Leo gripped his shoulder. “You okay?”
Under normal circumstances, Anton would have bristled at this. But today wasn’t a normal day.
“I’m worried about Dad and Lena,” he said. “And Dal.”
Leo flopped into the chair across from him. “I’m worried about them, too.”
There wasn’t anything else to say. Leo wanted to say his family would make it back from Rossi; that they were strong and capable. And they were, but this was a Russian invasion. Nothing was a guarantee. As evidenced by all that had happened to Lars and Adam
“You think it’s time to put your feet up?” Nonna marched over to them. “There’s a truck to be unloaded, boys. Move.”
Leo flashed a wry grin at Anton and Bruce before levering himself up. He led the boys outside to unload all the gear from the truck.
Chapter 8Two Trucks
DAL HAD DONE IT. HE’D found Lena and gotten her back to the Beetle.
It had been a terrifying sprint through the chaos of downtown. He’d had to shoot two Russians with his stolen machine gun. They’d almost been hit by those red darts more times than he could count. But they’d made it.
He yanked open the passenger-side door of the Beetle. “Get in,” he screamed at Lena.
She dove past him into the car. Dal slammed the door after her, relief washing over him.
Now what? The question pulsed in his brain as Dal jumped into the driver’s seat and locked the door. Now what? After leaving the coffee shop, he hadn’t thought past getting Lena safely back to his car.
Home. Somehow, he had to get her home.
But how? He stared at the anarchy around him. Soviets were everywhere. The streets were in uproar. Dead bodies were piling up. Cars had smashed into one another, clogging up the road.
“The Beetle is small.” Lena’s eyes flicked up and down the street. “We can get through.”
She was right. The Beetle was small. If there was any car that could maneuver the tight streets, it was this one.
Lena surprised him by leaning over and hefting the machine gun that lay across Dal’s lap.
He grabbed her hand to stop her from taking the weapon. “What are you doing?” It was impossible not to imagine Mr. Cecchino’s face if he saw his daughter wielding a Soviet machine gun.
Lena gave Dal a look before yanking the gun out of his hands. “I’m going to shoot any Russian that tries to stand in our way.”
“You don’t know how to use a machine gun,” he protested.
Her gaze was scathing. “You never used one until a few minutes ago, but you did alright.”
Lena knew her way around guns. Mr. Cecchino had taken her hunting with his sons plenty of times. Still, there was something disturbing about seeing the ex-ballerina hefting the machine gun in her lithe arms.
“You don’t get to be the knight in shining armor, Dal. It’s going to take two of us to make it out of Rossi.” She rolled down the window, propping the machine on the ledge. “Give me those extra magazines.”
Dal had swiped two forty-five round mags off the bodies of a Soviet. Lips tight, he passed them to her. “Put your seat belt on.”
She huffed. “Okay, Dad.” She buckled the belt. “Drive. Get us out of here.”
“Fuck me,” Dal growled. Worry for Lena made him sick, but he fired up the blue Beetle and rolled forward.
The freeway onramp. That’s where they had to go. From there, it was a straight shot to the country road that led to the farm. The onramp was no more than eight blocks away.
They just had to get there.
He weaved through the traffic. There were plenty of people still trying to drive, which made the road even more hazardous.
Ahead of them, two Russians chased several teenage kids down the sidewalk, firing darts at them.
“Lena—”
She fired. The recoil of the machine gun punched her back into the chair. The bullets went wide and shattered an office window. “Dammit,” she muttered.
Dal swerved around two cars that had crashed into a telephone pole. Lena adjusted her stance, waited for Dal to clear the wrecked cars, then fired again. Her bullets ripped into the men, felling them like rag dolls. The kids fled, racing away down the street.
Dal knew Lena was a good shot. But it was one thing to see her shoot a deer and another thing to see her gun down Soviet invaders. What would Mr. Cecchino say when he found out?
Lena leaned back, satisfaction on her face. Until she caught Dal looking at her.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t tell dad.”
This statement didn’t make Dal feel any better. But it wasn’t just the mental image of Mr. Cecchino’s horror when he learned his daughter had gunned down Russians that made him uncomfortable. It was the realization that Lena looked pretty damn beautiful gunning down enemy soldiers.
It wasn’t that he was blind. He knew Lena was a beauty. Dal just didn’t allow himself to look at her that way. He would never disrespect the family that had taken him in by doing that. She was practically his little sister.
Mouth dry, he refocused on the road. A bullet glanced across the roof of the bug. A Russian ran through a drug store parking lot on Dal’s side of the street, firing at the Beetle.
Lena didn’t hesitate. She ejected the seat belt buckle and hopped up, sticking her torso out the open widow. She rotated in the direction of the Russian and delivered a string of answering bullets. The man fell.
“I wish Mom was here to see this.” Lena dropped back into the car, dark hair in disarray around her face. “She always knew this day would come.”
Dal had no words. He swallowed and kept driving.
They made it a few more blocks, moving away from downtown. The road had cleared, the concentration of the attack centered in the heart of Rossi. Only another two blocks to the onramp.
“There’s
