Everyone froze before turning to look at Fabrizio still standing with his back against the bookcase.
The Italian pointed a revolver toward them.
“This is all so very touching,” he said, “but it would please me if we could discuss how I will be paid.”
“Is that . . .” Ethan began. “Is thatmyrevolver? Here?”
“Perhaps,” Fabrizio hedged. “It does have six chambers, so I could easily put a bullet in each of you and still have two left.”
“That’s my weapon,” Ethan said incredulously.
Fabrizio shrugged. “It might be yours, Penn-Leith, but you will have to pry it from my hands.”
His tone suggested that said hands would have to be dead for that to occur.
“Fabrizio, you might like to gamble, but this isridicolo, even for you,” Allie said. “If you murder us, you will swing for it. What good would all our deaths do?”
“I do not care. I am as good as dead,” he replied, gun trembling in his hand. “As you said, I am a gambler, and this isla mia ultima scomessa—my ultimate gamble.”
Understanding illuminated her mind.
Of course.
“You have gambling debts. Money lenders.”
“Oh, our Mr. Sacci has plenty of debt,” Kendall said, drawing Fabrizio’s attention. The Italian pointed the revolver at Allie’s twin. “Once he began contacting me, I made sure to investigate him. I may have convinced a few of his debtors to call in their markers.”
“It is you then who I have to thank for my current predicament?” The gun shook in Fabrizio’s hand, his handsome face contorting in rage as he aimed the revolver at Kendall’s heart.
Allie’s world slowed, as if everything were moving through sticky honey.
She knew Fabrizio.
She had seen him kill more than once.
The Italian’s finger twitched on the trigger.
He was going to fire at Kendall. At this close range, it would likely kill her twin.
And Allie knew, as sure as her own heart beat in her chest, that she could not—shewouldnot—let that happen.
Allie raced forward before Fabrizio even finished speaking.
Ethan cried out.
Allie crashed into Fabrizio’s shoulder, sending him staggering backwards.
Fabrizio fired—once, twice—as he fell into the bookcase, books tumbling.
Allie hit the ground. Hard. Breath left her body in a loudoof!
Fabrizio rolled, shaking off books, attempting to rise.
Hadley and Ethan pounced on him.
Ethan pinned the Italian’s right hand to the floor, wresting the revolver from his grasp, while Hadley flipped Fabrizio onto his stomach and pressed a knee into his spine, twisting the man’s arm behind his back.
Gasping for breath, Allie pushed to her knees and turned to look for her brother.
