Page 115 of Ruthless Vengeance
He tries to push me off of him, but my body is an immovable weight.
I straddle my thighs on either side of his body to keep him down. “Clara. Get the gun.”
She doesn’t hesitate. She kicks the weapon out of Ben’s hand and reaches down to pick it up.
“Good girl.” I tighten my fingers around Ben’s throat.
His face is slowly turning purple as he fights for air, but I’m not feeling particularly forgiving, so I simply press down harder.
“I warned you what would happen if you crossed us.”
“Marco…” Clara sobs as Ben starts to lose consciousness.
Is she seriously having second thoughts about me taking out her brother?
“He was going toshootyou, Clar?—”
“Please. It’s not about Ben. It’s…it’s Andre.”
My grip instantly loosens as I look over my shoulder to find my brother on the floor of the kitchen, blood soaking through his shirt. His skin is gray, and his chest is barely moving.
“No.” I get to my feet and rush to his side. “Don’t you fucking dare die on me.” I drop to my knees beside him and place my hands over the bullet wound in his abdomen. “You hear me, Andre? You are not allowed to die.”
Andre winces as he tries to open his eyes, his face covered in sweat just from the effort of trying to breathe.
“Don’t say anything,” I press down harder on the wound. “You need to preserve your strength.”
“Andre was protecting me.” Clara kneels by my side, tears streaming down her face. “He went to fire, but Ben was quicker…”
Her voice cracks, and I feel as if my heart is being ripped out of my chest.
“Marco, is he going to be okay?”
I don’t answer.
The amount of blood surrounding Andre is alarming, and his skin is pale and clammy.
I need to get him to a hospital soon, but I can’t just leave all these girls here for some of Cillian’s men to find.
Just as I’m trying to think through a plan, tires crunch over gravel outside, making Clara jump beside me.
As promised, Bruno and Carlos appear in the doorway with their weapons raised. Though they stop dead in their tracks when they look around the room at the carnage.
Bruno’s eyes widen. “Fuck.”
Carlos stalks over to Ben’s unconscious body and kicks him with his boot. “Is he alive?”
I grit my teeth. “Barely. Do whatever you want with him, but don’t kill him.”
Carlos bends down to grab Ben by the collar, dragging him out of the house like a sack of trash. “We’ll take him to the warehouse.”
“Good.” I bend down to lift Andre.
I grunt under his weight, my biceps burning as I shift him into my arms, but I don’t falter.
Clara tries to reach for me. “Marco?—”
“Get in the car. We need to get him to the hospital.”
