AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What made you so sure,” I toy with her just to keep her talking. Both in part to her obvious concussion and that I have missed the sound of her voice.
“Because I’m yours,” she replies, as I gently lift her from the bed and into my arms, “and you take care of what is yours.”
I smile down at her as her arms wrap around my neck and she nuzzles her face into my chest. She is slightly incoherent, but she is absolutely correct. There is nothing I would not have done to have her body in my arms again.
“She okay,” Carlo questions as he steps into the room.
“She will be,” I nod at him as I carry Avalie to the door, “Are you ready to get out of here?”
“Back the way we came?”
“That’s our best option. Can you take the lead?”
“I got you brother.”
Carlo calls over the radio to let the other guys know that we have Ava and are on our way out.
Raising his gun, Carlo takes the lead as we cross the penthouse towards the stairwell we climbed to get up here. Pushing open the door, Carlo steps through and holds it so that I can easily pass through with Ava.
We make it down four flights of stairs before we find Marco. His body is resting against the spindles of the railing with his chin slumped against his own blood-soaked chest.
“Fuck,” Carlo bends down, “Marco?”
I watch as he slides his hand against Marco’s neck to feel for a pulse. Before he is able to find one, Marco’s head snaps up as he grabs Carlo by the throat. His grip only lasts for a moment, before he realizes he has Carlo in his vice.
Grabbing Marco’s hand, Carlo pulls his arm around his neck as he helps to lift him to his feet.
“Fuck,” Marco groans.
“We’re going to get you out of here,” Carlo replies, “but I’m going to need you to help me get you down these stairs.”
“Fuck you,” Marco spits back, pulling from Carlo’s grip, “I can do it by myself.”
“The fuck you can, you stubborn bastard. You have at least three extra holes in you at the moment,” Carlo yanks Marco’s arm back over his shoulder.
It takes significantly longer to make our way down the stairs than we had anticipated, but we eventually make it to the ground floor. Carlo and Marco push through the door at the rear of the building first, and there is an SUV waiting for us.
Opening the rear door, I lay Avalie across the seat before opening the lift-gate. After helping Carlo get Marco into the back, I close the lift-gate and slide in next to Ava. Before I say a word, the SUV quickly accelerates away from Karyan’s building.
“Jimmie, call the doc and have him meet us at the house,” I turn my head towards the back of the SUV, “Carlo, keep pressure on his wounds.”
I hold Ava against my chest, gently stroking her hair as we make it through the city streets and back to the estate in record time.
ChapterForty-Five
Lorenzo
Pulling into the estate, Doc is waiting at the garage as we pull the SUV into the garage. Several guys immediately help to pull Marco from the back and take him to the make-shift operating room we keep set up for Doc in the garage. Marco is barely dropped onto the table before Doc begins his work.
Quickly cutting Marco’s clothes from his body, he determines that he has been shot four times. The two that hit his shoulder and flank went straight through – clean entrance and exit wounds. Doc is most concerned with the two that struck his bicep and chest, “We have to get these two out, and I’m going to need someone to assist me.”
“I’ll do it,” Carlo stands as he begins to roll up the sleeves to his shirt and pull on a pair of gloves.
Doc nods his head while injecting what I can only assume is some sort of anesthetic into Marco. I watch the two of them work diligently to remove the two bullets and stitch up his wounds with Ava sleeping on my lap. A couple of hours have passed by the time Doc is pulling off his bloody gloves.
“I don’t want to make any promises,” Doc’s voice trembles, “but if he makes it through the night, he should pull through this.”
Doc doesn’t exactly work for us out of the goodness of his heart or because we pay him well. Originally, he got drawn into this life to pay back a very large debt owed to our family. At this point he has seen and knows way too much to not be a liability, so he is forced to continue to work for us.
