Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 91164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
“Be fucking still. I need to fucking think!”
War is breaking out all around us, gunfire like I’ve never heard before. Enzo takes in the situation, looks at the dead men littering the floor, calculates his next move. The sound of bullets slows, and I hear tires crunching gravel before it all starts again, as if both sides needed to regroup, to rearm themselves.
Enzo takes aim at the floodlight and fires two shots, killing the light. The sky goes pitch black apart from the bullets flying over our heads.
Boots pound up the stairs sounding like the feet of a thousand soldiers. It’s not a thousand, though, and I don’t know whose side they’re on. Enzo does though. He must. Because he grabs hold of me and holds me in front of him as the two men zero in on him. He’ll use me as a human shield.
I fight against him, but his arm is like an iron manacle around me. Cassian’s soldiers have weapons raised, but when they see me, they stop, hesitate. That’s the moment Enzo needs to raise his weapon. He fires mercilessly sending the men jerking backward, bodies riddled with bullets before they finally topple over the side of the house.
I scream. I fight. I battle him, but his grip only tightens when his gun is out of bullets. He tosses it aside, keeps me pinned to himself as he crosses to where one of the soldiers dropped his weapon and picks it up. I get a look over the side of the house before he forces me back down. I see the soldiers, dozens and dozens of them, some in fatigues, others in plain clothes. I can’t find Cassian though. I can’t see him. But I think I get a glimpse of Jet. And if Jet is here, if he’s alive, so is Cassian. He must be.
38
CASSIAN
We’re not wholly outnumbered, and the soldiers Malek is counting as loyal to him aren’t, not like mine are to me. The families that once were loyal to Alaric Moretti, maybe even Michael Moretti, don’t feel the same alliance to Malek Lombardi. Malek underestimated the value of blood to our families.
Jet fights alongside my men. We do battle, chaos raging all around us, the tang of blood heavy beneath the stench of gunpowder. Death. Death. It is what I deal in. It is what I live.
My men hold the line, providing cover when I see the side entrance to the lake house. Allegra is inside. Upstairs. I don’t know where Malek is, but I do know that house is a trap. I know, but when I see that door, I have no choice.
“Cassian!” Jet calls out over the sound of gunfire. He knows what I’m going to do. “Don’t!”
“Cover me!” I call out. I crouch and run for it and when bullets fly overhead, I manage to dodge them. Luck. That’s all. Fucking luck. I near the door and aim my weapon at the padlock sealing it. I fire and it breaks. More bullets are fired as I remove what’s left of the lock and push inside, taking quick inventory and rolling behind a decrepit couch as a bullet hits its mark, sending me down, knocking the gun from my hand.
Three men at the front windows, two doing battle with those outside, one turned toward me, shooting as he approaches.
I stay low and I watch from below the couch, my heart pounding against my chest, my arm throbbing with the pain of the bullet. I watch his footsteps near and reach for the weapon with my bad arm, pushing through the pain because if I don’t, I’m dead. If I die, she will die too.
I reach it just as he is one more step from the couch and I fire low.
He’s knocked off his feet, dropping to the floor. His face comes into view at the same time as his gun. But I’m ready for him and I shoot my bullet through his eyes which don’t close. They remain as they are, open, soulless in life, soulless in death. I push up to take in the other two soldiers. One calls out to his dead buddy. As soon as he turns, I shoot a bullet into his face sending the back of his head crashing against the window, splattering his brains across the wall. I get to my feet, do the same with the other soldier.
Battle rages outside of the house. No more soldiers in here, though. No one left.
My arm throbs. The bullet is lodged inside. I feel it. But it’s not a killing shot. I look at the stairs. She’s up there. She’s up there with Malek or Enzo or both and there’s only one way up, so I take it. I keep close to the wall, trying to see what’s ahead, what I’m walking into. I see a body, one of my men. I recognize his face. More bodies. These I don’t know. One more step and I should see her. I should see her.