Page 63 of Married to the Mafia

He reached underneath his seat, came up with a pistol, then slipped his phone from his coat pocket and unlocked it before tossing it at her. “So is he. I’m ending this. Call Berto and tell him to send me backup, then call Dante.”

Brandi opened her mouth to argue, but he was already throwing his weight into shoving his door open. Her gaze flicked outward again and she realized stopping him was pointless. He’d made enough noise to draw her murderous stalker’s attention, and Ralph George had shifted course. Tears of fear and frustration burned behind her eyes even as Mikey’s door flew open wide. “Don’t you dare die, Michele,” she said to him. She wasn’t sure he heard her. She wasn’t sure he could hear anything at the moment over whatever angry thoughts were in his head.

She worried that even if he survived, when the anger faded, he’d realize he was in more pain than he was prepared for. Adrenaline could be a real bitch like that.

“I can see my sweet Brandi in that car of yours,” George called, his voice cutting through the air like a battle axe.

Brandi made herself pull up the contacts list in Mikey’s phone and hurried to scroll down to Berto’s number. She couldn’t remember the man’s last name, but Mikey had him listed simply by his nickname, so she didn’t have to worry. She wedged the phone between her ear and her shoulder and began fumbling with her own seatbelt.

“Hey, I just got word something’s goin’ on outside, you want me to—”

“Berto, it’s Brandi,” she said, cutting him off. He made a strangled sound that she pictured as him snapping his mouth shut. “Send help outside. Mikey’s trying to face off with my goddamn stalker, but the asshole just crashed into us and the car’s the wrong way on the road and I think he’s hurt.” And she couldn’t get her seatbelt to unjam. “Give them guns.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Berto said. He didn’t ask a single question before disconnecting and she found herself bizarrely reassured by that.

She screamed a little when the first gunshot went off just beyond the car.

Her gaze snapped out, the seatbelt clasp falling from her fingers, and she realized she couldn’t see much more than Mikey’s back and raised arm. George was somewhere in the direction his body obscured from her sight. She was sure of that, and sure that it wasn’t a coincidence. That idiot! She had never once asked him to die for her. She wouldn’t have.

Stuck in the car, all Brandi could do was continue reaching out for the help her startlingly meat-headed husband had asked for. She scrolled swiftly down in search of Dante’s number and found herself confused when she didn’t find it, only to realize it was listed under Big Brother. That would have struck her as cute any other time.

More gunfire punctuated the ringing as she held the phone to her ear and prayed she wasn’t about to become a widow.

“Get down, Brandi!” Mikey shouted at her between bursts of gunfire.

The line connected as Mikey’s words reached her ears, and before Brandi could even wonder how she could possibly acquiesce, another De Salvo spoke. “Of all the days—”

A bullet pierced the already cracked windshield and whizzed past her shoulder, biting into the headrest. She jerked sideways as best she could, pain screaming up her spine. She must have made a sound outwardly, enough to carry over the bursting explosions, because when Dante spoke again, he obviously had a better understanding.

“Brandi, tell me where you are so I can help.”

From her slightly altered perspective she could see George again. The monster had moved back and was half-ducking behind the wide post, taking blind shots in Mikey’s direction. And she thought she finally saw movement coming from the office.

She sucked in a breath and managed to say, “Work. Kind of. We got hit, I think Mikey’s hurt, and now he’s being stupid, and I can’t get out of the ca—” She cut herself off with another unintentional shriek as a bullet sliced through the air next to her head and embedded into the window she was leaning against.

“Make yourself as small as possible. Reinforcements are coming.”

The accident had happened so fast Mikey had barely had time to see it coming before the unfamiliar vehicle was on them. That alone would have pissed him off to no end, but the fact that it was Ralph George who’d ambushed them and the fact that the man had pulled it off in such a way that he’d been able to climb to his feet immediately after just sent Mikey careening over the edge. The fear that had colored Brandi’s voice when she’d spotted the bastard? Fuel for the fire.

They still didn’t know who George was working for, let alone how persistent that employer might be in recouping their lost money. More than likely George and his employer hadn’t yet realized their real target was dead, either. None of that mattered anymore.

Mikey’s car was wrecked. It hurt to stand. His head was throbbing. He didn’t even know how bad Brandi’s injuries might be. He did know that at least one bullet had gone too wide and blasted through the already compromised windshield—Brandi’s startled scream both reassuring and upsetting.

Ralph George was going to die, regardless of the answers they had from him.

It would be up to Alessa and their Vegas associates to hunt down and handle the rest.

George was shouting nonsense again, trying to get under Mikey’s skin with his vulgar commentary.

Ignoring the pain still burning in his arm from the bullet that had clipped it earlier, Mikey adjusted his aim. He noted his men finally racing through the parking lot in their direction. More than enough to deal with one deranged scumbag.

The sirens approaching from the distance were only going to complicate everything, though.

“Tony! Gio!” Mikey shouted in the moment when he saw George’s attention shift to the approaching crew. “Get my wife out of the fucking car!”

The two men broke formation and raced around to the passenger side, wisely tucking their guns behind them. The others spread out to form something of a wall between George’s position and the path Brandi would need to take to get from the car into the office. It was too far to walk if she was hurt worse than he feared, but Mikey couldn’t let himself think about that.

“Wife?” George shouted, a distinct tone of deranged incredulity coloring his voice. George’s gun swung back toward Mikey. “That little slut is—”

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