Page 31 of Fragile Union

I pull her with me as we go in search of an empty room. I need to be inside her.

* * *

"Doyou want to come home with us? I have your room all ready for you," Makenna says as we step out of Antonio's house.

Holly shivers and I take my suit jacket off and wrap it around her. She gives me her soft smile, the one that hits me in the gut. "What do you want to do, doll face?"

She rests her head against my chest. "I'm tired, if we drive home, I'll probably be asleep before we even leave the state. You're the one that's driving, it's up to you."

"We'll stay tonight," I tell them as I wrap my arm around Holly's shoulder and move her toward my car. "Meet you back at the house."

Dante gives me a chin lift as he leads Makenna to the waiting car.

"You doing okay, doll face?" I ask her, she's been tired a lot lately.

"Yeah, I think I'm overdoing it. With the move, all the travelling between here and London. It's catching up with me."

"You do too much." She works hard, and sometimes I'll find her in bed, her laptop beside her and she's fast asleep.

She raises a brow. "Oh, I'm sorry, pot, meet kettle."

Tires squeal and I glance around just in time to see a car speeding toward me. It's as though time slows down, and the car advances on us. The man on the passenger's side has a gun pointed at us. I reach to push Holly to the ground, to get her the fuck out of the way. But instead, her delicate hands are at my chest, pushing as hard as she can.

I hit the ground with a thud as a gunshot rings out. My world stops when I hear Holly's painful cry and she crumbles to the ground.

Eleven

ROMERO

I push to my feet, my breathing hard. "Doll face!" I’m over to her in seconds. My heart stutters with every step I take.

Fuck. Is that my voice? It's shaky.

I drop to my knees beside her, her head's bleeding profusely. "Baby?" I whisper, unable to believe that this is fucking happening. Her eyes are closed, her usually creamy skin is pale and gray. My fingers go to her neck and I want to weep with relief when I feel the thumping of her pulse beneath my touch.

I fucked up. I've never reacted that slowly before. I'm her husband. I'm supposed to protect her. That's my job. I'm the one that's meant to keep her safe, I'm supposed to keep the worst of this life away from her. I failed her. Now she's lying on the ground, blood pouring from her face and all I can think of is that I could lose her. That the one person I care about above all else, could have fucking died.

Someone is going to pay. I will not stop until whoever the fuck did this is six feet under.

Tires screech again, my hand goes to the gun that I have holstered at my back. My gaze scanning the cars that are parked. Then I see Dante's car squealing to a stop. Makenna rushes out of the vehicle and over to us.

"What the hell happened?" she asks as she starts to look over Holly, her gaze firmly on my wife. "Fuck, we need to stop this bleeding. Fucking head wounds," she mutters.

"We need to get her back to the house," Stefan says, he's Dante and Makenna's security team, he grew up with Dante and I, his father was part of the famiglia just as ours was. "It's too open out here."

I lift Holly into my arms, not once does she stir. My gut tightens as I run toward my car. "Why the fuck isn't she awake?" I growl as Makenna crawls into the back seat with me.

"I don't know, I really don't," she says and I know that she's having a hard time just as I am. This is her niece.

Dante jumps into the passenger's seat as Stefan slides into the driver's seat. The rest of their team will follow behind us. Stefan puts his foot down and gets us the hell out of this fucking place. It shouldn't take us too long to get to the house. The sooner the fucking better.

"This shouldn't have happened." I can't stop staring at my wife's lifeless form. God, never again. I'm tying her ass to the bed, she's not allowed to leave the house.

"No," Makenna snaps, "it fucking shouldn't. How the hell did she get shot?"

I glare at the woman who I have come to respect, that is not only family, but the boss, and I don't give a fuck if she can see the anger and darkness that's swirling in my eyes. I'm so close to the edge right now, I'm holding on by a thread.

"She fucking pushed me out of the way." I say through clenched teeth, fuck. I can't believe that she did that. What the hell was she thinking?

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