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They both must see the resolve on my face, because Stefan fires off a warning shot that gouges the floor near my feet. Ermilo’s guards are already on high alert and cock their own weapons in preparation.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” I grind out.
“Zicari, let the woman go and stand down!” Ermilo shouts. “This has gone on long enough.”
“I’m going to stab you through the heart, Marco,” Stefan whispers. “Just like I did to Dad. I won’t make it subtle, either. I won’t make it look like an accident. I’m going to tear your heart out of your chest, and this time, the entire world is going to see the damage I can do.”
I open my mouth to argue, but it’s too late. All of it is too late. Stefan fires off a shot, and searing pain rips across my side, sending me down to my knees. In the distance, someone is screaming, but the sound is already fading.
CHAPTER11
Lacey
My scream is out in the open, a shrill screech of sound. So much blood, too much blood for it to be a surface wound, for it to be anything other than life threatening.
Marco goes down, his legs too weak to support his weight. His knees slam into the floor, his lips already pale, pressed in a tight line. He falls to his side without catching himself, and I can’t stop. Can’t stop screaming. Can’t stop trying to get to him.
I have no idea where Stefan shot him, but the damage is done. There is nothing but a gaping pit of horror in my chest, as though Stefan has followed through on his threat yet chose my heart instead of Marco’s. No. He has to be okay. He has to—
What the hell will I do without him? How can I care about it going too fast, all these feelings for him, when he’s been ripped from me anyway?
Not fair.
It’s not fair.
Every heartbeat slows, and time starts to skid to a sluggish halt. The world around me is nothing but slow motion, dull, my focus on Marco’s curved body, fetal position style. From this distance, I can’t tell if he’s breathing or not, and my own breath thunders out of my chest.
I glance up and turn, every movement wading-through-cement slow, catching Stefan’s gaze before the second bullet flies.
This one comes from Ermilo’s side of the table and grazes close enough for me to feel the heat of the trajectory, even if it’s only in my head. Even if—
Gunfire rains through the dining room. Food splatters and wood splinters—the beautiful furniture, the chair rail and molding, nothing but splinters. Bullets come from every direction, and only my training has me ducking away from Stefan, uncaring that he’s still got his gun to my temples. He drops right along with me so that we’re both crouched on the floor beside Marco.
Ermilo and his guards are a tight circle, shooting up anything and everything around them. Stefan’s guards hardly have time to move to protect us when two of them go down, the bullets hitting home. They jerk, groan, drop.
Again and again.
Stefan grabs me by the back of the neck and forces me lower. The dining room table is our only defense at this point, and he wraps his arms around me and rolls—not to a safe place, but toward the long wooden buffet against the wall.
I wondered at the space behind it when I first got in the room. It’s just large enough for two bodies, pushed away from the wall as though his paranoia had urged him to pull it, to create this semi-safe harbor.
But we can’t hide and leave Marco out there unattended. A stray bullet might finish the job his brother started, hit several arteries, explode through muscle and bone and do all sorts of irreparable damage.
“No, Marco!”
I tug away from Stefan, the position too cramped for me to try and disarm him. My own gun is history at this point, and one move toward it will make me the target. I didn’t intend to die today. Maybe I’d gotten my hopes up way too high, but I knew the risk when I accepted the assignment.
The only risk I hadn’t seen coming was Marco.
I’m not thinking about anything else now. I’m thinking about the man on the ground. From my vantage point, I only see the tips of his shoes, the shine dulled by drops of crimson.
He’s still not moving. He’s been shot and he’s not moving and something inside of me snaps loose at the sight, as though it’s the final straw breaking the restraint keeping me still.
I’m going to make this piece of shit hiding behind the furniture pay for every single thing he’s ever done, and most importantly, what he chose to do tonight.
Stefan lurches to peer over the top of the furniture and fires off a couple shots. They all go wide, but Ermilo’s responding shot lodges in the wall only a few inches above our heads.
My scream cuts off on a strangled gasp as I lunge for him, scraping at his face with my nails, ready to jam my elbow into whatever soft part of him I get to first.
