Page 89 of The Last Vendetta

That sounded like heaven, the vision of Giulia’s stomach swollen with my baby. It would be a dream come true to start a family with her, and I wouldn’t stop practicing and making love to her until it happened. I wanted her—as my partner, as my wife, and as the mother of my children. I’d never felt more convinced that it was meant to be until hearing this vile woman swear to prevent it.

“And no Acardi woman will have the son in the wrong hands. You will not splinter the Acardi influence further by having a bastard with that man.”

“Then I won’t,” Giulia shouted back. “All right? I won’t. I’m packing up to leave with my sisters. We’ll be gone and no longer your burden. You can do what you want with your power, and I’ll leave you to it. I want nothing to do with this life anymore.”

“Like I’d believe that! You just said you loved him, that he cared for you. The second you run out of here and try to leave this life, he’d just follow you and still get his way.”

“No, I?—”

“Only I will have the power, Giulia. Me. I will be the matriarch of the Acardis. Even if you fuck up the arrangement to marry Nickolas, this will all still be mine. Now that Dario’s gone, I don’t even have to deal with his interference, either.”

“He’s…” Giulia took another step back. If she moved out here just a little more, she’d be fully past the flowing curtains that gently floated around her from the breeze. “He’s gone? You killed him?”

Isabella huffed. “No. But I led him on to think that you were captive at the Bernardi estate. The guards could take care of his breaking in to try to save you. Not like it’s hard to shoot a slow, weak man like that.”

“You bitch!” Giulia lost her control. She snapped, yelling like that.

Gunshots were fired as she lunged back into her room, and I knew that was my moment to move in.

Gripping the railing firmly, I launched myself up and over the barricade. I landed on the balcony roughly, but I didn’t give myself a chance to gain my feet and stand fully. Jumping up and toward the women in the room, I aimed for Giulia.

She was down, hissing and grimacing in pain with her hand slapped over her upper arm. Blood slid over her skin, and at the sight of her wounded, I lost my temper. Any faint thread of control I had was severed.

With a guttural roar, I dove for her and knocked her back down to the ground, rolling so my body would be between hers and Isabella’s.

Giulia’s lunge at her mother had thrown her off balance. It’d knocked her onto her ass further in the room. Panting and grunting, the Acardi scrambled to rise to her knees, then onto her feet, sticking her gun back up in the air and aiming it at us.

“No! You will not do this!” She screamed it as her rigid face almost broke into a scowl. Even in her deepest rage, at her craziest moment, she looked too smooth and unaffected. She’d altered her face so much that she lacked the ability to truly show us an expression of loathing to match the growl in her words.

I breathed hard, staying positioned in front of Giulia as she leaned back, cowering behind me. She reached low to the carpet, making herself small as I braced for impact.

Isabella bared her teeth as she pointed the gun straight at my head. I stared at her, determined to let her see that I would never back down.

In this moment, everything else faded.

I was going to die. Right here, right now. This vindictive bitch lusted for my father and couldn’t accept defeat. She’d murdered my mother and accidentally poisoned my brother. And worst of all, she'd dared to harm the woman I loved.

I saw nothing but the darkness of her evil stare. My skin went numb, and I gave up on the fury that I’d lost my gun in climbing up here. I heard nothing but the thunder of my pulse in my ears, waving back and forth as I waited for my last moment to come. Zoned out, with tunnel vision, I focused on letting her see the rage that I would always hold for her alone.

Fuck. You.

A dark hole appeared between her eyebrows. Her forehead remained unlined as her eyes went vacant, glossy as death struck.

I blinked, belatedly realizing that as I locked into the realization that I would die, a gun had been fired. But it wasn’t hers. Her arms lowered and the gun tilted within her grip, aiming at the floor.

The low angle saved me. She pulled the trigger now, perhaps as a knee-jerk reflex, and I tensed at the searing slice of the bullet against my leg. The report of her gun prompted a follow-up.

Another shot rang out loudly.

Her torso flinched as another bullet sank into her chest, rocking her backward.

Again. Another shot.

The third hit pierced her heart and tipped her body to fling toward her left.

More sounds filtered through my mind past the ringing of the gunshots so near my head. I snapped out of the trance, hearing Giulia breathing hard right behind me. She panted, sucking in deep breaths before audibly swallowing. As I turned, broken from the reverie as Isabella’s gun thudded to the carpet, I noticed the gun Giulia had pointed at her mother. She held it firmly, her arm raised so she could fire over my shoulder at the woman. Her fingers trembled, though, and as she stared, wide-eyed with shock that she’d killed her, her arm began to waver.

“Giulia.”

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