
Alexi and Papà jogged toward us. Their swift pursuit of the shooters reminded me of how my father came to be the head of the most powerful mafia family in Yorkfield. Blood was splattered over my father’s broad chest and he held a gun in his hands. Although he was breathing hard, his furious energy gave him an air of youth as he shook his head. “Two men on top of the containers got away. A van with run-flat tires was waiting for them as they ran out of the port.”
Damn.
Lorenzo and Luca wrestled the struggling body into the trunk of a car, then piled in. Rian dragged me into the backseat of the same SUV, buckling me into the middle seat so he could sling an arm over my shoulders without disturbing the wound in my side. Unwilling to examine why his protectiveness was so comforting, I leaned into him, inhaling sharply at the burning pain as Lorenzo sped to my parents’ house.
12
LIAM
Ginevra winced as she climbed out of the SUV before calming her face into neutrality. She was still bleeding. Rage washed over me.
Nobody was allowed to break my toys but me.
Rian walked around from the other side of the car, keeping an eye on her as she walked into her family’s home. She refused his help with a curt gesture. Guilt flashed over Rian’s face before he slammed down an impassive mask, hiding his thoughts.
Cormac’s motorcycle kicked up dust as he slid into the driveway. His eyes flared with fury when he took off his helmet and observed Ginevra’s slow walk. Sofia shuddered in her father’s arms as he walked her into the house. Poor kid.
Rian had texted us from the car. Intellectually, we knew Ginevra was going to be fine. The bullet only grazed her, and she just needed antiseptic, gauze, and time. But all three of us were losing our minds over this woman. It didn’t bode well for the future—once she realized her power, she’d wrap us around her sexy little fingers.
In the meantime, the instinct to make sure she was okay rode me hard. After he fucked up by letting her out of his sight at the port, I struggled to trust that Rian had it in hand.
Lorenzo and Alexi, two assholes who’d also failed to keep my woman safe, stood behind the vehicle, staring down at the body they’d shoved in there. I joined them.
“Oy there, boys,” I drawled, letting my Irish accent shine through. “I hear you had a bit of trouble this morning.” They didn’t need to know how furious I was about Ginevra.
Lorenzo’s eyes were stormy when he looked at me. “More than a bit. You saw Ginevra.” He ran his hands through his short, curly hair. “I just don’t fucking—” he cut himself off, glancing at Alexi through the side of his eye. “Let’s see what this asshole knows.”
I reached into the vehicle, but before I could drag the man out by his bound wrists, Lorenzo lay a hand on my arm. I told him to go fuck himself, but he only shook his head.
“Back entrance. We don’t drag bodies through the front door because it upsets Patti,” Alexi explained, slamming the back door of the SUV shut.
Lorenzo dropped into the front seat and pulled around to the back of the house. This time, I hauled the man out and dropped him on the ground. He was a small white guy, no more than five-eight, and wiry, his head shaved and tattooed. Russian gang symbols covered his visible skin. When I crouched to get a better look at his tats, he spit on me.
Lorenzo crouched down and lifted the Bratva over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He slid a keycard into the lock on a door partially hidden by bushes. I followed him into the cool basement of the Russo mansion and sighed with envy at the tiled floors and walls, so much easier to wash blood out of than the concrete we had at Rian’s.
