Page 86 of Mafia Don's Secret Baby

I hadn’t expected her to move so fast with the injury I’d dealt her, but rage had seemed to numb her senses. Her anger blinded her as she lurched the knife downward.

I reached up and wrapped my hand around her wrist, halting the momentum centimeters before the blade sunk into me. She gritted her teeth, screeching as she put her weight behind the knife, trying to push it into my chest.

My arm shook, barely able to hold her back. She sat across my hips, pinning me beneath her. When the knife didn’t fall, she released my other wrist in favor of pushing her blade downward.

I dropped the scissors, trying and failing to add another sliver of space between us.

She was too close. If I made a wrong move, the glinting blade would run through me before I could draw another breath.

All my years of self-defense training had been for this moment. It had been so I could defend myself and my son.

My son.

He needed me.

I wouldn’t leave him motherless. I hated the Petrovs for taking everything from me. I wouldn’t let them take everything from Callum, too. I wouldn’t let them take more.

I sucked in a deep breath and hooked my leg around Aelita’s. I adjusted my grip on her wrist, and the knife dropped a centimeter more, pressing into my chest.

I couldn’t let it drop anymore.

I exhaled a breath, adding just enough space between the blade and my chest to pivot my hip upright. It threw Aelita off balance enough that her weight shifted, and I used the momentum to throw her to the side, and the knife went wide. She landed on her side on the floor, the blade flying from her hand and sliding across the floor.

I shuffled for it, grabbing for the blade as I threw my body weight on top of her. She thrashed, but I didn’t give her even a second more to fight me.

This fight hadn’t been fair from the start. She never planned to let me fight back, so I wouldn’t let her.

I grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her head back as I sat on her back. She arched as I lifted her head. “This is for my brother. This is for my father and all of my people who you massacred at that wedding.”

I slammed the blade into the back of her skull. It caught, the vibrations reverberating through my hand as I pulled it free and plunged it down once more. It sunk deep into her head, and she went limp.

I kept my gaze raised as I stood, backing away from her with a deep breath. I rubbed my chest where the knife had scraped my skin as I leaned back onto the large wooden desk, using it to balance myself. I shook so viciously that I wondered how I was able to stand on my own.

I’d killed her. I’d expected to feel better, but the death hung heavily in the air as I forced myself to take a deep breath. I’d done it partially for Silas, but I hadn’t had another choice. I hadn’t had the time to explain my grief to her.

I couldn’t wrap up this situation as neatly as I’d hoped, but it was still over.

I had faced a situation where it was either me or her, and I wouldn’t leave Callum without a mother. It had to be her.

The popping gunfire outside the building had me jerking back to reality. This wasn’t over. Not yet.

A heavy weight slammed into the door, and I stiffened.

It slammed again.

I glanced around the floor and found the gun that Aelita had dropped.

Boom.

Boom.

I took one step toward the gun before the door slammed from its hinges.

Like an avenging angel, Matteo stood in the doorway, assessing the room. When his eyes took me in, they didn’t linger anywhere else. He trailed his gaze up and down my body, and I couldn’t stop myself from moving toward him. He was a magnet. Wherever he was, I would go, and nothing could stop me.

I launched myself into his arms, wrapping both arms around his neck and burying my face into his shoulder. “Matteo,” I whispered.

He didn’t flinch backward at my weight. He stood just steady with both arms wrapped around my waist. I felt the cool metal of the gun he held against my back as he held me, but I didn’t let go. I couldn’t.

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