Page 54 of Killer Love

His bones crack, bent and crushed between the wall and the bars. He squeals in agony and stumbles to his knees as it grinds even more of his hand.

I lean over him. “Now, what did you call Sofia? Stupid, was it?”

He closes his mouth, staring daggers at me. I shrug my shoulders before reaching for the gun in my belt.

“Never mind.”

I pull the trigger and put him out of his misery.

More men race down the driveway toward me. I lunge into the grass, dodging their eyes to hide behind a large tree near the wall. They shout back and forth in Italian as the bodies come into view. I hear a few more gentle thwips of bullets popping flesh before they topple to the ground beside their friends.

A shiver runs down my spine. Fox Fitzpatrick might not have been acting cocky at all when he said he was the best. He didn’t shoot the guards just anywhere to put them down. He shot them through the eyes. Each one of them, right through their pupils like a goddamn bullseye.

The name Snake Eyes makes a whole lot more sense now.

I move toward the house, keeping to the shadows as three more guards come into the light from the back garden. I wait for some to race out of the house as well, but the front door stays closed. There’s no way this much commotion hasn’t reached the inside yet, meaning there might not be guards in there at all. Good for us. Not so good for Sofia.

Gio wanted them to be alone.

The guards pause in the drive out of Fox’s line of sight, seemingly more intelligent than the others. I slink in behind them, hoping to catch them all by surprise, but my foot crashes into a fallen tree branch obscured behind a bush.

They spin around, each of them reaching for their guns, and I only have a split second to do anything about it.

I charge at them, throwing out my arms to knock two of them down at once. The third man takes a swing at me, one that I easily dodge before firing off a bullet into his ribs. As he falls to the ground, I turn back around to the others and get knocked in the jaw by the butt of a rifle.

I cringe, nearly falling over, but I use the momentum to swing a kick against one of them. I punch him so hard in the nose my knuckles pop.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see the last man standing with his gun pointed at my head.

A bullet strikes his face, passing just an inch away from my own ear, and he slumps to my feet in an unmoving heap.

I twist around to find Fox standing at the end of the driveway, still aiming his rifle in my direction.

I exhale and count my fucking blessings.

Fox joins me by the door. We don’t say a word as we enter the front hall.

It’s quiet. Almost dead. It’s nothing at all like the constantly moving household I left just a few hours before.

I keep my eyes and ears open, determined not to be caught off-guard by whatever the hell might be happening here. We pause at every corner, sneaking a peek before moving on through the dark corridors.

My memory guides me through the shadowed wings. Even in darkness the furnishings of this place seem fit for a goddamn bonfire.

We round the corner toward Gio’s study and a petite force collides with me.

Sofia.

She screams in my arms and shoves me back, her limbs flailing wildly in a blind panic to get away from me. I open my mouth to speak, but my throat tightens when I see the blood.

She’s covered with it from her head to her shoes. It drips from her face and her hands. The scent of it stings my nose.

“Sofia!” I grab her wrists to stop her thrashing. “Sofia, stop! It’s me! It’s me!”

She slows down, her wide eyes squinting in the dark. “Luka…”

I pull her closer, cupping her face to make sure she sees me. “Yes, it’s me.”

Her knees give out from under her, and I wrap my arms around her to hold her up. “Luka…” She reaches for my face. “You’re alive?”

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