"I could have lost you," I said, tucking my chin against the top of her head as she tried to burrow into my chest. "I'm pissed because I would burn the entire world down to keep you safe, but I can't protect you from your own choices."
"I know," she sighed. "I'm sorry. I know it was a stupid reflex, but I’d just watched everything I've spent my entire adult life building burn to the ground. It was traumatic, and I got lost in the shock of it. We know I hate feeling out of control. Choices being stripped away from me puts me in a bad place."
"You have to know that I'll make it right, Sadie. This location is part of it, but we're going to rebuild the old location too. You lost the gym because of me, so I'll give it back to you," I murmured, grabbing her face and turning her attention to me.
"I don't want—"
"I don't care. I've told you where I stand, so all that's left is for you to decide what you want," I said. "If it's the same as what I want, then things like yours and mine won't exist once we're married. I have more than enough money to make this gym everything you want it to be, but it will be done with you as the owner of this location. Not your father." Her wide eyes stared up at me. "I'll try to respect your choice if you would be more comfortable making monthly payments or something along those lines, but it would be silly in the long run when we could own it outright."
"We?" she asked, turning shocked honey eyes to the surrounding space.
"We," I confirmed. "I won't have anything to do with running it aside from managing the security, but I'll be here to help with whatever you need, Baby Girl. I have entire business teams at my disposal through Matteo."
"I don't—" She paused, looking at me softly. "I don't want to tell you how I feel right now. I don't want it to be twisted up in this gym and for there to be any reason for you to think my feelings are because of you wanting to give me this."
I sighed in relief, smiling down at her. She might not have said the words exactly, but the sentiment rang like the sound of a hammer against a gong, anyway. "We have all the time in the world," I said. "But I'll make you say it sooner than later."
She laughed and my heart swelled with the sound as it echoed around the space. That I could make her smile despite her world burning down around her, that was the truth of the love pounding between us.
"You're more important to me than this gym. I would be with you even if I had to choose," she said, still dancing around the words. I suspected Sadie, like me, didn't say them easily.
It made them that much more worth hearing.
"So it's a yes on the location then?" I asked, smirking at her.
"Of course, it's a yes. How could I say no to this place? The wood beams and the metalwork in the bones of the building? It's perfect."
"Good," I said, leaning down to kiss her gently. Adoringly.
Taking her hand in mine and squeezing tight, I led her down the stairs and to the front door. The smile on my face echoed in hers as we made our way through the open door. Rebel hesitated for a moment before stepping over the threshold.
The realtor smiled at me, reading the unmistakable language in our faces as we emerged. "I take it you like it?" he asked. Rebel barked, the sound trailing into a growl.
"We'll—" I cut off, shock registering for a split second when his face burst into a splash of blood and his body crumpled to the ground.
33
Sadie
Enzo moved so quickly I didn't even have time to process what happened. "Inside!" he yelled, tucking me under his arm and going in the opposite direction of the car as more gunfire cracked through the air.
Shuffling into the door as he pulled his Glock out and heaved the heavy metal door closed, I looked at him with terror in my eyes. Rebel stood guard at my feet, growling at the closed door. "Go to the back," he urged me forward, pulling out his cell and frantically dialing. He relayed the address to whoever answered. "Taking fire, I have Sadie with me. One known gunman in the front, David is down. Making for the rear entrance and the woods," he said, ending the call and shoving the phone back into his pocket.
"When we get out, you're going to run and not look back. Do not stop no matter what you hear. I'm going to cover you, and I'll be right behind you, Baby Girl," he said.
Horror filled me, the thought of him sacrificing himself for me to get away, and my head filled with images of his blood leaking into the dirt. "I'm not going to leave you!" I yelled, fighting against his stern hand that pushed me forward.
"Yes, you fucking are. It is my job to protect you. You're going to get to the woods and find a place to hide. Take Rebel with you. Seb will mobilize the men and they'll be here as soon as they can."
"Then we should wait in here!" I protested. "We can hide in the loft and wait for them to come."
