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Right. This is it.
I kissed Cait quickly and exited the pew, making my way up the steps to the lectern by my father’s coffin. I cleared my throat and began my speech, but before I’d got more than two words out, the fire alarm started blaring.
Panicked gazes raced around the room as everyone tried to figure out where, or if there was danger. Within moments, they’d all decided that dashing to the exit was the best option.
Everyone except Salvatore and Ivan.
The looked over at each other as the crowd stampeded towards the exit, and from my position at the head of the church, I watched as Logan and Lex took advantage of the confusion and snuck up on the guards, taking them out with knives at their throats in a quick, coordinated attack.
Salvatore smiled ruefully, stepping out of his place on the pew and turned to the exit.
“Come on, Salvatore. You won’t get another chance at me again!” I yelled, venom coating my tone.
“Aidan, what are you doing?” Cait cried, and from the corner of my eye I could see Ella and Bree tugging on her arms, trying to get her to leave with the rest of the crowd. But she wouldn’t budge.
“Get her out of here, Bree,” I snapped. I deliberately didn’t fill her in on the plan because she was supposed to have left when the alarms went off… but of course, I’d underestimated her again.
She wasn’t going anywhere.
Shit.
I couldn’t have her here during this, but what was I meant to do now?
Salvatore spun back to me, but I could see the hesitation in his eyes, until they fell on his daughter and his son.
“Apparently, family loyalty means nothing these days.”
“Loyalty is earned, Salvatore. And you never did anything to earn ours,” Enzo said, raising his gun to train it on his father.
“Oh, and they did?” Salvatore gestured between me and Bree, and then glared at the casket next to me. “An Irish whore, a fallen king, and the pretender to the throne…”
Enzo said nothing, and my attention shifted to Ivan because Valentina had just snuck up on him.
He flinched when he saw her, but it was too late for him to do anything about it as she hit him on the back of the head with the butt of her gun and floored him.
“Sister,” he muttered, surprised as he rolled over. “I thought you were dead.”
“Yeah, well you don’t have a very good track record of finishing me off,” she replied, standing over him. Then I winced as she raised her heel and pressed it in his groin.
He screamed out in pain, and I had to admit, right then, I felt a little sorry for him. It soon wore off though.
“Well little sister, I could say the same for you,” he groaned. He attempted to curl into himself, but she wasn’t having that.
She shook her head and smiled. “Not today, brother.” And with that, she put a bullet between his eyes.
The shot rang out, making Salvatore duck.
Valentina let out a big breath, her shoulders sagging.
“I thought you’d drag that out,” Lex said, moving to her side and wrapping his arms around her.
“I wasn’t taking any chances, not after last time.”
Salvatore studied them for a second, and then looked around at all the enemies faces surrounding him. He’d had no clue we were all working together. There was no way out of this for him. He knew that. Which was why in the time it took for me to blink, he reached for his holster, aimed his gun and me and fired.
“Cait!” I heard someone scream as several other guns went off.
I expected to feel the shot. I expected to feel the scalding heat as the bullet ripped through me, but the impact never came. At least not the one I was expecting.
