60
AMARA
I shove Ransome off of me and struggle to my feet before running to Gianni. He’s lying on the floor near the wall and he’s not moving.
“Gianni! G!” I cry as I come to my knees.
Relief washes over me as I realize he is alive. He’s shaking and sobbing but he’s alive.
“I’m sorry,” he sobs as I pull him against me.
“Are you hurt?” I check him over for wounds or blood or anything else. There is a gash on the side of his head, and his nose is bleeding, but I don’t see much else, thank God.
“I’m fine. I’m just so fucking sorry, sis.”
“Don’t be.” I hush him and pull him into me. “Everything is going to be okay.”
But as I look around the room, I’m not sure I believe my own words. Tristan and his guys are gone, but Baron and Ransome are hovering over Maverick who has been shot. Blood puddlesaround his motionless body as Baron performs CPR. Ransome shoves him out of the way at one point, taking over the compressions himself with rib-cracking force.
“I’m calling an ambulance,” Baron says, and Ransome nods once, continuing the compressions.
I stay huddled in the corner with my brother, watching Ransome as he does everything in his power to save his best friend’s life.
I don’t know how I got here.
I mean, I know that I got hired by Apex, by a man whose dominating stature and iron fist and carved jaw made me weak in the knees and fuzzy in the head. He was my boss and my crush. And, as I did things to please him in ways no other assistant ever could seem to perfect, it turned to more. Curiosity shifted to want. Want to need. Need to obsession.
It wasn’t smart. It wasn’t healthy. But it also wasn’t in my control.
How was I supposed to know he was part of the Bratva? How was I supposed to know that I would get caught up in it too? I was just trying to make money for my siblings, to get us away from our deadbeat, drunken dad and into a better place. Not even a fancy place, just somewhere better.
So how the fuck did I get here?
As minutes pass and EMTs show up, I’m trying to rationalize all of it from my end, but I’m struggling. Because no matter how I dice it, no matter how I justify it, I feel at fault. All of this is my fault. Gianni being threatened, the deal exploding into a dangerous war, Maverick’s blood on the floor…
It’s all on me.
Maverick is rushed from the scene and I wonder for a moment why no cops showed up, why no questions are being asked. But when one of the EMTs says a few words to Ransome and they nod to each other, it hits me.
Duh. They have men in the NYPD. They must have hospital connections too. People that don’t ask questions every time one of their guys gets sent to the ER with gunshot wounds.
After they leave, Gianni and I rush over to Ransome.
“Is he going to make it?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Ransome snaps.
“I’m sorry,” Gianni says. “I just wanted to talk cars and racing and?—”
“Just go home, kid,” Ransome barks out, and Gianni looks at me.
“I need a minute,” I tell him. “Wait for me outside?”
Gianni nods. “Okay.”
Once he leaves, we’re alone. Baron went with the ambulance. It’s just Ransome and I in this giant warehouse. The air smells like copper and gunpowder and I can hardly breathe. But it’s mostly from the anger rolling off Ransome.
I reach out to touch him and he jerks away. His eyes fall on me with enough weight to knock me over.
