Page 117 of Maddest Temptation

“Now?” Mikail seemed interested.

“Yes. Yes!” she cried. “Just let him go. Exile him, send him far, far away.” She turned toward me and, in her eyes, I saw all that despair. “Do whatever you want with me but just let him go.”

“No,” I roared. I tried to move but the end of Donato’s gun hit my head and I felt dizzy.

“Don’t!” I heard her scream. “Please. Just take me, and I’ll come willingly. Hurt me however you want but just let him go.”

“Why?” I heard Mikail’s voice but couldn’t see him, my vision was still blurry.

There was a pregnant pause, then I heard her voice loud and clear. “Because I love him. Because I would rather suffer and know he’s alive than live in a world where he’s not in it.”

My heart broke.

“This has grown boring. I think I’ll have you and kill him.” I opened my eyes.

Everything happened in slow motion, I watched as Mikail lifted his gun and trained it on me. I saw his finger pressed against the trigger and then the shot echoed in the room.

36

CASSIO

Itwisted my body as fast as I could trying to shield her with my body. But the sound that tore through the room was deafening and the cry that followed shattered my heart.

Not again. Please, God, not again. I can’t lose her, too.

When I moved away from Francesca, she was on the floor, face twisted with pain. A red stain began to appear on the sleeve of her floral dress. I pressed the wound and she screamed. Someone pulled me back, but I used all my force and elbowed them in the face. A grunt followed and then a second person came at me, and I acted faster this time twisting and grabbing his gun, shooting the man dead in the chest. Then turned around pointing the gun.

All five guards plus Mikail and Grigori had theirs trained on me. Slowly, the fifth guard came into the light and moved toward Mikail where he raised his gun and pressed it to his head.

“Put it down or I’ll shoot,” Umberto said.

I had been acting on pure instinct. My heart hammering against my chest. When I realized it was Umberto, I took a deep sigh. He had been Francesca’s old guard, had worked for Donato a lifetime, but it was clear to whom his loyalty belonged.

All I wanted to do was go to Francesca to know if she was alive… but I wouldn’t dare move now.

Suddenly, I caught movement in the back door, I looked at Umberto and gave a slight nod.

In seconds the room turned into a war zone; shots were fired from all directions but mostly from the back. Umberto killed Mikail with a shot to the head, and I emptied my magazine into Grigori, who barely had time to shoot me. I wished I had more time to torture him, a quick death was not something he deserved. But I’d rather have him dead than walk this earth a second longer.

Before I noticed, the room was filled with my men. Luciano, my enforcer, and all my other loyal soldiers. Vitelli lifted his gun and me and fired, I turned back to find Donato had been ready to kill me.

Vitelli bypassed me and reached Donato who had been grunting and crying on the floor. The bullet had hit his kneecap. He tried to crawl away, but my brother shot him again, and then again. He looked at me asking for permission. I nodded. Right now, I didn’t care how he died, I just cared that he did.

When we secured our surroundings and all the Russians were killed, I dropped to the floor and turned toward Francesca. She was bleeding a lot. The bullet had hit her shoulder, and her face was turning paler by the second.

“Shit,” Vitelli came to stand beside me. He removed his jacket and offered it to me.

I pressed it to her shoulder and looked around the room. “I told you not to come,” I snapped, adrenaline and fear coursing through my veins.

“You’re welcome,” he snapped back. “You made me Capo; the decision was mine to make.”

I wanted to hug him and kill him at the same time, but right now I had something more pressing to deal with. I lifted Francesca in my arms, she cried out.

“I’m so sorry, Principessa,” I begged her forgiveness, as I carried her out of the warehouse.

Her eyes were open, but she was in shock, not responding to me when I spoke.

There were dead men all the way to where I parked my car. I stopped and turned toward Vitelli. “I’ll take care of this. You go take care of her,” he said.

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