Lydia doesn't argue. She doesn't freeze. She gives me a nod, drops to one knee behind the front tire of Nico's car, holds out her arms, and her voice cuts through the chaos with a clarity that mine couldn't manage.
"Anthony! Sweetheart, come here! It's Aunt Lydia!"
Anthony's head whips toward her. Recognition blooms across his tear-streaked face like sunrise through storm clouds, and he runs for Lydia with everything his small body has.
One of Don Leo's remaining men suddenly stands and raises his weapon: "Kill the boy!"
Oh no, you fucking don’t!
I rise from cover, fully exposed and standing in the open street with bullets kissing the air around me like angry wasps, and squeeze the trigger twice. Each shot finds a man, who chose the wrong fucking side today—and they collapse in a heap.
Something slams into my left side and the impact spins me half a step before the pain comes—white-hot, blinding, radiating outward from a point just below my ribs that is suddenly very, very wet.
I've been shot.
But that doesn’t fucking matter, because I’ve bought Anthony enough time to reach Lydia. She pulls him behind the car, wraps her body around his, and he buries his face in her shoulder, sobbing.
That’s one loose end.
Suddenly, the car’s other rear door flies open wider and Bella comes tumbling out, her hair a wild dark tangle around her face.For one bright, involuntary second, pride pushes aside the terror in my chest.
She fought her way out. Shegot herself free.
Then she falls.
Her knees buckle on the pavement, and before she can push herself up, Don Leo's body flops out of the car after her. He moves like something dredged from the ocean floor as he wraps his fat fingers around her ankle with a grip that looks obscene even from here.
One of his eyes is a ruined, oozing socket and there's a gash across his face that's painting his collar red.
He should be done. He should be down. But fate has a funny way of keeping monsters like him moving long after their bodies have quit.
I aim at him and pull the trigger.
Click.
Empty.
I reach down for a spare magazine but find none. I stare at the gun in my hand for a second and then throw it. It clatters across the pavement, useless, and I do the only thing left to do.
I run.
"Nico!Cover me!"
I don't wait for his answer as I sprint, shoes pounding asphalt while the world narrows to a tunnel with Bella at its end. She’s on the ground, her legs kicking out helplessly around Don Leowhile his fat fingers close around her throat as he roars at her face.
Pain spears my side from the bullet wound, but I don't stop.
Ican'tstop. I will not be too late to save the woman I love again.
When I reach them, I tackle Don Leo at full speed.
The tackle takes us both off Bella and onto the street, and I land on top of him with my knees on either side of his bloated torso. He's bigger up close, and his remaining eye rolls up at me, piggish and bloodshot and full of hatred so old that it's calcified into something that doesn't even look human anymore.
I hit him.
I hit him with everything I have. My right fist connects with his jaw and I feel his bone cracking under my knuckles. I hit him again, and again, and feel warm blood spraying from his face with each vicious blow while bullets continue to crack in the air.
His nose breaks.His cheekbone caves.