Enzo shifted, dropping his head and touching his forehead to mine as he sighed. "They lit your gym on fire, Sadie," he said as bullets shattered the glass at the front of the building. "What do you think they'll do knowing we're in here?"
"Enzo, no. Don't ask me to leave you, please," I begged, tears blurring my vision as he resumed pushing me to the back door.
"Go!" he said quietly, leaving me no choice but to move as his hands guided me along the alley. The back door loomed next to the stairs at the back as I frantically tried to find another way. Another option as Enzo kept glancing over his shoulder for whoever had come in the front window.
With the back door only feet in front of me, there was no time to think of an alternative, but I knew I'd never be able to leave him.
It turned out it wouldn't matter when the choice was taken away from me.
The back door blew open as a different man filled the doorway, his rifle pointed at Enzo as he moved to shove me behind him. "Tiernan sends his regards," the man said. Enzo never aimed his handgun. Never even made to do it as all his focus went to getting me shielded.
Slapping his hand away, I twisted my body to the front of his, curling around him as his face filled with panic. "No!" he yelled, finally raising his gun when he realized he wouldn't be able to spin me out of the way in time when the bang of the gun shattered the silence.
Everything slowed, waiting for the end with eyes clenched shut and breathing Enzo in. Relishing the contact between us and knowing that no matter what, at least I wasn't alone.
But he didn't know I loved him.
Pain exploded in my shoulder, my world narrowing down to the blinding heat searing me from the inside. "Fuck!" I screamed as Enzo's hand curled around the back of my neck and twisted me out of the way. His gun fired and then he grabbed me under the knees and scooped me into his arms. Racing over to a metal table they'd left behind at the back of the ground floor, he moved with frenzied and hasty bursts of energy. Kicking over the table, he set me down behind it, turning me to inspect the wound.
"What the fuck were you thinking?" he asked, his voice a menacing whisper as the dangerous beast came out to play. He made no effort to shove it back down, glancing around the table and listening for more people.
"I was thinking your stubborn ass was determined to die. I wasn't feeling that idea, though if you keep poking at it, I might change my fucking mind," I whisper-hissed.
"Get your gun out and you fucking stay here. Do you understand me? If I catch you wandering around thinking you're enough of a badass to survive bullets, I'll kill you myself, Sadie," he ordered, pulling a knife from a holster in his boot while I fumbled through my tote for my gun. "Keep your head down and only shoot when absolutely necessary. Don’t let them know where you are if you can avoid it." He darted off, bending low to sneak through the mostly open space as Rebel hurried after him.
"No shit," I mumbled after him, ducking down and keeping my back to the table. My skin felt slick with sweat and blood. With the adrenaline pumping through me, it kept the pain manageable. If what I had in that moment was manageable, I'd need some serious pain killers and an entire bottle of whiskey when the adrenaline went away.
If I lived that long.
; Gunshots sounded in the space, and it took everything in me not to peek out. Not to glance to see if Enzo was safe. A man's pained shout confirmed someone was killing them, and that filled me with a moment of hope. Glocks only held seventeen rounds, and without knowing how many men had come to kill us or who fired when, there was no way to guess what happened.
The sound of footsteps drew closer as I clutched the gun to my chest. With my heart pounding in my chest, I pressed my back into the table and waited.
I counted to five as I peered out the corner of my eye.
A black boot came into sight, a denim clad leg followed soon after. The man walked into view with a gun clutched tightly in his hand. Staring down at me with a menacing smile, and I hesitated to fire.
I’d seen a body. I’d never been the one to make it dead.
His hand grabbed me by the hair, yanking me to my feet as I yelped. The pain in my shoulder and scalp drew me out of my hesitation, my good arm lifting to drive the gun I’d managed to keep hold of under his chin.
I pulled the trigger.
Wet exploded across the side of my face as the bang reverberated in my eardrum. The hand released my hair as the man fell to the floor. I didn’t dare look down at him and see what I had done. Chest heaving, I stepped away and looked for a new place to hide. The stairs next to me beckoned, but I hesitated to put that kind of distance between Enzo and I.
