Page 65 of Fatal Bonds

Chaos erupts behind me, but the only thing that matters is what’s ahead. Emiliano is too far away to stop, and he already has the gun. My heart skips several beats as he brings it up, aiming for Lindsey’s head. He might miss, but I can’t take that chance, and I don’t have time to get to him. Surging into action, I cross the room, moving faster than I knew I could.

The sense of relief that fills me as I wrap my arms around Lindsey is so exquisite, it makes me dizzy. For one perfect moment, I can feel the warmth of her body against my chest, the pounding of her heart in perfect sync with mine as I cover her, using myself as her shield. Then blinding pain rips through my chest. Lindsey screams, and my arms spasm, tightening protectively around her. Time slows as my head rings, sound suddenly muffled from the percussion of a gun fired in far too small of a room. Then my arms sag, my shoulders growing heavy as mind-numbing pain seeps through my body.

Lindsey turns in my arms, and a look of horror eclipses her beautiful face.

“Maks,” she breathes, her voice trembling with fear, and though the pain is bad enough that I think I might pass out, I know I have to stay awake long enough to keep her safe.

“You’re alright, little rabbit. I’ve got you,” I breathe. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Tears pool in Lindsey’s eyes, one stray drop slipping from beneath her mask, and my chest throbs with agony.

“My men are waiting out back. They’ll protect you. Get to the door. I’ll cover you.” Each breath feels labored, each word like a white-hot bullet to my lungs, and I groan with the effort to release her. “Run.”

Before she can so much as turn toward the door, it slams open behind her, and Lucian’s men flood inside.

“Finally,” Emiliano snaps as Lucian himself strides in. “Will you get this animal under control?”

The Italian captain looks as cool and collected as ever, his gaze assessing the room with keen interest. Then he gestures for his men to get to work. For a hair-raising second, I think they’re going to side with Don Costanzo—that this was all some kind of trap that Lucian set up for me—and I tense, ready to defend Lindsey from a new enemy. Then, in the blink of an eye, all three of Emiliano’s men are choking on their own blood, grizzly smiles gaping across their open necks as Lucian’s men step back like nothing happened.

With monumental effort, I turn to look at Emiliano as I keep Lindsey shielded with my body. The don stands in stunned silence, his eyes wide and his jaw slack as he stares at his dead guards. He must have lowered his gun when Lucian entered the room, thinking he had backup, because it’s dangling uselessly at his side. By the time he realizes it and starts to raise it once again, Lucian is halfway across the room, and with a flourish, he cuts through the air with his butterfly knife, slicing Emiliano’s throat open. He does it with such easy nonchalance, I’m not fully convinced it happened until I see the blood.

The don staggers back, his hands going up as if to seal off the wound, but at the rate he’s bleeding it’s going to take a matter of seconds before he’s dead. I watch on in silence as his knees buckle, and he keeps his eyes on Lucian, his head tilting back as he chokes out a strangled, “Why?”

“Because your time is over, old man,” Lucian says, his tone as cold as his words.

Emiliano topples backward, and at last, as he releases a last gurgling breath, I have the pleasure of watching the light drain from his eyes. But rather than feeling the satisfaction of revenge, I’m filled with intense relief, because it means Lindsey is safe, that he won’t have another chance to hurt someone.

Lindsey sniffles behind me, and now that the danger is over, I can feel how violently she’s shaking against my side. “Are you okay?” she asks as I turn toward her, my movement sluggish with pain and bone-deep exhaustion. I must be losing a lot of blood.

“You’re safe now. That’s all that matters,” I breathe, cupping her cheek with my palm so I can brush away the tears streaming freely toward her chin.

Now that the adrenaline is fading, black shadows start to creep in on the corners of my vision, and as crushing weight presses against my ribs, a painful cough racks my chest. “Fuck,” I groan as the wet taste of copper coats my tongue and lips.

Lindsey’s sobs, her eyes scanning me for my injury, and they widen when she grabs my shoulder to get a look at my back. “Oh my god, Maks,” she gasps, her hand pressing firmly against the wound.

I groan as stars burst across my vision, and suddenly the floor rises up to meet my knees.

“Maks. No-no-no-no-no, Maks!” Lindsey screams.

I want to tell her that it’s okay, that maybe it’s better this way. But before I can, the world goes dark.

28

LINDSEY

Heart lodged firmly in my throat, I try to stop Maks from slamming face-first into the floor, but his dead weight is too much for me, and I topple backward, landing hard on my hip as I cushion his fall. Rolling him onto his back, I lean over him, ripping his mask off so I can assess if he’s still alive. His eyes are closed, his face pale, and icy fear rushes through me that he might already be dead.

“Don’t die on me. Please don’t die,” I sob, pressing my ear to his chest. After everything we’ve been through, I can’t stand the thought of losing him like this—of knowing that he died taking a bullet for me.

“Shut up, woman,” Lucian snaps, his eyes flashing as he looks over at me. “Do you want to bring security down on us faster?”

Biting my lips together, I muffle the tears pouring relentlessly from me now. It takes a painfully long time to find the soft, shallow flutter of a heart beat beneath my ear, and even as relief surges through me, I know Maks doesn’t have much longer. From the looks of the bullet wound in his back and the amount of blood, it might have hit an artery—or even his heart. “He needs help,” I insist, keeping my voice in the same register as the Italians, hoping that will make them more willing to work with me.

Deftly wiping his blade clean on Emiliano’s shirt, Lucian closes the knife and tucks it away in the breast pocket of his suit. Then he straightens, looking far too put-together for a man who just betrayed his don and killed him in cold blood.

“What do we do now, boss?” one of his men asks, anxiety clear in his tone. “This wasn’t the plan. We weresupposedto take him out from a distance and get the fuck out. Leave no evidence that we were around.”

Lucian mutters something in Italian, but I’m too focused on trying to keep the blood inside Maks’s body to care.

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