Page 72 of Defiant Devotion

Bombs?

Lev tried to get up, crawling on his hands and knees until he got his feet under him.

Fuck!I guided him to move it, hurrying like I never had before.

“We need to get back to the house!” he said, dropping into a run with me.

As tires squealed on the other side of the half wall, thunder cracked then rolled. I tuned it all out, hyper focused on nothing but getting us back to the car. We moved with a mad urgency, rushing to get back and stop any bomb from killing our loved ones.

29

SONYA

Ididn’t get just one gun, but three.

I returned, out of breath from the exertion of running, but I refused to be distracted.

“Here.” Eva whispered it, holding her hand up for me to give her one. She hunkered down on the couch with Kelly and Irina, and I didn’t hesitate to back up and give her a gun. Keeping my face forward, on the biggest doorway that would lead to this room, I made sure to be on the lookout. Not looking back to see who I was handing the other gun to, I thrust my arm back and one of the women took it.

I hoped it was Irina. She knew how to shoot. She’d killed her father with precision. Kelly wasn’t sobbing, crying, or panicking verbally anymore, but I knew she was already riled up from that call. She wouldn’t have the level head to be able to fire a weapon at that moment.

None of us spoke, tense and listening. No one moved in the house. No sounds reached our ears. All that we could detect was the constant strum of rain pattering down on the roof. Thebranches knocking against the windows with the storm’s rain. The low grumble of thunder.

Gripping my gun with both hands, I kept my gaze focused ahead. With this darkness of the power going out, I had to acclimate to the lack of light. And the longer I stood there, ready to defend my family, I waited for a direction of where I’d need to shoot.

I dare you.

I fucking dare you.

Whoever you are, I dare you to hurt my family.

Try to get past me again.

Try to take me again.

And I will end your life.

Repeating a mantra of firm anger and resolution, I stood tall and ready. Bracing for anything to come at us, I did my best to listen and not panic with the suspense of waiting like this.

Guards surrounded the house. Many men were here patrolling, watching the drive, manning the gate, and standing like sentinels at the doors. It wasn’t just me here. It wasn’t me and Eva alone. Kelly and Irina were here, and among the four of us, we would need to operate as a group.

But I knew all too well how stupid it could be to assume that having guards and a full security staff meant no harm or danger could come. I had lived through the hard lesson that even with men here for the purpose of surveillance and protection, things could still go wrong. I was living proof of that.

When I was a young girl and a teenager up until I was kidnapped, that was the illusion I’d had. That I would always be safe at home. That the Baranov forces would protect me.

They failed to before. When we were taken, the guards had been drugged. A smoke bomb had rendered them unconscious so the kidnappers could swiftly sneak in and take me and my mother.

It happened before and it could again.

Unfortunately for them, whoever dared to cut the power and trespass, I wasn’t the kind of person to repeat my mistakes.

I lived and learned.

I’d spent so much time clinging to the fantasy of coming home to be reunited with my family that I never really developed a conviction that I'd be one hundred percent safe here.

I wouldn’t be.

And that was why I was prepared to stand here as the eldest Mafia princess. That was why I had the courage to stay steady on my feet and have a gun ready as one of the pregnant women in this small group. It was also why I didn’t let the fear or anxiety claim me as I remained tense and listened.

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