Page 105 of Single Mom's Daddies
My mouth goes dry. “I can’t…the kids.”
She closes the tablet softly. “You’re not abandoning her. You’re fighting for her.”
“I don’t know what’s out there,” I whisper.
“After everything you’ve been through with Ivy, you can handle it. I can read to them. I have a feeling you’re better with a gun than I am.”
My chest tightens. I look at my daughter. She’s hugging Mila now. Alex rests his head on her shoulder like they’ve done it every night for years. I love them all too much to stay here and not fight for them.
I nod once to Melanie. “Protect them with your life.”
“I will.”
I crouch to look Ivy in the eyes one last time. They’re sweet and brown and mischievous. Like Nikolai’s. “I’m going to check on everyone out there and make sure they’re all getting along?—”
“You’re gonna shoot the bad guys.”
I snort a laugh and press a kiss to her forehead. “I love you, baby.”
“I love you too, Mama.”
Then I unlock the door and slip out, listening for the latching mechanism. There’s smoke. Gunfire in the distance—dull pops behind thick walls.
I creep forward, gun ready. The weight doesn’t feel foreign. I move like I did in the woods with my mom and grandfather, tracking ducks through fog. Quiet, measured. One breath at a time. Staying low.
But these aren’t ducks.
These are ducks with guns, I think wildly. And I nearly laugh. The hysteria presses sharp against my ribs.
A noise to the left. I pivot, gun raised.
Two men come around the corner. One sees me—hesitates. The other raises his weapon.
I fire once, and he drops with a wet grunt, his body thudding to the hardwood. The other runs.
My hands shake. My knees almost buckle. But I don’t drop the gun. I make myself keep moving. Down the next hallway, past a shattered lamp, down toward the gallery where the fighting sounds louder.
I’ll burn through every one of them before I let them take our home.
30
ROMAN
The first gunshotcracked through the compound like thunder. Then another. Two more—closer. Then more, followed by a lull. Reloading.
I’m moving before the next wave hits.
The air stinks of gunpowder and cold steel, and the walls hum with the energy of violence. Boots slam on the marble floors, and the distant echo of overturned furniture rumbles from the eastern wing.
I barrel down the corridor, barking orders to my guys—directing teams to the perimeter, calling in the second wave of guards from the outer estate. I take the first left, stepping over the body of a man I don’t recognize—one of Costello’s, by the look of his faux leather boots and the poorly stenciled tattoo at his throat.
Fucking amateurs.
They think they can walk intomy house? Try to shake down a family built on bone and blood and business?
I slam open the side door to the courtyard and duck low just as a shot splits the air above me. The impact blows out part of the doorframe, raining splinters. I count the direction and fire twice—once to flush, once to drop.
One body falls behind the pillar.
