Page 131 of Heartfelt Pain
“It’s fine.”
In all the years I’ve looked into her brilliant blue eyes I’ve never once spotted fury. Now it blazes despite her rather mellow posture considering we’re in the storm of a gun battle.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Roma yells. He grabs my waist pulling me up. My hands clasp to his arm.
“This is how you fucking operate?” Dimitri asks Trevino. The Russians fan out, taking orders from their boss in Russian. I notice Russo step closer to Boris, an alliance of somesort. Which only grows when Donovan from the Irish fraction shows up.
“A shoot out? You organized a fucking shoot out,” my boyfriend says.
Oh, it’s angry Roman. He rarely lets his beast out, but rage crackles. Max is right behind him, blank as ever while he covers his brother's back.
Trevino hauls Isolde up, the Brit hissing as the movement aggravates her wound.
“What was the plan?” Roma asks, moving through the room.
“What do you mean?” I bat my eyelashes, my shoulders jumping at a loud blast.
“The building’s on fire, hellcat.”
“Should we be worried about smoke inhalation?” Abe gulps.
Ben tightens his hold on him. His gaze may as well be a bullet. He’ll never forgive me for scaring his boyfriend this badly.
“Somebody stop Boris from taking out Cain,” Isolde yells from the back.
I didn’t think Lev was one to take orders but he appears by his best friend's side, keeping a watchful eye over the situation. It’s almost comical how Boris side-eyes him, annoyed.
By the time we make it outside it’s over. The dust settles.
The Stuarts are shot up. Mr. Chin is dead. I don’t spot the weird mustache man so I assume he managed to slip away. And there’s a huddle happening between the different syndicate heads.
“Can I have my cigarettes back now?” I ask, pacing back and forth on the dock.
“No!” the group tells me.
After another few minutes, Dimitri comes out. “We didnot like the prospects of the Stuarts coming over here and doing business.”
I pick lint off my blazer.
“And unfortunately Russo made good on his threat back in the 80s to off Mr. Chin if he ever showed back up here.”
“Then why did he try to come here in the first place?” Abe asks, genuinely confused.
Because he still wanted to piss on Aunt Macy's grave due to events almost forty years ago. And he may or may not have thought Russo had softened in his old age.
Paublino and his men sweep out of the building heading back to their cars.
“The city has spoken,” Dima says. “We like working with you.”
I hum under my breath. “I mean sometimes this place is okay.”
Roma crosses his arm. He’s stayed two inches away from me this whole time.
“Boris is getting a bit too close again,” I nod over Dimitri’s shoulder. Cursing under his breath he marches toward the man, who’s making no moves to hide his dislike of Cain Murray.
“So all of this?” Abe asks. “It was all a set up?”
I pull my blazer closed, crossing my arms. “Did you fucks actually think I’d sell the business I fought, blood sweat, and tears for?”
