The gun swung around and pressed to the side of my brother’s head, and for a split second, our eyes locked, and so many words and emotions passed between us, but it was gone in the next thunderous beat of my heart.
Pop.
Blood sprayed, and he collapsed.
There are moments in life that flash before our eyes and others that slow and play out like the reel of a movie. This was one of those moments. The movie went silent until there were just echoes. Every movement was agonizing. My voice seemed to remain locked inside my throat, the scream clawing its way out but just out of my reach.
My ears were still ringing long after the world crumbled. Gio’s lifeless eyes were fixed beyond me as he lay in a pool of his own blood. There was no bringing him back. I knew that. He was gone. Everything he was. Gone forever.
Rage.
I lifted my teary gaze toward Holly, mouth gaping open. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t fill my lungs with air.
“Oops,” she teased.
I made a split-second decision before Kai could stop me, and Holly could see it coming. I pushed off my feet and lunged for her, determined to tear her apart. Her eyes widened, and she popped a round toward me, and I felt the sting of a bullet somewhere on my body, but I was too fucking high on adrenaline and bloodlust to care.
A hail of gunfire and chaos filled the room, but if I was going to die tonight, I was dragging her to hell with me.
My hand was on her gun, and another bullet shot off behind me as I twisted the barrel and broke her trigger finger, and I didn’t stop until it was severed.
It was her turn to utter a soundless scream, but I’d show her no mercy. Two pistol whips to the face left her mouth bloody, fucked up, and missing teeth.
“Does it hurt?” I whispered into her ear as the hot barrel of her own gun singed the inside of her mouth. “I want you to feel the pain I’m feeling. I want you to suffer, to beg me to kill you— And I won’t, because you deserve so much more.”
Blood and saliva bubbled out of the sides of her mouth as she moaned in agony. I took a quick glance around and saw Kai crouched over one of the men, driving a blade into him repeatedly. Another lay dead on the floor, while the third grabbed the duffel bag and ran out of the room.
“I need you to wait right here for me, okay?” I said, getting to my feet and sending a round in each of her legs. “Kai, are you good?”
He nodded and started for me, but I put a hand up. “She stays alive. She’s mine.” With that, I was out of the room, catching a glimpse of that bastard as he turned the corner. I ran for the opposite hallway, knowing both paths linked up at the stairwell.
“Pretty sure that belongs to me,” I said the moment his hand was on the knob. He thought he’d be faster than me, but he was wrong, and he hit the floor with a bullet to the side of the neck and one in his leg. I crouched next to his still-twitching body and slid open the bag’s zipper, pulling out a blade and a pistol. As I stood, he made eye contact with me, hand pressed to the wound in his throat and tears slipping out of the corners of his eyes.
Pathetic.
“Let me help you die with some dignity.” By the time the second bullet hit his forehead, he was no longer moving, but I thought I’d send him off with one more for good luck.
Leaving the duffel behind, I set off back to the room to deal with Holly, but in that instant, the memories of Gio barreled into me, and my knees gave out.
“No…no…” My throat spasmed, and I couldn’t catch my breath with the vision of his death playing over and over in my thoughts. I hadn’t realized when I’d fallen to the floor until Kai’s arms surrounded me. He tugged me to his chest and let me have a moment to compose myself before he spoke.
“We can go, or we can do whatever you need. I’m here for you, and I’ve got Gio. Just say the word.”
“She killed him. He’s dead, right?” Kai closed his eyes. “Then she dies.”
“Agreed.” He glanced down at my thigh. “Baby, you’ve been hit.”
I hadn’t felt pain until then, but it was nothing compared to the loss tearing my soul apart.
“I don’t care.”
“Looks superficial.”
He helped me to my feet, and I released another long breath, suspending the pain of my brother’s death for just that moment and replacing it with hatred.
Holly was dragging herself toward a back door, but I grabbed her ankle and violently slid her back to the middle of the room. She wailed and clawed at the floor.
“Wait…Amalia, please. I’m sorry.”
