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“Stay where you are,” I growl and point my gun toward the pews, scanning for the motherfucker who shot me.
“I’m not leaving you,” Snow snaps, crawling across the altar in her ridiculously large dress. I should have insisted on the bodice being made from bulletproof material, but when I suggested that and had Snow and the dress designer stare at me like I’d lost my damn mind, I backed down.
“Snow, if you don’t get back behind that speaker right this minute, I’m going to spank you every night for the next year.”
“You can only follow through with that threat if you don’t bleed out first.” She wraps her arms around my upper body, the contact immediately settling the part of me that runs rampant when she’s outside of my grasp. But it’s no time to feel settled, not when she’s in danger, and certainly not when it seems she’s the one they’ve come for.
“There she is!” a voice to our left yells, and we both turn to see five men surrounding us.
My eyes dart to Everett, except he’s not in the top pews anymore. He’s not anywhere. I turn my attention to the other speaker I left Storm behind to see two men holding him down, his face pressed into the rough carpet of the altar.
We’re surrounded.
We’re surrounded, and there’s no escape.
I put my woman in danger. I allowed our wedding to be a trap. And because of that choice, we’re going to lose everything. And worse than that, I’m going to lose Snow. That’s a far worse punishment than death. A life without her, without my Snowflake, it’s not a life at all.
I can’t let that happen.
A burst of adrenaline shoots through my body, and I burst to life. I train my gun on one of the men and shoot him right between the eyes before moving to the guy beside him. But the others don’t slow their advance. If anything, they close in on us quicker.
“Elijah,” Snow whimpers, her body trembling.
“It’s okay, Snow. I won’t let them take you. I’ll never let anyone take you away from me.” I’m not sure which one of us I’m trying to assure of that, but neither of us appear any less tense after the words leave my mouth.
“Just give her up, Russo. Give her to us and we’ll leave,” one of the men reasons.
My entire body screams at me, but I force myself to my feet, all but forgetting that I’ve just been shot. “You’ll take her over my dead body,” I growl, stepping in front of her to shield her from them.
“That can be arranged.”
A gunshot fills the church, so loud and so close I could have sworn it was from one of the men standing before me, but they seem just as surprised by the sound as I am. Our heads whip to the side collectively, looking for the source, and when I find a lone gunman in the middle of the pews, the gun trained behind me, my stomach drops. Before I can turn around, Snow falls to the ground, red staining her white gown.
Fear and agony morph together across Snow’s face and a bloodcurdling scream claws up her throat. The sound sets something off inside me, something primal bites at the edges, the monster I hide from the world tearing through to the surface.
Burning red clouds my vision, rage beating through my veins with every beat of my heart, and then, as if my body has a mind of its own, I draw my gun and take aim at one of the men approaching Snow. I fire shot after shot at each of the men and revel in the sight of them falling to the ground until there are none left standing over my woman.
“Elijah,” Snow cries, her focus behind me where Storms surrounded.
“All you have to do is let us take the girl and you can get back to your lives. Isn’t that what you want?” one of the men asks, his pistol pointed at Storm’s head.
His eyes flare with anger as he shakes his head ever so slightly as if I would ever consider giving my wife over to whoever these assholes work for.
“How about this,” I muse, barely forcing the growl back from my throat. “You tell me who the fuck you work for, and maybe I’ll let you walk out of here alive.”
The man who spoke before laughs, and my finger tightens on the trigger, even if I can’t put a bullet in his head yet. There are three of them on Storm, one on his back pressing him into the carpet. Another has a gun pointed at his head. And the other, the one I’m itching to wipe off the face of the earth, he’s standing between us. “We’re not some tiny bug you can wipe from the city. You have no idea of our reach. And you can make us go away by giving us your little whore. Seems like an easy choice to me.”
An inhuman growl forces its way from my throat and I barely catch myself from throwing myself forward and tearing him apart with my bare hands. How dare he speak of my woman like that. “You will not be taking her from this church, and I will destroy anyone that tries.” The words come out strained, the anger bubbling in my veins is barely contained. I thought I’d felt anger before. I thought I’d felt rage. But none of those moments compares to the emotions slamming into me with each second that passes.
My woman is bleeding behind me, but I can’t get to her without taking my eyes off the threat. Every single fiber of my being screams at me to go to her, to throw my gun down and get her the fuck out of here. But we wouldn’t make it. There’s no chance there aren’t more of their men at every exit. If we’re going to get out of here, we need to play it smart, and that means going against every instinct I have and allowing my woman to bleed without me.
I glance out at the pews, thankful when I see there are no other gunmen in sight, and it seems as if all the guests have escaped or been killed. I should care that people have died, our guests at that. But all I care about is getting Snow out of here safely, and any collateral damage along the way is worth it.
“Then you’ll all die.” He shrugs.
A loud explosion fills the space, and the ground shakes beneath our feet. Dust surrounds us, almost pulling my attention away from the men threatening my now brother-in-law. The men surrounding Storm look up for just long enough for me to take aim at the guy with the gun pointed at his head, and shoot, the bullet hitting him in the side of the head. Blood spurts from his wound, but I can’t take the time to enjoy the bloodshed like I normally would.
I quickly aim at the man on Storm’s back and unload a bullet in his head and then finally take aim at the leader before he can even register what has happened. He made a mistake when he underestimated us. They should have expected us to fight with everything we have. But then I suppose from the outside looking in, this looks like an arranged marriage. After all, they are common in the Mafia world, often used to seal alliances.
