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I scanned the kitchen until I found what I was looking for: the walk-in freezer. Every industrial kitchen has one. It was across the room, directly in the line of sight to the double doors. There were small circular windows at the top of both doors that allowed you to see into the kitchen.

Trusting that Sadie, Thierry, and Simone were more than capable of distracting Brent’s brothers, I pulled Derek to his feet and, shielding his body with mine, I whisked us to the freezer at top speed.

More gunfire erupted and one of the bullets went through the door, striking me in the back of my leg.

I sucked in a sharp breath as pain erupted at the point of the wound.

“Get inside!” I hissed, wrenching open the freezer door. “Stay put until I come for you.”

“Quinn—” Derek’s eyes went wide and he shook his head. “Not without you. You’re hurt!”

“I need to go help them,” I ground out. The back of my pant leg was soaked with my blood—I could feel it—but the bullet wound was already closing. “I’ll be fine. Derek, please.”

“Okay.” He swallowed hard and ducked inside the freezer, breathing hard, his gaze glued to mine. “I don’t like this.”

“Me either,” I said, closing the door so that it was only open a crack. “But please stay down. I don’t know how bulletproof the freezer is. And I wouldn’t survive losing you.”

He nodded, looking on the verge of tears. “I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

With that, I closed the door. In the same moment, my body fully closed the wound, shoving the bullet out. It fell down my pant leg and clattered to the floor, covered in dark blood.

Gritting my teeth, I stayed low—getting shot with a regular bullet wouldn’t be fatal, but it would still hurt like hell and possibly incapacitate me. Something I couldn’t afford, given that Derek’s life was on the line.

I burst into the dining room, staying low, and immediately ducked behind the register.

Gunfire erupted directly overhead and I heard wood splinter.

Chancing it, I peeked out from the side of the register and took in the scene: the dining room was in shambles. There weren’t just two mafia hitmen, but a half dozen of them, all standing back to back, their guns raised. Two more were on the floor, neither of them moving.

Several of the tables had been blown apart by gunfire.

“Stop hiding!” one of the mafia thugs yelled. “This can be easy or it can be hard! Your call.”

“I vote easy,” Thierry said, stepping out from behind the overturned family table in the corner.

All of the conscious mafia hitmen aimed at him and opened fire.

Thierry moved, racing around the room—barely outrunning the gunfire—which meant he was going far slower than he was capable of.

Because he was a diversion.

As I watched, Sadie crept out of her hiding place behind another overturned table and savagely backhanded the nearest hitman while he was looking the other way.

He went down.

The remaining five, distracted, turned to see what she was doing. She seized the next nearest attacker and he let out a decidedly unmanly scream.

“Oh, stop it!” she hissed, her fangs out. “You’ll live.” Then she backhanded him as well and, when he went down, she added, almost as an afterthought, “You may need cosmetic surgery though.”

Two of the mafia men raised their guns in her direction and she backflipped out of the way with the grace of an Olympic gymnast on performance-enhancing drugs.

In the same moment, Thierry and Simone—who dropped down from the ceiling, where she’d wedged herself—converged on the others.

The mafia men screamed again, and I let out a sigh of relief. It had to be over, right?

Then I smelled it.