Stepping to the side, I pull her in with a hand wrapped around her upper arm, her mouth open in a silent shout.
And make the mistake of turning my back.
The first blow slams into the side of my head. Blunt. Hard. Iron. A pipe or a bat. My vision explodes in white.
I go down to one knee, dazed, blinking blood out of my eye. Now Audrey really does scream.
“Konstantin!”
“The study,” I grunt, sensing more than seeing forms enter the house behind me. Pain spiders down my jaw and into my ribs as I try to rise. A boot lands in my lower back, but I catch myself as Audrey makes a run for the stairs.
Standing, I spin, gun raised.
Too late.
A second man is already inside. Then a third.
And behind them, closing the door like he belongs here, is Sal Imperi. Even with the dying light behind him, I recognize his lean frame.
The sight of himin my homedrags rage up from my gut like acid.
“If you touched her?—”
One of his men holds up a gun, short and thick, and the action clicks.
Sal smiles like a man who thinks he’s still holding the cards.
"Nice place," he says, cocking his head. "Bit sterile, though."
My body surges forward before thought catches up. I can’t let them get upstairs, get toher.Or the baby.
Desperation, an unfamiliar feeling, makes my skin feel electric. I grab the nearest thug by the throat and slam him into a marble column. Bone cracks. He’s thin, wiry, and falls to the ground like nothing. Sal’s glance flicks to the body in annoyance.
I fire, but the guy with the gun is surprisingly fast for his size. He manages to duck it and the bullet ricochets somewhere in the foyer. The house, at my earlier command, has become a den of shadows. It’s familiar enough to me that I know where to land my feet and brace myself as the bigger thug slams into me, my shoulder buried in his gut.
Sal cracks something heavy over my back. There’s a sound of shattering, and I know what it is; an expensive piece of sculpture purchased years ago, a favorite of mine, now in pieces around my feet. I have one hand gripping the thug’s, wrapped around his and bending the wrist to point the muzzle of his gun down.
There’s a yank and the sound of bullets dropping on the tile.
My gun is gone.
Then a sharp, stinging sensation at my side—familiar. When Sal pulls the knife out, it makes an almost metallic sound. Beforehe can stick me again I jerk the gun out of his thug’s hand, then barrel toward Sal, pinning his right arm and the knife between us.
Audrey screams.
Her scream is what brings me back.
Not the pain.
Not the blood seeping down my hip.
Her.
Because she’s here, and she’s pregnant. And for the first time in my entire brutal, godless life, I have something to lose.
The future isn’t an abstract thing anymore. It’s real. It’s growing inside her.
Focusing on the bigger man, I drop low, pivot, and drive my elbow into the bastard's ribs. He gasps. I wrench him forward and crack his skull against my knee.
