My command is answered by a volley of shots. Immediately, I throw myself on the floor with my family. The bullets rip through the thin bedroom door and embed themselves in the wall behind us, but they’re all a few feet off of the ground.
I was right. There’s a dresser in front of the door.
My heart is pounding in my ears, but I don’t move until he’s finished shooting. There’s always a chance that he could let off a few more rounds, but I’m not going to give him that chance. For all he knows, it’s just me in the hall. For all he knows, he hit me.
Pops touches my shoulder and I turn to look at him, but he points back to the bedroom door. It’s easy to see a bit of light shining through the holes, and I crawl up to the door, raising myself off of the floor just enough to look through one of the holes.
Fuck, yeah, he barricaded himself in there with the dresser, and it’s just him. Nobody came with him. For a moment, I had a twinge of fear that he may have brought some goons with him, but he’s standing behind the bed, his back against the outside wall of her apartment. I raise my pistol, keeping my eye on him.
This bastard thought that he could come here and ruin Eva’s life. Hell, from the sound of it, he’s already done a fucking good job of hurting her in the past. My finger itches to squeeze the trigger. I could easily take him out from here. He’d never even know that it was coming.
But I stop myself. Her ex has hurt her enough that I want him to hurt. There’s no way for me to shove the dresser out from in front of the door without him shooting more and hitting me. He’s got it barricaded tight against the door, but there has to be another way.
I could shoot him from here and end it all. Hell, that’s probably what Pops and Arlo would tell me to do so that I wasn’t doing anything stupid.
But they don’t know Eva. Fuck, they don’t love Eva. I want to be able to hold her in my arms tonight and know that I shot the motherfucker who was hurting her and that he knew that I was the new man that she loves.
I want to look her in the eyes and know that I’ve done everything I possibly can to keep her safe. I know that it’s stupid, and I know that Pops and Arlo are probably going to give me a hard time about this later, but killing him through the hole in her fucking bedroom door isn’t how I want this to go.
Grunting, I throw my shoulder into the door. It opens just a crack, but I’m met with a volley of shots. The stupid motherfucker didn’t even bother locking the door, which means that as long as I can open it a few more feet, I’ll be able to get in there and take him down.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Arlo hisses at me from his position on the floor. “Just shoot the motherfucker, Roque!”
“I have to do it close,” I tell him. Arlo’s never loved a broad, not like I love Eva, so I already think that he’s going to blow me off for being stupid, but he just nods.
“I gotcha. Stay low, brother, or we’re going to have to call in the doc for an emergency visit.” He crawls past me to the door, staying well below the height of the dresser. If the ex were smart enough to get closer and fire down through the door, we’d be fucked, but he’s too fucking stupid.
He keeps shooting above the dresser, and that’s how we’re going to be able to take him out.
“You ready?” I ask Arlo, and when he nods, we both slam our shoulders into the door. It pushes the dresser back a few more inches, opening the door about a foot. Fuck, we’re so close, but there’s no way that I can slip through there just yet. It needs to be a bit wider, and then Arlo will be able to cover me.
Sudden gunfire from behind us makes me jump, but when I turn around, it’s just Pops. He’s shot high over our heads so that the bullets won’t hit the bastard, but they should be enough to make him drop behind the bed for safety.
“Do it.” He nods and as we prepare to hit the door again, he fires a few more shots. The noise is incredible. Even though the walls are so thin that they probably don’t offer any insulation during the winter, it’s still so loud that my ears are ringing. Arlo and I slam into the door again, this time pushing the dresser far enough away from the door that I can easily walk through the opening.
Pops keeps shooting, ensuring that the fucker will be hiding as I walk into the room. I’m bent over a bit, making sure that I’m not a huge and obvious target. Arlo’s close behind me, and I hear Matty and Valentino follow us to cover me.
It’s overkill, but that’s how our family works. We don’t leave anyone out on their own, not when we can do something to make sure that they’ll be safe. My pistol out, I scoot around the bed.
There he is. He’s curled up on the ground, his pistol a foot from his hand. I kick it behind me and Arlo picks it up, slipping it into his pants before training his gun on David again.
“David.” My voice is loud enough that even Pops hears, and he stops firing into the room. David moans and opens his eyes to look at me, but he doesn’t move. “Get up, you
