If I stay silent and still, he’ll get curious and peek around the corner.
There.
The man turns the corner slowly, gun raised, but he isn’t fast enough—and neither am I. Before I can even think about pulling the trigger, the man’s head explodes, blood and brain matter raining down along the rusted metal.
I look up to see a smiling Nikolai, a large sniper rifle in his hand. He gives me a small salute before disappearing again.
Well, fuck.
It’s not like I haven’t killed someone before. I have—the one time—and part of me is relieved Nikolai was there, but I’m equal parts disappointed. How will Matthias ever take me seriously if he doesn’t see what I have to offer?
“Take the truck and go,” Matthias hollers from somewhere amid the chaos. The sound of a diesel engine roaring to life and the telltale squeal of tires on pavement is all I need to hear to know the pallets are gone.
And hopefully safe.
My gaze lands on my fierce husband, but he isn’t looking at me. His eyes are on the approaching gang of men. Some of whom I recognize.
They’re the ones I once called family.
Cousins who handed me chocolates and brought me Christmas gifts when Elias refused to buy me any. These are the men who were conscripted for no other reason than Elias’s fear and anger.
His greed for power.
And they’re all about to die.
“Stop.” I hold up my hands, letting my gun hand go limp at my side as I race out from behind Seamus, who makes a grab for me. Gracefully, I dodge his hold and move toward the incoming mob. “Giano.”
“Get out of the way, Ava,” Giano hisses, his gun raised as he strides forward without missing a beat. “I don’t want to shoot you, but I have orders to if you interfere.”
“Who gave those orders?” I sneer. “Christian?”
Giano’s jaw clenches, his grip tightening on his gun, but he stops moving.
They all do.
“Yes,” he hisses through clenched teeth. “You know the rules about betraying theFamiglia.”
“Ava,” Matthias warns as I laugh outwardly at how he’s accusing me of betraying them. Me. The one who never belonged.
“You think this is a joke, Ava?”
Dante.
His deep voice rumbles from behind Giano as he steps from the crowd. He looks older, more worn than the last time I saw him at Libby’s funeral. “You would side with the Russians who killed your sister? The ones who put a bullet in her head?”
“We did no such thing, you fuckinggoombah,” Vas snarls from behind me.
“Vasily,” I hiss, reprimanding him with my tone for the slur.
“No, don’t correct the Russian cur, Ava,” Dante sneers. “It just shows how little the dogs have grown.”
A chaotic cacophony of angered voices rises around me like a bad remake ofWest Side Story. Italian versus Russian, with a little Irish thrown in. Not really, though, since my biological father and his men stand off to the side, watching with keen interest as the two groups hurl insults at one another like hockey moms at a pee-wee game.
“Enough!” I scream at the top of my lungs. I pull the trigger of my gun once, twice, letting the bullets sink into one of the empty containers.
Seamus will scold me later for the improper discharge of my weapon, no doubt, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
“All of you are fucking idiots,” I snarl as the group grows silent. “You’re all so hellbent on getting at one another that none of you have bothered to stop and think about what the hell is actually going on.”
