53
SLAVA
I'mout of the car before the engine dies.
The world is all muzzle flash and screaming tires and the wet crunch of metal where Nico's SUV slammed into the rear quarter panel of Don Leo's car hard enough to spin it sideways across two lanes. Glass spills everywhere. The car’s back end is caved in like a crushed beer can.
Somewhere inside that wreckage is the only person in New York City who matters to me right now.
My gun is already up and my hands are steady. The thing about terror is that when it gets bad enough and crosses the threshold of what a human body was built to process, it stops being fear and becomes something steadying.
Don Leo's driver sees me first, and he reaches for his own gun when I fire two quick rounds at him. The first round cracks the bullet-resistant glass, and the second round shatters it.
His head snaps back and he slumps against the steering wheel. The horn blares in a long, sustained note.
Where are you, you fat bastard.
Gunfire erupts from the other side of the car. Two of Don Leo's men have stepped out of another car and they’re firing from behind their car doors. Another car has come to a stop, and more men are pouring out.
I drop behind the open door of my own vehicle as rounds punch into the metal six inches from my head.
Think. Plan. Act.
My breath comes in measured pulls. In. Out. The way I’d been taught since I was a child.
"Standdown!" Nico has stepped out of his car, gun raised, and he's shouting at his father’s men. "That's an order! Stand the fuck down!"
One of the guards—a thick-necked man with a face like a catcher's mitt—spits on the ground and fires another burst in my direction. "We're the Don's men, and you're not the fucking Don!"
So much for diplomacy.
I lean out and return fire. Two well placed shots and the thick-necked man drops like his strings got cut. The second man scrambles for new cover, and now Nico starts firing as well. The rest of the D’Ambrosio men look on with incredulity as their own prince is shooting at them.
And then, gunfire starts hitting both our positions.
I crouch down again, but not before I see one of the rear doors on Don Leo’s car flying open.
A small body jumps out, low and fast. Dark hair and skinny legs. He hits the pavement in a graceless sprawl before he runs aimlessly with his head down, unsure of just where he can go to be safe.
Anthony.
I lean out of my door again and I feel my heart falling into my stomach. Two people are struggling in the back seat of the car.
He’s going to rape her before he kills her.
My entire body is screaming at me to run to her and save her from Don Leo. Every cell in my body is oriented in her direction like iron is drawn towards a magnet.
But my eyes look towards Anthony, and I know that if I save her at the cost of Anthony being killed, she’ll never forgive either me or herself. And whatever love we've clawed our way toward through betrayal and punishment will turn to ash that she’ll never wash out of her mouth.
I know what I have to do.
"Anthony!" I bellow. "Anthony, come here!Now!"
The boy freezes mid-stride and looks at me with wide eyes. But dammit, he doesn't move. And why would he? I’m just a stranger that he doesn’t know, and I have a gun in my hand. Everything about me probably looks like more of what he's running from.
Fuck.
“Nico! Lydia!” I shout towards their car as bullets ping off the frame and Nico exchanges fire with his father’s men. "Get the boy! Get him to come to you—he doesn't know me. Get himnow!"
