“Just don’t let them get killed!” Carmine hisses. I watch as my brother dives to the floor between the guards and Matteo and grabs one of the guns on the floor.
He shoots upward at Matteo who is just looking down and hits him square in the face.
Blood is everywhere in the living room. Not a single thing is safe from the spatter of crimson.
I look up just in time to see Nikolas grabbed by Lucas, and a gun pointed to his head. “No!” I shout. It’s too late. Lucas shoots Nikolas straight through his head, and his blood covers his Armani suit in a stain that likely will never come out of the new fabric.
My heart stops in my chest; but my voice isn’t the loudest.
Beau screams in anger and rushes Lucas from behind.
Everything is a blurry mess as the bullet wound to my leg starts to pour blood all over the rug. The pain nearly brings me to my knees as the numbness of surprise starts to wear off. I’ve been shot before, but after the beating I took just last night, I’m not doing my best.
“Tommy!” I hear his voice.
Aleksandr.
“Alek, no,” I mumble as I start to sink toward the ground as another bullet grazes my shoulder. I feel hands on my shoulders and arms, and at first, I think it’s my brothers helping me up to keep fighting, but the hands pull me toward the exit of the living room.
“Let go of him!” Alek growls, but it’s too late. There are too many people shooting in the small room, too much bloodshed, too much adrenalin.
Before Alek can get to me, I’m being dragged out of the front door by two people who must have snuck in in the middle of the gun fire.
The door slams closed and I hear gunfire muffled behind it, just before something sharp is stabbed into my neck, and everything goes dark.
18
ALEK
Ilet them get away. I can’t believe I let those bastards get away with Tommaso. The entire scene is so chaotic around me. Guns going off in every direction. It is hard to tell who is shooting who, and even though I push Cassian out of my way, I don’t make it outside in time.
The car is speeding away before I can even get the door open.
“Motherfucker!” I whirl back around on my heels and stomp inside with all the fury rising up in my chest.
“They got him!” I shout into the small crowd of bleeding and injured.
I pull out my gun and like a heat-seeking missile, I aim for the final guard standing. Although several of us are shooting at him at the same time, I’m positive it’s my bullet that strikes him in the back and exits from the front of his chest, ending his life.
His body falls to the ground, and we’re all left standing here panting for breath, covered in blood and sweat.
“Where’s Tommy?” Carmine asks, rushing over to me.
“Two of Bianchi’s men snuck in during the fight and grabbed him! If I can get to my car now, I might be able to catch up with them,” I insist.
Carmine’s eyes flare with anger. “Fuck! We should have been more careful.”
I growl in irritation. “No, you should have never let the Carvels come in here in the first place. Much less with their guns, for fucks sake. What the hell were you thinking?” I ask him.
The tension in the air is almost as thick as the humidity.
“Nikolas is dead because of you!” Beau yells at him, forcing himself between us and right up in Carmine’s face. “You never should have trusted them!”
Carmine’s jaw tightens. “Everyone, pull yourself together. We need to make a plan, and we need to make one now. We don’t have time to argue.”
“We have to get Tommaso back before they kill him,” Cassian says quickly and shoves his gun into his holster. “Where would they have taken him?”
“I know exactly where they will take him,” I say. “Stephan is overconfident and likely thinks he’s already won now. They will take him back to their estate, I know it.”
