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He grabs my hand and places his gun in it, wrapping my fingers around the metal when I don’t. “Here’s your chance. Fucking shoot me again. But, Haven, you better make sure it’s through my heart and it kills me this time.” Men holler, protesting his actions. He silences them with a stiff raised hand. “Let her go.” He directs his leer to Antonio’s callous grip on my arm.
A woman’s shriek makes the entire group turn in its direction. Except for Demetri, he never wavers his sight from me. We are locked in on each other. I don’t need to look anyway. I know exactly who it is. Tegan. She comes rushing through the crowd, slapping her way with screeching demands as she pushes through to Demetri’s side. She wraps her arms around his waist with an energy his body rejects and selfishly sobs incoherent words.
The scene is pathetic. Watching a woman run to your husband of only four hours, that you just passionately shot, is not something I saw in my childhood fairytales. Doesn’t she know he cares only about himself? The child she is carrying will be his heir, but she will be nothing but a vessel to his legacy.
“She’s fucking crazy! Oh, my God. She shot you!” Her hands frantically run over his body.
My lip curls and my brow lifts with a territorial twitch. The weight of the gun in my hand feels like revenge heavy. Her only saving grace is that she is pregnant, or I would shoot her too as I stand here in this unstable moment.
“Get her the fuck off me,” Demetri bellows, wincing when he vigorously tries to shrug her away.
He has no care that I’m holding his gun between our bodies. The lethal energy in the crowd surrounding us could be felt as if it was a second skin.
“Haven, give me that gun,” my brother orders over Tegan’s wails.
“What the fuck? You’re playing Russian roulette, and the odds are not in your favor since you are standing a foot in front of her and she’s fully loaded with your gun, man. Thank fuck she missed the first time. What the fuck are you doing?” Giovanni harshly questions.
“Maybe I want to tap into the other half of my heritage.” His gaze lowers, becoming slits as his head twists. “She won’t shoot me again.” A smiling sneer holds my attention with a vigilant eye, knowing he’s correct. He knows me so well and I know nothing. “Isn’t that right, firefly? You love me too much to shoot me again, right, giovane cucciolo? You would lose your free ticket if you did.” His tongue runs over his bottom lip as I decipher his words.
I can’t speak. Free ticket? It’s almost as if I am catatonic. I want to. I want to yell and scream and fight. I want to hit him and shoot him again and again, but my mind and my actions betray me. What does he mean, free ticket? I hold the gun up for him to take. The energy in the air deflates.
“Luca!” he thunders, calling his roommate, his comrade, his partner in crime. “Put her in my SUV and take me to the doc so I can get the bullet my wife pierced me with removed from my fucking chest.”
ChapterThirty
DEMETRI
Her tears aresharp shards of glass jabbing my bloody wound. Right before she pulled the trigger, I watched the pale green color of her eyes shatter like the diamonds I handle when they are under the highest pressure seconds before breaking from the stress. Her pain was disturbing to witness. I didn’t think she would do it. Didn’t think she had it in her. When that bullet pierced my skin and tore through my flesh, and the burning pain started to radiate across my chest, my only thought wasgood girl.She stood up for herself.
I stand here with the help of Antonio and Giovanni at my back. The blood loss and adrenaline from the situation are starting to diminish and my body is beginning to shut down from shock. My legs start to become weak as they guide me to the SUV. Panic starts to edge its way around me. I can see it on everyone’s face as I take in the scene. I know what they’re planning, what they will do to her for her actions. I’ll be a widow by the time I wake up from the surgery to remove her wrath. My need to protect her from the men is palpable. As I feel myself fading away, I need to make sure my wishes are heard. My focus comes back to her.
“No one touches her.”
I turn my attention to Antonio. Because I know he will give the orders to have her executed. Then I look to his father, the Don, the man everyone respects to cement my wishes and make sure no harm comes to her without my orders. His word is final, and no one will dare go against it. He asked me to sign this contract for her hand in marriage to further our business ventures in the first place and protect her from a future my innocent girl would not survive. I am her free ticket.
“Robert, no one touches her. No one. Guarantee me there will be no repercussions.”
He is contemplative a moment before giving his approval. “If that is your wish.”
“I will deal with my wife.”
His nod is my confirmation. “Go get patched up, son.” His words are the gavel closing the argument. “You’re going to need your strength. You got a tiger on your hands.”
“More like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
“Don’t get it twisted, G. She is a vixen in sheep’s clothing. One I am more than willing to shear for her actions.” I make myself clear to Giovanni. My balance falters, weakness taking control on my limbs, the adrenaline now just a simmer before being extinguished. “Get me in the SUV,” I order as I watch Luca hold Haven in his clutches on the other side of the vehicle, his body acting as a shield, protecting her from her brother as he berates her.
“Do you understand what you just did? Do you?” he yells, spit flying.
Haven stays silent. A blank look in her eyes as she watches me.
If I had the strength, I would shoot him point blank between the eyes myself for yelling at her like that.
“You just shot a capo, Haven. Do you know the punishment for that? It’s fucking death, Haven. Death.”
“What’s the difference?” Her voice low and level, void of any emotion. “You signed that certificate already, didn’t you?” Her pupils’ flair, slowly coming back to life as her attention zeros in on me. “I shot my husband. There will be no punishment worse than the lies I have endured over the past few months. Or the torment he will cause me in the future. Whether he kills me or someone else does, in the end you signed my death certificate, dearest brother.”
“That’s what you think. Wait until he tortures you.”
