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Sal glanced over at me, breathing hard. “Just take these fuckers out, Dante.”
I nodded, needing no more encouragement. As soon as I heard glass crunching beneath booted feet, I was over the desk. The bullets hit their target before the man was halfway through the window. With a cry, he fell, his body landing in the light from the lamps outside. I recognized him.
He was our own fucking security guard.
I whip back behind the desk, gasping for air. Sal noticed the look on my face. “What? What’s wrong?”
“These are our men.”
He studied me for a moment, understanding dawning on him then. “Fuck.”
Yeah. Fuck was right.
I didn’t have time to say anything else. Hands grabbed my father, yanking him in front of another guard who’d been on our payroll. I aimed my gun at him, but hesitated. He was using my father as a human shield. I couldn’t shoot. There was something in the man’s hand. It gleamed silver in the lamplight.
A needle.
“Don’t shoot,” the man snarled. “We didn’t come here for you.”
I didn’t put my gun down. Closing one eye, I aimed for the main’s shoulder that peeked out just over my father’s. It was a small space, but I thought I could make it.
“Don’t fucking shoot!” There was no fear in his voice. Just anger. Pure fucking anger. I couldn’t understand why.
“Let him go,” I said slowly. Killian must have heard us. There was a shuffling noise. “Don’t move, Kill!” The shuffling stopped immediately.
“I can’t do that,” the man replied, giving Sal a shake. To his credit, my father didn’t look afraid. Instead, I could see the resignation in his eyes. He knew just as I did that there was no getting out of this.
“Who’s paying you? The Snake?” I demand. “We can pay you more. Just let him go and call off the rest.”
The man laughed. I remembered his name then. Aaron. He wasn’t Italian, but he was a damn good security guard. He’d been with my family for years.
“There’s not enough money in the world that would make me stop this operation,” Aaron replied bitterly. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
“The Snake might be a ghost, but they’re still human. Let him go and we can hunt the fucker down. Whatever he has over you, whatever he’s threatening you with, he won’t be for much longer,” I promised.
“I can’t take that risk. And neither can the rest of us.” Aaron’s hand plunged down, the needle piercing my father’s neck. His body tensed as whatever was inside was injected into him.
“No!” Killian’s voice shook behind me. I heard him scrambling across the floor, trying to stop it. But he was too late.
I took the shot.
Aaron cried out, letting go of the needle to clutch his arm. Another shot rang out. Not mine. Aaron dropped to the ground, dead before his head hit the floorboards. I stared down at his face, at the sightless eyes gazing into nothing.
It’s the choking sounds that pull my gaze back to Sal. He fell to his knees, pain etched into his face before falling. Killian got to him before I did. He caught Sal just in time, dropping his gun. From what I’d researched on the venom, we had two hours to get him to a hospital to be treated.
But bullets were still flying through the open door of the study. We had no way out. No way to get him to the hospital. Killian must have realized this as well. His eyes locked onto me before he shook his head. Sal’s neck was already bruising. I knew that if the venom didn’t kill him outright, the swelling would. It would block his airways until he couldn’t breathe. And then he’d die. Already, he was gasping for air as the injection site continued to swell.
“Dante, what do we do?” Killian gripped our father in his arms.
“I don’t know.” I sat back against the desk heavily.
The bullets stopped flying. The house fell silent. All we could hear were the heavy gasps as Sal tried to breathe. But I didn’t know if those men had left for good or if they were just waiting for us to come out and surrender.
Aaron’s words flashed through my mind as my eyes landed on my father. They weren’t here for us. They’d come for him. To kill Sal. And now that they had…
“I think it’s over,” I said quietly.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Killian demanded. “How could it just be over? They came in here guns blazing—” He caught my look, glancing down at our father. “Oh.”
