He pushed his gun harder against Lily’s head, rage written all over him. “No, all this for my sister whose son I presume you killed. I might not have liked the boy, but after his death, she spiralled into depression and addiction, and
killed herself. I lived through those five years of her hell, and I’ve lived through the rest of these years in my own hell. And that was all on you and your fucking club. I just never knew who to blame until Ryland brought me the information.”
I assessed the situation. I had six men at my back, ready to defend me. I could lunge at D’Amato and hope like hell he shot me rather than Lily, at which time my men could save her. My concern was he’d shoot her and take whatever consequences that meant for him. His only goal here was to see me suffer, and killing her was his ticket to that.
I decided to keep him talking while my brain ran through other possible scenarios.
“I didn’t kill the baby, but I did deal with your nephew. He was a fool who couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. When the club whore turned up with the child and dumped it with him, he panicked about his girlfriend finding out, and killed the whore. It was a clusterfuck for my club, because she had family connections we didn’t need to be dealing with if they found out. I only went to your nephew to give him a piece of my fucking mind, but he lost his shit and ended up dead in the process.”
“Where’s the fucking child now?”
“That was the thing in all of this that threw us—Moses disappeared. Someone took him from his cot. We never worked out who, and we never found him.” It was the truth, but I was hoping it rattled him to the point of stepping away from Lily and coming to me.
It didn’t.
Instead, he yanked her up off the couch, pushed her in front of him, and put the gun to her head again. Fear flashed in her eyes, but she showed no other emotion. No tears. No muffled cries or screams. My woman stood fucking tall and took what he did to her without anything but that flicker of fear as she watched me.
“Maybe I won’t kill her, King. Maybe she’ll simply disappear. I’ll take her with me and you’ll never see her again. Never find her.” His voice dropped to a menacing evil tone. “You’ll never fucking know what filthy things I’ve done to her.” He shifted the gun from her head to run it slowly over her body. “She looks like a fun plaything, and the more I think about this, the more I like the idea.”
I gritted my teeth.
No fucking way was he walking out of here with her.
That would happen over my dead fucking body.
I found her eyes again, silently begging her to stay strong, but she didn’t need my encouragement. Lily was fucking strong, and she wasn’t showing an ounce of fear now. That had disappeared from her eyes. The only thing I saw there now was determination.
D’Amato continued talking, but Lily drew my attention from his voice when her eyes widened and she started shifting her eyes to the side and back, over and over. Like she was trying to give me some kind of signal. Problem was, I had no idea what the fuck she meant. I glanced to the right in the direction she kept moving her eyes, but the only thing there was the couch and above that, the mezzanine level, so that couldn’t be what she was trying to get across to me.
“Are you listening to me, King?” D’Amato barked. At the same time, he threw his arms up in the air, showing his frustration.
Lily took her moment. She turned to her right, spinning around to face D’Amato, and pushed him hard as best she could with bound hands. He stumbled back, but he didn’t fall. I rushed at them, trying like fuck to get Lily away from him. While I did that, Hyde bellowed, “To the right!” and the sound of gunfire filled my home.
I had no idea what was happening behind me; my only focus was Lily. Unable to get my aim on D’Amato without the likelihood of hitting Lily, I lunged for him rather than shooting him. Lily was in the fucking way, so she went down with us. Our guns went flying, but I didn’t need a fucking weapon. I would kill this motherfucker with my bare fucking hands.
Fists flew and legs kicked while D’Amato and I fought like hell to kill each other. Thank fuck Lily got out of harm’s way. I couldn’t see her, but I knew she wasn’t anywhere near him. I managed to get my hands around his neck, and I reefed him up to a standing position, his back to my chest. However, he then used all his force to ram me backwards against the brick wall, winding the fuck out of me. The loud crack of my head as it hit the wall filled my ears and slowed me down as pain radiated through my skull. It only slowed me for a moment, but it was enough for D’Amato to gain the upper hand.
Turning quickly, he faced me and wrapped both hands around my neck. Squeezing the fucking life out of me, he snarled, “Change of plans, I’ll kill you first, and then your little plaything.”
My gaze focused behind him, taking in what was happening there. D’Amato had brought his own men with him, and they had engaged my men in battle. If I was to save my life and Lily’s, I had to fucking do it now before he choked me, because I had no backup to rely on.
And then Lily’s voice cut through the battle sounds. “Change of plans, motherfucker. I’ll kill you, and then my man will kill yours.” My eyes landed on her as she put my gun to D’Amato’s head and pulled the trigger.
I wasted no time pushing him out of the way, ignoring the blood and shit that splattered over me as she shot him. Ripping the gun from her, I headed into the fucking fray and lost my fucking shit, shooting at every last fucking cunt who’d threatened my woman’s and my men’s lives.
A fucking hurricane of fury raged out of me as I took down anyone who came at me. That he had put Lily through this drew my demons to the surface. They wanted to dance, and I welcomed that with open fucking arms. So we fucking danced. And when we were done, the place was a mess of dead bodies and blood splatter that fucking sang to me. It was like a goddam orchestra of death and destruction playing in my head, dragging me closer and closer to the edge of no return where the music played twenty-four-fucking-seven.
I’d fought against following that music my whole life.
Had kept my distance.
But it fucking called today.
When my woman almost died because of me, it fucking called.
As the last man standing took my bullet, I looked for her.
I needed to touch her.