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“Where are you?” she asks hurriedly.
“In Luca’s apartment,” I reply, glancing around as I explain. “He told me to stay here. The steel shutters on the windows are all down, and he has the electricity on that fancy door of his turned on.”
She breathes heavily, but it’s not the sound of relief I’m hoping for. “Did he leave you with a gun?”
“Uh, no.” Not that I’m against them—I’ve even shot several of them when I was growing up, thanks to Tori’s dad inviting me to learn when she did—but I’m not sure I’d know what to do with one now.
“Go to Luca’s closet,” Justine says, then a video request comes through that I promptly answer before she can yell at me some more. When her face comes into view, I can tell she’s at the shopping center with all the stores behind her, but I don’t get to ask why before she’s directing me again. “Turn the camera around so I can see the closet.”
I do so, then turn on the light. “What now?”
“This is just like Jaxon’s,” she says, then points in the screen. “Open those drawers on the right. One or more of them should have guns, assuming Luca didn’t take them all with him.”
I only saw the one at his hip when he left, but that doesn’t mean more weren’t hidden in pockets.
It isn’t until the third drawer that I find a silver pistol with two already-filled magazines lying next to it. “Take those, put one mag in, cock the gun, and put the other mag in your front pocket. It will be harder to lose that way if you’re running.”
Damn it. Her words aren’t making me feel any better. “Have you had this happen to you before?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean Jaxon hasn’t prepared me,” she answers. “Now, it’s my turn to prepare you. Go back to the living room and, Olivia? Shoot any fucker who makes it past that door that isn’t supposed to. Remember, it’s your life or theirs. Don’t choose them over yourself.”
Her words weigh heavily on me, setting in the harsh reality that there’s a chance I’ll have to kill someone today. That I’ll be responsible for taking their life.
The thought presses down on me, but the idea of doing so, of protecting myself no matter the cost, doesn’t scare me as much as I expect. I wanted to kill Abel for hurting me in that nightclub. I can have that same feeling for anyone else who tries to lay a hand on me.
Not only can I, but I know I must.
“I need to go,” she hurries. “I’m getting picked up by Ethan and Aaron and taken to who knows where, but I’m sure you’ll end up there, too. Just be safe.”
“I will and you, too,” I reply, and feel like there should be more to say, but the screen goes dark before I can form the words.
With the gun heavy in my palm and the extra mag in my pocket as instructed, I sit on the couch this time, eyes trained on the door and my phone in front of me on the table.
I can do this. These fuckers won’t get me. At least, not easily.
27
LUCA
Leaving Olivia has a vice around my chest that serves as a constant reminder of what’s at stake if anyone succeeds in breaking into the compound and getting close to her.
I rush downstairs and meet Jaxon in the main living room where Vin, Markus, and Jake are already waiting with him.
“Where are they trying to enter at?” I ask when I’ve barely stepped into the room.
“Wherearen’tthey is a better question,” Vin retorts, but shuts his mouth when both Jaxon and I cut him a glare.
He’s been around since before I was in charge but hasn’t seemed to learn when to keep his thoughts to himself.
Jaxon finally answers me. “They came in through the garage and somehow turned off nearly every camera and electrical wire we have on the outside to keep anyone from scaling the walls.”
Fuck. They could have gotten to me and Olivia when we’d been in the garden. Or even before I arrived.
Knowing that I could have found her mutilated body instead of seeing her painting when I came back is more than enough to have me shaking with the need to kill.
“Where are our men set up, and where are our weak points?” I ask, knowing with this sort of surprise attack, there wouldn’t have been enough of my guys around to secure the whole compound, even with the extra security.
Jaxon points toward the south then west of the building. “The front and garage are the most covered. We need more of us to push to the north and east.”
