Page 105 of The Pawn
37
ALLEGRA
“There!” Enzo shatters the silence and the night explodes in a deafening cacophony of machine gun fire.
I scream. I scream and twist and turn and fight the ropes that bind me like a target as bullets fly past me.
Malek takes cover as the ambush he set turns on him, the trap for Cassian becoming a trap for him.
“You tipped him off, you fucking bastard!” Malek accuses Enzo, taking aim and firing his weapon. When Malek’s bullet flies past Enzo’s head, Enzo raises his gun to Malek. He’s much more precise, more practiced. Enzo won’t miss.
“I didn’t tip them off you fucking asshole! Get the fuck out of sight!”
I think he’s going to kill Malek, but at the last second, he turns his weapon and aims at me. I scream when he fires and a moment later crash to the ground, landing heavily on my arm, the pain of it instant and excruciating.
Malek looks at me, then at Enzo who is crouched, calculating his next move.
“Kill him! Kill the fucking bastard and you get his territory!” Malek commands and calls to two other soldiers who cover him as he runs like the coward he is to hide inside the cabin.
I force myself to move, to push through the pain in my elbow, my arm, and take cover. I stay low and reach to undo the rope binding my ankles, but my right arm won’t cooperate, the pain too sharp. I must have broken it when I fell on it.
Enzo is at my side in the next moment.
“Get the fuck away from me!” I yell as he grips me by my good arm and drags me across the floor behind the sandbags. I see two of the snipers who were positioned at the front of the house are dead. Cassian came from behind. From the forest. He’s here. He’s here.
“Be fucking still. I just saved your fucking life!” Enzo commands, drawing the switchblade out of his back pocket, flipping it open. My blood is still on it as he slices the rope between my ankles free.
“You’re a traitor. If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be here.Hewouldn’t be here! Get away from me!”
I shove at him, but he’s impossible to move. Once my ankles are free, he grips my broken arm, and I cry out in agony.
“Be fucking still. I need to fucking think!”
War is breaking out all around us, gunfire like I’ve never heard before. Enzo takes in the situation, looks at the dead men littering the floor, calculates his next move. The sound of bullets slows, and I hear tires crunching gravel before itall starts again, as if both sides needed to regroup, to rearm themselves.
Enzo takes aim at the floodlight and fires two shots, killing the light. The sky goes pitch black apart from the bullets flying over our heads.
Boots pound up the stairs sounding like the feet of a thousand soldiers. It’s not a thousand, though, and I don’t know whose side they’re on. Enzo does though. He must. Because he grabs hold of me and holds me in front of him as the two men zero in on him. He’ll use me as a human shield.
I fight against him, but his arm is like an iron manacle around me. Cassian’s soldiers have weapons raised, but when they see me, they stop, hesitate. That’s the moment Enzo needs to raise his weapon. He fires mercilessly sending the men jerking backward, bodies riddled with bullets before they finally topple over the side of the house.
I scream. I fight. I battle him, but his grip only tightens when his gun is out of bullets. He tosses it aside, keeps me pinned to himself as he crosses to where one of the soldiers dropped his weapon and picks it up. I get a look over the side of the house before he forces me back down. I see the soldiers, dozens and dozens of them, some in fatigues, others in plain clothes. I can’t find Cassian though. I can’t see him. But I think I get a glimpse of Jet. And if Jet is here, if he’s alive, so is Cassian. He must be.
38
CASSIAN
We’re not wholly outnumbered, and the soldiers Malek is counting as loyal to him aren’t, not like mine are to me. The families that once were loyal to Alaric Moretti, maybe even Michael Moretti, don’t feel the same alliance to Malek Lombardi. Malek underestimated the value of blood to our families.
Jet fights alongside my men. We do battle, chaos raging all around us, the tang of blood heavy beneath the stench of gunpowder. Death. Death. It is what I deal in. It is what I live.
My men hold the line, providing cover when I see the side entrance to the lake house. Allegra is inside. Upstairs. I don’t know where Malek is, but I do know that house is a trap. I know, but when I see that door, I have no choice.
“Cassian!” Jet calls out over the sound of gunfire. He knows what I’m going to do. “Don’t!”
“Cover me!” I call out. I crouch and run for it and when bullets fly overhead, I manage to dodge them. Luck. That’s all. Fucking luck. I near the door and aim my weapon at thepadlock sealing it. I fire and it breaks. More bullets are fired as I remove what’s left of the lock and push inside, taking quick inventory and rolling behind a decrepit couch as a bullet hits its mark, sending me down, knocking the gun from my hand.
Three men at the front windows, two doing battle with those outside, one turned toward me, shooting as he approaches.
