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My mind is a mess right now as I struggle to breathe, let alone think and then a movement behind me chills my blood to ice as the cold steel of a gun presses against my back and the voice from my nightmares says cruelly, “Don’t make a scene or the rest of them die. Walk with me and they may survive to grieve at your funeral.”
He pushes me from behind and as Diana and Giselle Matasso fall into step beside me, I know I am fucked.
CHAPTER30
LEO
My heart is racing and yet my training has taken over when I most need it. When the shot rang out, something told me it was bad. My first instinct was to shield Chastity, but when I saw the expression on Ryan’s face, my black heart took over and I prepared for something I wasn’t going to like.
Chastity will be protected in that room among the crowd. What is waiting for us may not offer the same promise and I pull out my weapon as I race toward the front of the hotel because if my brothers are under attack, so am I.
My soldiers crowd around me acting as impenetrable armor and my heart twists with pure agony when I hear screaming before I even see what’s happening. The area is awash with black suits and rough voices and yet the sea parts as I arrive, running toward the fallen body on the ground.
I barely register a woman screaming Matteo’s name as I drop beside my brother and stare at a scene I prepared for but never really thought would happen.
The blood trickles from a wound onto the ground below and his pain-filled eyes stare at me almost apologetically.
“Leo.” He groans as he speaks and I say gruffly, “Stop fucking talking if it hurts so bad.”
I yell, “Where are those fucking paramedics?”
“On their way boss.” Ryan says in a measured voice behind me, reminding me that I’m losing my shit right now.
“The area has been sealed, and the cops are on their way.”
“Do I look like I give a fuck about the cops?”
I glance down at my brother and it physically hurts to see him in so much pain, and then I hear a roar as Domenico pushes his way through the crowd.
“Matteo, what the fuck!” he yells as he drops his huge body beside us and appears to be in shock. “Tell me you were wearing a vest, for Christ’s sake.” He growls ominously and Matteo winces as he tries to grin.
“What do you think?”
He spits out some blood and I say roughly, “Where were you hit?”
“In the shoulder. It’s just a graze.”
The sound of sobbing is seriously irritating the shit out of me but before I can deal with it, he looks past me and his gaze softens as he gasps, “Abi, I’m ok.”
“Like fuck you are.”
His wife drops beside him and cradles his head in her lap. “Don’t you dare fucking leave me, you bastard.”
She says with a sob and the expression of love on his face reminds me I’m not the only one dealing with what that involves.
The sound of sirens in the distance tells me help is on its way and as the ambulance screeches to a halt, the sea of black suits surrounding us parts to let them through and if they are intimidated by this, they don’t show it and just set about putting my brother back together.
We move aside and Dom growls, “What happened?”
I turn to Ryan for answers, and he says in a whisper, “Chase filled me in. They were in position when your brother arrived. Usual routine, but as he stepped out of the car, the shot rang out from across the street, and he went down. The defenses closed around him, and the rest scattered in search of the sniper. That’s all I can tell you.”
Dom says angrily, “Any ideas?”
My blood runs cold because I don’t need to guess, I already know, and I just left the one person I vowed to protect in the same room as him.
“Matasso.” I say over my shoulder as I start running, confident that Matteo is in the best hands. He’s alive, that’s all that matters now, and I just hope I’m being paranoid as I head off to check on my woman.
Dom is close behind me as we enter the ballroom, not really registering the shocked expressions of the people in the crowd who are still coming to terms with a shooting on their doorstep.