Rebel growled somewhere nearby, a reassurance that at least she was alive as she made her way through the warehouse. I made my way to the stairs, not seeing a place to hide that didn’t have a body next to it as a dead giveaway.
The figure that stepped in the open back door chilled me to my core as pale grey eyes met mine and a cruel smirk twisted his face. He tilted his head to the side, studying me as I raised my gun and fired at him.
I fucking missed. Wasting no time, I turned and darted up the steps when he growled at me. I threw myself into the office where random office furniture gave me a place to hide. Folding myself into the small space under a desk, I hugged my knees to my chest and willed my breathing to quiet down.
“Where are you, Pretty Girl?” Sean called. “Nobody likes a cock tease.” I stayed in my spot, listening as he stepped into the office. Plastic rustled near the doorway, his steps slow and measured as he made his way through the room. “You look so pretty in red. I think I’ll bathe you in Enzo’s blood after I cut off his head and send it to Matteo.” He chuckled, as if his horrific threat amused him greatly. “I haven’t decided if this is before or after I fuck you on his corpse.”
Holding the gun out in front of me, I watched and waited for him to come into sight. Keeping myself silent despite the urge to scream.
The need to see Enzo alive and know that we’d both walk away in one piece hovered at the edge of my consciousness, but I shoved it down. And when Sean walked in front of the desk, I pulled the trigger and shot him just above the knee.
“Fucking cunt!” he roared, clutching at his leg and hopping. Catching me by the wrist, he yanked me out from under the desk and threw me to my stomach on the filthy floor. Dust kicked up around me as I spun to my back, moving to raise the gun and fire.
But his boot stomped down on my wrist, pressing down so hard I felt the bones grind together. I winced, my grip on the gun loosening despite my best efforts. His grey eyes were victorious as he shifted his booted foot from side to side. A strangled whimper broke free from my lips, staring at the face of the man who would be my downfall.
There was no doubt he’d kill me because I sure as fuck wasn’t leaving with him. Over my dead body would he ever touch me.
He shouted in pain suddenly, his foot leaving my arm, and I tightened my grip again through the agonizing pain of what I suspected were broken bones. Rebel growled as she shook his leg viciously.
There was zero hesitation in me when I watched him raise his gun to point at my girl. I aimed mine and fired a single shot into his face. It exploded, and I only barely rolled out of the way as he collapsed to the floor where I’d laid only a moment before.
Rebel padded over to me, nudging my side as I trembled on the floor. Pushing to my feet, I fought back the tears from the pain. The gun was heavy in my right hand, pulling at my wrist as I cradled it to my chest. My left shoulder throbbed with the sharp pain of a bullet lodged in it. “Where’s Enzo, baby” I asked, rubbing a shaky hand over her back and wincing in pain. My hand came away red, her fur so slick with blood that she was damn near unrecognizable.
My little monster. Who’d saved my life again.
She walked to the doorway, looking back at me as if she needed to ask if I was coming. I paused, considering if it would be safe to go back downstairs, but the only sound that I could hear when I made it to the doorway was the eerie quiet that came after a massacre.
The stillness to the air and the metallic scent of blood drew me out until I peeked down the stairs to the main floor. The vague shapes of bodies littered the floor in my line of sight. The one I’d shot bled from the hole on the underside of his face. Near him another bled from a wound in the neck similar to what Rebel had done. But the laceration was straighter where hers had been jagged and torn.
Swallowing, I tucked myself against the wall and out of sight.
"Shit," I swore, my lungs heaving as brakes squealed outside. Hoping against hope that reinforcements had arrived for us and not the other way around.
"Sadie?" Ryker asked, his voice drawing a sigh of relief from me as his boots thumped along the floor. Peeking down the stairs, I hurried out from my hiding place, keeping my head low and trying not to look at the bodies. "I've got her," Ryker called, stepping over to me with a glance around the space and down to Rebel who clung to my side.
"Where's Enzo?" he asked when he helped me stand.
