He finished speaking and everyone dispersed heading in the direction of the iron gates. Zedd appeared next to me, handing me a vest. “Where’s my gun?” I raised an eyebrow at him as I tugged on the vest. Everyone else had a gun…
“Do you even know how to shoot?” He smirked patronisingly. Oh, it was on, that challenge would be coming back around to bite him in the ass. But now wasn’t the time. Instead, I sharply slammed my foot into his and stole the gun from his holster. That’s what you got when you acted like a tool.
I turned back around to Nikolai just in time to catch the shake of his head. There was no doubt in my mind that he’d just seen our exchange. Nevertheless I made my way over to him, ignoring Zedd’s soft curses. I checked out Zedd’s gun making sure it was loaded and then tucked it down the back of my jeans
Once close enough, Nikolai placed a soft kiss to my forehead. “Come along, angel.”
We made our way through the gates and up the path towards the house. Ahead of us, I watched as an upstairs light turned on. No one was around, so I assumed that Nikolai had everyone forge ahead, leaving the dirty work up to them. It was his way of humouring me, or ‘protecting me’ as he would say.
“So what now?”
“My men have locked down the perimeter, and secured everyone inside.” His hand captured mine and gave it a gentle squeeze. I wanted to ask what our job was, but I knew what it was. Cassio’s head was on the chopping block but in this kitchen, only Nik wielded a knife.
I stayed silent as I followed behind him into the Bellucci mansion and deep into the belly of the beast. We followed the sounds of voices until we reached the downstairs study. With the door wide open and the lamp turned on, I caught the first glimpse of the man who’d had it out for me. He was slouched in a chair, the gun of one of the surrounding men pointed at his head.
Wait. “Where’s Rosa? And Marco?”
“Don’t worry, we tend not to hurt women or children. Rosa has been escorted off the property.”
“Marco?” I asked.
“He’s restrained in another room.” Well, at the very least he wasn’t going to have to watch this. But I hoped he wouldn’t be able to hear it either. That was gruesome. The sound never quite leaves your head, trust me, I knew.
Nikolai pulled out his gun, suddenly Cassio ceased to move - his struggling becoming minimal. He knew what was coming next. I did too, and Nikolai certainly did. I’ve never thought too much about ending someone else's life before that moment. It should’ve been a bigger deal than what it was.
But at the end of the day, in my eyes, Cassio was a bad man. I was a heartless bitch that had no empathy for him. But still…
“Wait.” I reached a hand out to Nik’s shoulder to stop him. Having his attention, I stepped around him and faced Cassio head-on. I even crouched down so that we were eye level, there was no escaping my scrutinous gaze. “When you had Anton kidnap me all those years ago, what did you have to gain?”
There was no change to his expression, he had clearly known why we were there. Who knew, maybe he had known all along. I waited a minute, when no response came I spun on my heel and walked out of the room. I pressed my back against the wall of the hallway, my breathing became heavy as I waited.
Cassio groaned, and then finally started talking — loud enough for me to hear in the hallway. “Kaleb and I were on good terms at the time, we’d arranged their marriage to intertwine the families forever. It was the smart move, we’d both been under fire from the O’Malley family. There was a disagreement about certain business practises because Kaleb didn’t agree with the way we did things. I wasn’t going to give up everything I’d built because he wasn’t willing to run with the big boys.”
Exactly what I would have expected from Cassio Bellucci. What an asshole.
Nikolai grumbled, a gun cocked then a single shot later it was all over. I didn’t know why I bothered even leaving the room. While I didn’t see it, I felt like I did. Every spoken word, every sound rang as clear as a blue sky. Even the sound of Cassio’s body going limp. I’d never thought that that was an audible sound. Maybe it was just my imagination. I was still contemplating it when Nikolai stepped into the hallway.
He didn’t say anything, he didn’t have to, his eyes said enough to fill the silence. They were asking if I was okay. I gave him a small nod of the head to answer all his unspoken questions. He took off down the hallway and I tentatively followed behind him.
A man stood outside a room, moving out of our way when we reached him. As soon as we entered the room, Marco was running at me before I’d even noticed he was there. Nikolai intervened, moving in front of me and running at Marco, slamming his body into the wall across the room. The force used seemed a bit excessive but I wasn’t about to hold that against him.
“When you lunge at someone, don’t scream.” Nik’s forearm was pressed against Marco’s throat, pinning him in place. I was sure Nikolai tacked ‘idiot’ onto the end but it wasn’t loud enough for me to have been sure.
“What are we going to do with him?” I
