Page 38 of Vengeful Mafia Prince

"I didn't know much about your parents, Giovanni," he continues, steadying the gun. "But I'd wager a bet that they hated traitors as much as I did. Hell, if they found out what you were doing with my daughter, they probably would have been glad if I put a bullet in your brain."

"They're nothing like you."

My father grins. He looks like a shark cutting through the water, closing in on its prey.

"I don't think it matters one little bit what they were like," he reasons. "Given that they're not here anymore anyway. And hey, soon enough, you'll be joining them."

The world slows for a moment as he narrows his eyes and presses his finger down on the trigger.

No!

I can't let this happen. I can't lose him. I know it might cost me everything, but I push Giovanni out of the way just as the sound of the bullet leaving the chamber fills the air around us.

I feel it graze my neck, and I let out a shriek of pain and drop to the ground. Reaching up to touch the wound, I find my fingers coated in blood. I turn to Giovanni, but he's already scrambling back to his feet, reaching for his own weapon.

"You're never going to lay a fucking hand on her again!" he yells. And with that, he pulls the trigger and shoots my father point-blank in the chest.

I scream again, but I can hardly hear it through the ringing in my ears. The sight of this nightmare unfolding in front of me, it's like something from a twisted fairytale—Giovanni, the gun in his hand, staring my father down as he drops to his knees, blood trickling from his mouth.

I want to run to my father, but at the same time, something repulses me. He's shown who he really is to me, and that man, that version of him—I hate to say it, but he's better off...

Dead.

He slumps to the ground, the life leaking from his body, and I fully collapse onto the soft forest floor.

A moment later, I feel Giovanni beside me, his arms around me, pulling me against him.

"Are you okay?" he demands, his voice coming out with a rasp. "Were you hit? Let me see."

He pushes the hair away from my face so he can get a better look at the wound on my neck. It's nothing, really, but the dull throb of pain is the only thing that's keeping me in his arms right now and not spinning off into this nightmare once and for all.

"I need to get that cleaned up. Come on, Elena."

He tries to pull me to my feet, but I'm a deadweight. I can't stop staring at my father's body, dead, on the ground before me. It doesn't feel real. None of this does.

I allow Giovanni to lead me out of the forest, to the car waiting beyond. Inside, he has a small first-aid kit, and he quickly sets about taking care of me as I sit there in silence. I want to say something, but how am I supposed to put any ofthis into words? How am I meant to respond, after what has just happened?

Finally, once he's applied a bandage to the wound, he brushes my hair back over my shoulder and locks his eyes on to mine.

"I'm sorry, Elena."

When he speaks, I can't hold back the tears any longer. I sob like I've never sobbed before in my life, my whole body shaking at once. My father is dead. My father is dead, and it's my fault. But worse than that, he's caused the deaths of so many other people, including Giovanni's parents. I can't believe how it's happened, I can't trace this path from beginning to end in any way that makes sense.

I've lost him, I've lost everything.

Except I still have the man sitting next to me in the car right now. And in this moment, he seems like the only thing that matters.

He doesn't reach over to hold me, likely guessing that I can't handle his touch after what's just gone down. But finally, I manage to pull myself together long enough to look him in the eye again.

"Are you... okay?" he asks. It's a simple question, but in this context, it's so enormous that I don't know where to start.

"No, I'm not okay," I reply. "Can we... can we get out of here?"

"Yeah, of course. Probably not going to be too long till your father's men come looking for him, anyway."

He's right about that. Truthfully, I can't figure out why my father would have come out here all on his own in the first place. It seems like an obvious risk, confronting us in the middle of nowhere like this. But maybe...

Maybe it's because he thought, as his daughter, there was no way I would have done anything to hurt him. A shudder runs down my spine.

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