Page 73 of King of Sinners

He’s carrying me away from the bathroom and my phone. I give a desperate sob. “Please put me down, Leo. You’re scaring me.”

“You won’t be scared when we’re sitting on a beach.”

“You hurt my shoulder,” I try again. Just trying to say something, anything to make him stop. Delay. “I can’t feel my arm.”

He pauses at those words, stopping in the hall. His shoulders are even larger than Mason’s, the rough edge cutting into my belly. “We’ll look at it later. I know Mason’s already en route. We don’t have much time. The drive?—”

“He’s not driving,” I shake my head, realizing that Leo has made a miscalculation. He thinks Mason is at the Kincaid Enterprise building and not here.

The elevator whirs and though I can’t see the light…I know. Mason is on his way. Relief makes me limp against Leo’s back.

“Who is that?”

I don’t answer. I don’t need to. We don’t move as I hear the elevator doors open.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Mason spits and I hiccup a cry knowing that Leo isn’t taking me anywhere. My eyes fill with tears but upside down, they just rest on my lashes. “Put her down.”

I hear the click of a gun, the hammer cocking back, and I stiffen again, trying to lift up.

“Don’t move, Charlotte,” Mason commands as he crosses the room. I go still again.

“Such a good girl, isn’t she, big brother?” Leo says as he gently sets my feet on the floor. The blood has rushed to my head and I sway as his hands leave me. “And completely smitten with you. You win again, don’t you?”

Leo raises his hands up.

“It was never a competition.” Mason reaches me, turning me and pulling me against him. He catches my shoulder and I suck in my breath as pain shoots through my arm.

Mason’s gaze flicks down me, assessing the damage, before he tucks me behind him.

“You’re right about that,” Leo straightens his shoulders. “Charlotte has been yours since our second date. The company yours. The family yours. The revenge yours.”

I press myself to Mason’s back, useless tears leaking from my eyes.

Next to me, Roman appears, a pistol in his hand. Jake comes to my other side and I hear Luke step up behind me. I’m surrounded but not entirely certain I’m safe. Is Mason going to hand me over tonight?

Has this all been a ploy to keep me here?

“Leo,” Mason says in a flat voice. “It’s not?—”

“It’s all right, big brother. You’re right not to trust me. My move against the Italians got this place bombed, didn’t it? But you, man who thinks of everything, saw that possibility. Built this place to withstand it.”

I feel Mason stiffen. “Your move against the Italians? You’d better explain.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Mason

I’m going to kill my brother.

All right, maybe I’m not going to actually murder him, but I’m seriously tempted.

Charlotte is trembling against my back, the screams she’d let out had turned my blood ice cold. The feeling that she’s mine to protect has been swelling for a while, building into this near unstoppable force.

No man is going to touch her ever again. And Leo is going to answer to me.

“Explain?” Leo says, scratching his chin. “I’ll start with the fact that I created a giant calling card that had Vendetti frothing to end me.”

All those incidents at the casinos, the last one being the Italians. Leo knew that the Italian hit men would be waiting for him. “Go on.”

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