Kian
“How many?” I bellow, ducking behind the gate as another bullet narrowly misses me.
“Not many,” Donovan calls back, from the opposite side of the gate. He darts out long enough to fire off two rounds and then retreats back behind his cover again. “Three, four max.”
“Ebanashka,” I curse under my breath in Russian. It’s one that Phoenix taught me—fucking fools. Really rolls off the tongue nicely.
“Rokiades, you think?” Donovan asks.
I don’t answer because I’m too busy shooting, but I know Rokiades isn’t behind this attack. For one, it’s too poorly planned. For another, the men in question are lousy shots. They seem to be banking everything on overwhelming us with the amount of ammunition they’ve got in their assault weapons.
I move out from behind the gate and meet them in the open space between the vehicles.
I catch one guy peeking out at me. It takes me only a millisecond to aim. My bullet hits him in the shoulder and he spirals to the ground with a scream that has me rolling my eyes.
Honestly, if you can’t take the fucking heat, then stay out of the kitchen.
My men follow me out. It takes another three minutes and four more bullets to put an end to the fighting. When they’re dead, the silence takes over again.
“Did we get any alive?” I ask.
“Doesn’t look like it. Sorry, boss,” Donovan comments, kicking over one guy who was shot right in the chest. His dark brown eyes stare unseeing at the sky above. “All kaput.”
I glance at their faces. “Italians,” I say, confirming my suspicion. I turn to the other O’Sullivan men at my flanks. “Rhodes, O’Malley—stay here and deal with the bodies. Donovan, you’re with me.”
With a curt nod, the men get to work. Donovan jumps into the driver’s seat and I climb in next to him. I pull up my phone and open up the app that links me to Renata’s tracker. It takes a second for the feed to load up again, but that one second has my chest constricting painfully.
“Take a left here,” I say urgently. “She’s nine minutes away. On Finch.”
We squeal out. I keep my eyes locked on the screen. Two minutes later, I realize she’s not moving. She seems to be standing in the same position. I can’t tell if that’s a good sign or a bad one.
I can’t help thinking one thing again and again: Dead bodies don’t move, do they?
Only when we round the corner of Finch do I understand why she’s been stationary for so long.
She’s so embroiled in the fight she’s having with the large man in front of her that she doesn’t notice our vehicle approach.
Thankfully, neither does he.
He grabs her hand. Possessive anger twists in my gut at the sight. Donovan comes to a stop a few feet away just as the asshole pushes her to the ground and points the gun at her head.
I don’t bother pulling out my own gun. I’m already out of the car and moving. The momentum carries me into the bastard, elbow careening into the back of his head.
THUMP. He keels forward with a surprised grunt. Before we even hit the ground, I’m snatching the gun from his limp fingers and springing to my feet. By the time he looks up again, I’m pointing his own weapon at him.
“Cheers, motherfucker,” I say, staring the illusive Drago Lombardi in the eyes.
At first, all I can see on his face is shock.
But panic quickly takes its place. While I wait for him to process, I turn to Renata, who’s still lying on the sidewalk opposite her brother. I offer her my hand, but she refuses it and gets to her feet on her own.
Drago, pathetic fuck that he is, refuses to be smart and just stay down. He struggles to his feet and is knocked backwards immediately by Donovan.
This asshole really can’t take a hint.
“Don’t you touch her,” Drago growls as he struggles to right himself again. I might have actually mistaken that for concern—that is, until he goes and says the next idiotic thing. “She is my fucking property.”
I glance at Renata. She’s not too happy about his claim, either. But she doesn’t say anything. In fact, I can tell she’s trying very deliberately not to say a thing.