“Move.” Her voice is ice, calm as a marksman as she eyes me, then Sean.
I snap my head left, and the rebar scrapes my jaw as he swings. She fires twice. The first round takes Sean’s wrist, and the second digs into his ribs. He goes down on a yell that echoes off the iron. The rebar skitters away, landing a few feet from Sean’s crumpled form.
I release a breath, my entire body battered and bruised.
“Papà!”
I turn around to find Livia sprinting toward me, arms outstretched. She’s within inches of my grasp when somethinghard whacks me across the back of the head. Stars consume my vision, and a sharp cry vibrates across my skull.
I hit the ground and somehow Sean crawls to his knees and lunges for her. For my Livia.
He’s blood slick but the stubborn bastard just won’t die. Livia squeals and tries to run, but he snags the hood of her sweatshirt. The fabric stretches. He drags her across the gravel, arm shaking, and eyes bright with the kind of devotion that kills.
“Let her go,” Cat hisses. She lifts the gun again. The muzzle wavers once, steadies, then wavers again as Livia squirms in his arms.
The scene swims, my vision going in and out. Thatbastardogave me a fucking concussion with that rebar.
“Or what,” he spits, dragging Livia close and clamping her under his uninjured arm. “You will shoot through the child you lied to protect. You lot are all the same.”
“Don’t take this out on her,” she tries again, buying me a breath, buying me a chance. “Why not kill me? I’m the one who failed Eoin. Why take a little girl?”
“Because,” he snarls. “Eoin was the only one who saw me. Now every room you walk into will have your lover’s absence or worse… your daughter’s. That is the kind of hurt that lasts.”
The lake slaps the stone like it agrees.
I crawl to my hands and knees, head spinning, as he continues to chatter on and on about how great his half-brother was. He tracks Cat’s bitter laughter and not my shadow as I slip behind another mountain of rocks, then crawl toward the excavator he’s leaning against. He shifts his grip to reach for the gun he dropped earlier. Before his fingers brush the metal, I lunge. I go for the only thing that matters.
Not his wrist. Not the weapon. I rip Livia out of the crook of his arm with both hands and my whole soul. It’s not a graceful motion. It’s not clean, but it’s enough. She leaves his grasp with acry. I spin, put my back to him, and curl my body around her like a shell. The shot goes off, ripping into my shoulder but Cat steps in, gun up, eyes like steel and gives him a kindness he didn’t deserve.
Her bullet takes him under the eye. Sean drops like the quarry itself let go.
The yard finally goes silent.
I turn and kneel in the gravel because my legs have had enough pretending. Livia is clutched to my chest, face buried in my neck, breaths coming fast and hot. I can’t tell if she is crying or if that sound is me.
“It’s over,” I whisper, andDio, I want it to be true. “I’ve got you,piccola. I’ve got you and I’m never letting go.”
Cat staggers. I stand too fast and catch her with the arm that still works. She is white around the mouth, streaked with blood, and still beautiful beyond rescue. We lean into each other until the shaking stops.
Sirens lick the edge of our hearing. Shit, that better be Ale’s team. The local police cannot see this yard with us inside it. Not with the body and fresh gunfire and a van drowning in the lake. I make a quick call.
Ale answers on the first ring. “Did you get her back?”
I hold Livia tight against my bloodied shirt. “Yeah, cuz, I got her.” A stupid smile breaks through despite the pain. “Please tell me it’s your guys coming into the quarry?”
“Of course they are, Matty. Would I ever let you down?”
“Grazie, truly, Ale.”
I hang up, slide the phone into my pocket, and Cat touches my cheek. “How badly are you hurt?”
“Only where it counts,” I mutter, and the line breaks something in both of us, a laugh that wants to be a sob. “Can you walk?”
“Yes.” She squeezes my hand once, fierce.
Livia lifts her head, cheeks splotchy from crying. “Mammy,” she whispers, small but still brave. “Can we go home now?”
“We can.” Her voice is somehow steady because our daughter needs it that way. “We’re going home.”
