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“Fucking,codardo,” I growl and grab Greta’s hand. I take the stairs two at a time, and Greta doesn’t complain as she follows behind, speaking to Lorenzo in rapid-fire Italian while Rooster’s nails clack against the hardwood floors,
I catch the tail end of their conversation when we hit the bottom stair. “Sì, Mia Regina. We knew this was a possibility, so we brought some of our men in from Rome and surrounding cities.”
“And how many do they have?” She asks all the right questions, and my chest swells with pride.
“Forty at most,” Lorenzo answers.
“Forty? That doesn’t seem like much.” She turns to me, brows furrowed. “He has to know you have at least double that.”
“I’m sure he does,mia perla. If I had to guess, he’s relying on the grenade launchers to do most of the work while his men sit and wait to clean up what’s left.”
“So, what, we just wait for them to come after us? We let them destroy our home? How many more grenades do they have?” Right then, another explosion rocks the ground beneath our feet, and the reinforced front door shudders but holds steady.
“That was their last one, Capo. They’re headed this way,” one of my men announces overthe comms.
“How do they do that?” Greta smirks.
“Do what?” Iquestion.
“Answer a question they never heard me ask?”
I grin wide and lift my chin in pride. “Skill,mia perla. Skill and a hell of a lot of training. Are you ready for this?” My smile drops along with my stomach. Because, while I know she’d find a way to fight whether I allow it or not, my need to protect her––shield her––consumes me, and I’m two seconds away from saying, “fuck it,” throwing her over my shoulder, and charging upstairs to lock her in thesafe room.
But she already has her weapon drawn, eyes fierce, and stance steadfast beside me. Her eyes catch mine, and I send her a silent warning. “Stay by my side, or I’ll blisteryour ass.”
She smirks and shakes her head. “Yes, Capo,” she smarts, and my cock stretches against my zipper at hearing her call me boss while my mind files the insubordinate commentfor later.
Forcing my head back in the battle, I draw my weapon, and the four of us move forward as gunfire rings out. Lorenzo swings open the heavy door, and Greta and I take cover off to the side. In his attempt to bring down the villa, Vasile gave us cover with the smoke and dust from the surrounding explosions. That also means he has the same advantage. It doesn’t matter because my men are at the top of the food chain in this battle. Sharks lurking in the depths, ready to come out of nowhere to consume him, fleshand bone.
“Now!” Lorenzo yells over the gunfire and picks off masked men with deadly accuracy. Greta and I move as one as we release hellfire on the swarm of commandowannabes.
1, 2, 3 go down by my hand and 3, 4, 5 by Greta’s. One man screams in severe pain as Rooster clamps down with about three-hundred and five PSI on one man’s leg. A bite I’m all too familiar with. I smile at the memory. I wanted to kill the damn dog, then. Now, I couldn’t part with the mutt; he’s my organization’s best guard.
Rooster finishes the man with a crushing bite to the throat, then speeds off to find another. Greta’s back hits mine and she brings down two more men while I cover the front, taking down threeof my own.
The odds are in our favor, and we’re littering the lawn with corpses. My men check in one at a time with status updates. So far, I’ve lost four good men. One to the explosions and three to the ensuinggun fight.
“Kill every last motherfucker!” I howl and turn just as one masked asshole aims for Greta. He goes down with his brains painting the manicured lawn.
“Thanks, baby,” Greta yells over hershoulder.
“Just keep fighting,mia regina! You can thank me later,” Iyell back.
“I’ll make you proud,mio amore,” she returns, and my heart swells with happiness I’ve never felt until she came kicking and screaming into my life.
“You already do,” I say too quietly for her to hear.
I hit another man right between the eyes when I hear Greta grunt from behind me and turn to see her in hand-to-hand combat with a guy twice her size. I aim at the fucker’s head, but they shift, placing Greta in my crosshairs.
“Fuck. Move, baby.”
Mia perlais holding her own, but when the man lands a solid hit to her cheek, her head whips to the side, and he takes advantage with a fist to her gut.
A second later, I’m charging forward, but in their struggle, they have moved too far for me to get to her quick enough. So with my vision clouded with a red veil of fury, I bellow at the top of my lungs, “Rooster,“?‘tak!”A split second later, Rooster rounds a large shrub and bolts to where his human struggles with the man. He leaps onto the man’s back, sinks his canines into his neck, and jerks his head from side to side, shredding skin. The man howls in pain and reaches back to dislodge the beast, but Rooster hangs on for dear life. Greta uses the distraction to grab the knife from her leggings and sinks all seven inches into the man’s chest. He drops to his knees with Rooster’s teeth still piercing his neck as he falls forward, plunging the knife deeper intohis chest.
“Rooster, release.” He immediately obeys before he’s off again to find his next victim. I pay him no mind as I grip Greta’s shoulders and examine her bloody split lip, already blackening eye, and the long gash on her temple where the man hit her with the butt of his gun. “Go inside. Lock yourself in the safe room. You’re done...”
“No, Emil. We standtogether.”
