Page 79 of Killer Love

I add another pound of pressure to the trigger.

Fox shoves Markov forward and darts out into the hallway. I fire off a few rounds, narrowly missing him as he disappears out of sight.

I bolt after him and peek around the door frame in time to see him reach the end of the hall and rush up the stairs to the second floor.

Yuri helps Markov to his feet. “Go after him!”

I shake my head. “Leave him. Head for the kitchen. Avoid the windows.”

We enter the hallway, ducking and hugging the walls as we move. I focus my hearing, listening for anything that will pinpoint an incoming attack, but nothing stands out. In fact, I hear nothing at all. The house is too quiet. There are no guards in sight when we should have run into three already. There are no bodies. No drops of blood or signs of struggle.

I’d be impressed if I wasn’t so fucking furious.

Finally, I hear it. That devastating sound. It pierces so deep, it rattles my bones.

Lucian.

He cries out, screaming from behind the kitchen door.

I burst through it, driven by a powerful, uncontrollable instinct as he wails louder.

“Luka!” Sofia screams.

A hard kick to the head brings dark spots to my vision. Gloved hands shove me down to my knees while Yuri and Markov grunt in pain behind me. My gun slips from my fingers, yanked free by a trained hand. I move to break out of their hold on me, but as I look up and my vision clears, I feel gun barrels press against my skull.

There are five of them standing around me, each one dressed all in black. Just like the hissing man in Moscow. Just like Fox Fitzpatrick in the warehouse in Rome.

I yield and look forward into Sofia’s shaking eyes.

She sits at the table with her palms lying flat against it. Tears spill down her face. I grit my teeth at the gun pressed against her cheek.

I cringe at my mother’s unconscious form lying face down beneath the table.

“What do you think, Lutrova?”

Gio sneers at me with victorious eyes as my son screams in his arms.

“Am I trying hard enough to kill you this time?”

Chapter 24

Sofia

“Let him go,” Luka says, his protective eyes locked on our child. “He doesn’t like you.”

“The feeling is mutual…” Gio glares at Lucian and spins around to drop him back into the highchair beside me. “Shut him up,” he spits at me.

I lean in and rest my head against my baby’s forehead, whispering softly in his ear to calm his cries.

Gio limps away from me. His gun finally leaves my cheek, and I breathe again. He passes over Nina on the floor, briefly nudging her leg, and he smirks as Luka flexes his jaw in anger.

“Sorry about mama,” Gio says, “but you have no idea how long I’ve wanted to hit that woman.”

My eyes stay on Luka and the halo of guns surrounding his head. Any one of them could go off and take him from me in an instant.

But Luka doesn’t blink.

“Five assassins, Gio?” he quips. “Really?”

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