Page 63 of The Forbidden Husband

“Aria did this,” Uncle Giovanni said, shaking his head. “I have always been good at reading people, and I thought I saw her intentions. I thought she was a scorned daughter who wanted to find a place elsewhere.”

“I thought I had a good read on her too,” I told him.

He cocked his gun with a click. “Is everyone else all right?” he shouted to the room. When everyone said yes, he took a deep breath. “Is anyone near the bedroom?”

“I am,” Bartolo shouted.

“In the back of the closet, there’s a hatch with weapons,” I shouted across the room. “556027 is the code.”

“Got it,” he said. I heard two steps before a shot resounded through the room. The sickening sound of a body slamming into the floor brought a different kind of silence.

Bartolo’s twin, Matthew, shouted in what could only be described as genuine agony, and I ground my teeth, knowing exactly what had happened. We were pinned, and there was a sniper nearby. One who was tasked with taking as many of us down as possible.

“Fuck,” I cursed.

I wasn’t going to send anyone else to their death, so I tucked my gun away and got on my stomach to peek around the countertop. The shattered window combined with where Bartolo had fallen told me that the sniper had a view of the hallway leading into my room. But he wouldn’t be able to see this side of the room.

I hoped there was not a second sniper as I army-crawled around the countertop and pushed both feet beneath me. In a burst of motion, I sprung into the hallway and past the viewpoint of the sniper. A shot exploded, but it didn’t make contact.

“Are you good?” Uncle Giovanni shouted.

“Yes.”

I stormed into my closet, opened the built-in hatch, and stripped my miniature armory bare. I grabbed a few smoke grenades and all the weapons I could carry. On my way out of the room, I caught a whiff of a familiar scent that had me turning my head and examining the room. The bed. The place where I had taken Aria and made her cry out my name.

Fuck.

I didn’t allow myself to dwell on the rage that filled my chest as I left my bedroom and stopped at the end of the hallway. I slid weapons across the hardwood floor and into the hands of my family and the guards who were here to protect us. I knew from the lack of commotion outside that those men who had been stationed at the entrances had likely been taken out too.

All because I trusted a woman who should have never been let into my life.

I held up the smoke bomb before pulling the pin and tossing it toward the glass door.

“Everyone move,” I said the second the smoker grew thick enough to conceal our locations.

But it didn’t last.

The front door slammed open, and three men with assault rifles stormed inside, firing in every direction. By some will of God or greater power, the bullets all flew wide as I fired three shots back from a crouch. One into the chest of each man.

“Take cover,” I shouted as I threw another smoke bomb toward the entrance of the house. Two more men came inside, and I fired on them. From the sliding glass door at the side of the room, more men rushed inside, and I watched Uncle Giovanni take them out without second thought.

This was coordinated. This was meant to be an execution, not a battle.

From the radios at the shoulders of the fallen men, a firm voice spoke out. “Retreat at Boss’s command.”

I narrowed my eyes as I rushed to the front door of my home and glanced outside, past the thick fog of smoke.

In the open, it was a risk to fire my weapon, especially in a neighborhood as safe as mine. The gunshot had certainly drawn attention, but as I focused on four retreating figures, I put caution to the wind and fired.

Two men went down, shouting in pain. The others continued, leaving their friends in the dust. I didn’t care. These two would do. They would give me the information I needed, and then I would kill them for what they had done today.

I wouldsavorit.

* * * *

I wasn’t the only one who had captured someone for questioning.

Uncle Giovanni and I stood side-by-side as we looked at the three men strung from the rafters in the maintenance shed.

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