"Killing people, I suspect," I whispered, staring up at his vivid blue eyes as the meatball stared down at me.
"I'm jealous," he admitted with another look around. "Looks like he's got quite the massacre going for himself."
I swallowed as my eyes landed on Enzo's form at the other end of the alley between the lofts. His chest heaved as his mouth twisted into an animalistic snarl. He held a man in his arms, controlling his struggling as he raised his knife and dragged the blade across his throat.
"Definitely jealous," Ryker murmured. More brakes squealed, an SUV filled with armed men pouring into the back door of the warehouse. "I've got Sadie. Go clear the rest of the building," Ryker ordered. Seb nodded, motioning two of the men up the stairs and taking the other two with him to check the ground floor. Ryker took the gun from my hand, easing the burden of its weight. A sigh of relief slid free, cradling my hand to my chest.
Matteo and Simon emerged through the front door. The man from Indulgence who wanted to brand Vanessa trailed at their heels, lacking a gun like the other two clutched in their hands. "Don't look at him too long," Ryker warned, leaning his hatchet against his leg as he spun me to inspect the bullet wound in the back of my shoulder. "Rafe's psychotic, and that's coming from me." His eyes went to my wrist where it was already turning purple, his jaw clenching.
"Seems that way," I said, watching as a man stepped out from the shadows. Seeming to mistake Rafe for the weak link because of his lack of a gun, he lunged for him. Rafe dodged, grabbing the man's head between his hands and twisting so quickly that the snap of his neck echoed up the alley as he fell to the floor.
Rafe glanced at the body for a moment, his lip curling in distaste before he stepped over the body carefully and straightened his tie. "Who is he?" I asked Ryker.
"A friend of Matteo's from Spain," he answered as choruses of "clear" rang through the space from in the loft.
"We're clear down here," Seb said, moving to Enzo at the front of the building.
Ryker put a hand to the middle of my back gently, guiding me up the alleyway where Enzo waited. He didn't move to close the distance between us, his face still twisted with his fury until we reached him. "I told you we should wait," I
said stupidly with a smile, sidestepping the bloody puddle around the dude with the Cheshire grin on his neck. Enzo didn’t react, staring down at the body by his feet.
I reached out a hand to touch his chest, his free hand grabbing my bruised wrist in a crushing grip that made me cry out. Ryker twitched, stepping forward, but Matteo held him back with a warning hand to his chest. “Enzo,” I whispered, my voice laced with pain as his fingers tightened. “Lorenzo, it’s me.” I curled my fingers into his chest, digging in as much as I could through the pain. His features relaxed slowly as he stared at me, his body going slack as I pressed myself into him for comfort.
To calm him and draw him back from the brink where he'd gone in his murderous rage. His arms closed around me, his breath coming slowly until his heart pulsed in time with mine instead of a rapid race to the finish line of life. "Don't you ever do something like that again. That's twice in two days that you put yourself in danger stupidly, Carina."
Looking up at him, I winced in pain as the muscles in my shoulder shifted to accommodate the new angle. "I regret trying to run toward the fire, but I will never regret taking a bullet for you," I whispered. "I love you, Lorenzo. Too much to stand back and let you die when I can do something to stop it."
His face softened, his forehead touching mine as a ragged breath released him. "I love you too, my little psycho," he whispered, drawing a smile from me as my shoulder ached with my soft laughter.
34
Enzo
She did a decent job trying to hide the pain from all the others. Sadie would never be willing to let people see her weaknesses, but the pain nagged at the edges of her eyes. The subtle winces at the corners of her mouth any time she moved.
The red bled from my vision with the help of her body against mine and the reassurance that she was alive. A glance around the warehouse confirmed just how many men I'd killed in my desperation to protect Sadie. A massacre, considering I was only one man. My memories of it were a haze, only the faintest trace of navigating the warehouse silently and hiding behind everything left behind in the spaces beneath the lofts before I jumped out and made my kills.
Shielded Wrongs: A Dark Mafia Romance (Bellandi Crime Syndicate Book 4) Page 31