I dropped to the ground, covering my head. A scream ripped from my lungs, but it was lost in the wild cacophony of noise. Terror engulfed me. There wasn’t even time to breathe! The very next second, the bullets stopped. The bike rumbled away.
Connor was there a moment later, pistol raised as he tried to aim through the fence.
“Ya hurt, cailín?” he barked.
The sound of his voice was muted through the ringing in my ears.
“No,” I croaked. The fact that I couldn’t breathe was panic-induced, not from an injury. My heart felt like it was going to explode right out of my chest.
“It’s okay. He’s gone now,” Connor huffed, holstering his weapon.
But it was not okay. As I struggled to sit up, the world spun in shades of crimson. The body on the ground was mangled, leaking bright fluid. The blood pooled over the planks, eagerly stretching out to water the earth.
I squeezed my eyes closed and prayed it wasn’t real. The saints had no mercy. My prayer fell flat, vanished in the warm summer breeze. The stupid construction worker was dead.
Chapter 29 – Liam
The cops crawled over the street. They swarmed the construction site, and I had to send most of the crew home. A whole bleeding day lost. The project was already behind schedule—because projects of this magnitude never ran how they were supposed to. But it was a day wasted because one of my guys, one who was part of the underworld life, was stupid enough to touch my wife.
If only necromancers existed, or I had the power of the saints, I would raise Billy’s corpse to kill him again. Slowly. Excruciatingly. Creatively. But the bastard took several bullets, and it was a quick lights-out for him.
Which raised the next question….
Who the fuck was shooting at my soldier in broad daylight?
Or were they shooting at Gabriella?
Thick, toxic tar bubbled in my chest. I’d heard the warnings. Dominico Grimaldi was convinced there was threat to me. I believed him, but now it was concrete.
Standing near my mobile office, I waited for the lead detective to wrap up. If it wasn’t for the top brass lawyer, these fuckerswere bold enough to suggest that my operations be shut down for a week.
Amanda held her ground, glaring down at the detective and his cronies even though they were all bigger than her. “Like I said, we’ll cooperate with the investigation. But work resumes tomorrow.”
“We can’t have anyone tampering with the crime scene,” Detective Hensley said.
“No one will be in that area. Post guards.” Amanda planted a hand on her hip, tablet dangling from the other. “You have ample space to work. Furthermore, you have the next eight hours. If you really want to sweep the area, I suggest you do it now.”
Hensley bristled. “Listen lady, you obviously don’t have much experience with criminal investigations—”
Amanda scoffed.
“But we don’t have unlimited resources. We have to wait until the forensic unit is available to come out here,” the detective insisted.
“And by then, the traffic on the streets will have contaminated the area. So, we have no reason not to continue working,” Amanda said with a smile.
Thatta girl.She’d flipped his argument onto itself.
My phone rang, and when I pulled it out, one letter from the bottom of the alphabet glared on the screen.
V.
Swiping the green button to the side, I held it to my ear. “She’s just fine; she wasn’t anywhere near the gunfight.”
Menace crackled through the phone. “Let me talk to her.”
Who was I to deny the vicious bastard? I stepped forward, extending the phone to my lawyer. Amanda shook herself, clearly coming back to reality from whatever legal high she was riding, looked at the phone, and excused herself.
“Calm him down,” I hissed, walking behind her and heading into the portable.
