“Please,” she cries, barely loud enough for me to hear. “I’m pregnant.”
Someone laughs as my mind reels, the oxygen vanishing from my lungs.
My ears ring, drowning out the words that follow as my pulse roars inside my head.Sora’s pregnant?
Behind me, Gio grips my shoulder, shaking me roughly from my stunned vortex of disbelief.
The conversation taking place inside the warehouse comes flooding back to my ears with sharp clarity all at once.
“You think that makes you less of a target, you little Mafia whore? You’re carrying the next generation of Chiaroscuro filth. That means you dietwice.”
The panic infusing Sora’s next words douses me like a bucket of ice water.
“Leo doesn’t even know!” she cries. “I didn’t tell him.”
Someone chuckles. “Don’t worry, love. We’ll be sure to pin a note to your chest. Who knows? Maybe he’ll cry when he finds out.But in the end, he’ll die like the rest. And your baby will never draw breath.”
Sora hisses something too quiet for me to catch, and the distinct sound of flesh violently meeting flesh makes my vision go red. I’ll rip them apart, limb from limb, if one of them dared to lay a hand on my wife.
“Where should we start?” I hear, but I’m already in motion, surging forward with blind hatred, my strategy of stealth demolished as my rage drives me forward with reckless bloodlust.
Miko swings the door wide and we surge into the room as one as a thin man looms over Sora, blade in hand. “I say we see what’s underneath the little slut’s dress since no one will shut up about it.”
A Russian with a scarred face chuckles. “I like the way you think, Gleb,” he says, seemingly oblivious to our presence, but they’re all going to find out real fast now.
Sora whimpers, pressing her eyes closed and turning her head as I catch the sound of tearing fabric, and the world narrows.
All the blood in my body rushes to my ears, and I charge toward the sound, raising my gun as I look for an open shot that won’t endanger my wife.
The room explodes into motion—the four Russians are too stunned to react at first as my brothers and I converge on them without hesitation.
The thin man turns, stepping to the side enough that I get a full view of Sora for the first time.
She’s strapped to a chair, her dress sliced open, her left cheek blooming with a fresh bruise and blood on her lip.
The thin man has a knife, and my stomach plummets as my instinct to protect Sora screams for me to take him out before he can put it to use.
Sora’s eyes fly open, widening as our gazes lock. “Leo?—”
That’s all I hear before I raise my gun and shoot the man with the knife in the head. He drops instantly.
The others scream as chaos erupts.
The stocky one reaches for a pistol, but Raf steps in, shooting him center-mass.
Miko drops the black-bearded one with a knife to his throat in one brutal thrust. Sandro tackles the fourth, pummeling him into the cement as he pulverizes the man’s face within seconds.
The fight is over just as quickly as it began. Then there’s only the ringing silence and the sound of Sora’s ragged sobs.
I drop to my knees in front of her, my heart shattering as I take in her face, bruised, bloody, but alive. “Sora,” I breathe, reaching for her restraints.
“You came,” she sobs. “You actually came…”
Her whole body trembles. I can barely see through the red clouding my vision.
She’s shaking so hard, I’m afraid she’s going to pass out, but she keeps trying to speak, her lips moving even as she cries.
“I tried to warn you,” she whispers. “Leo, I swear—I didn’t know what they were planning. I didn’t… I never would have let them?—”
