Rebel padded over to me, nudging my side as I trembled on the floor. Pushing to my feet, I fought back the tears from the pain. The gun was heavy in my right hand, pulling at my wrist as I cradled it to my chest. My left shoulder throbbed with the sharp pain of a bullet lodged in it. “Where’s Enzo, baby” I asked, rubbing a shaky hand over her back and wincing in pain. My hand came away red, her fur so slick with blood that she was damn near unrecognizable.
My little monster. Who’d saved my life again.
She walked to the doorway, looking back at me as if she needed to ask if I was coming. I paused, considering if it would be safe to go back downstairs, but the only sound that I could hear when I made it to the doorway was the eerie quiet that came after a massacre.
The stillness to the air and the metallic scent of blood drew me out until I peeked down the stairs to the main floor. The vague shapes of bodies littered the floor in my line of sight. The one I’d shot bled from the hole on the underside of his face. Near him another bled from a wound in the neck similar to what Rebel had done. But the laceration was straighter where hers had been jagged and torn.
Swallowing, I tucked myself against the wall and out of sight.
"Shit," I swore, my lungs heaving as brakes squealed outside. Hoping against hope that reinforcements had arrived for us and not the other way around.
"Sadie?" Ryker asked, his voice drawing a sigh of relief from me as his boots thumped along the floor. Peeking down the stairs, I hurried out from my hiding place, keeping my head low and trying not to look at the bodies. "I've got her," Ryker called, stepping over to me with a glance around the space and down to Rebel who clung to my side.
"Where's Enzo?" he asked when he helped me stand.
"Killing people, I suspect," I whispered, staring up at his vivid blue eyes as the meatball stared down at me.
"I'm jealous," he admitted with another look around. "Looks like he's got quite the massacre going for himself."
I swallowed as my eyes landed on Enzo's form at the other end of the alley between the lofts. His chest heaved as his mouth twisted into an animalistic snarl. He held a man in his arms, controlling his struggling as he raised his knife and dragged the blade across his throat.
"Definitely jealous," Ryker murmured. More brakes squealed, an SUV filled with armed men pouring into the back door of the warehouse. "I've got Sadie. Go clear the rest of the building," Ryker ordered. Seb nodded, motioning two of the men up the stairs and taking the other two with him to check the ground floor. Ryker took the gun from my hand, easing the burden of its weight. A sigh of relief slid free, cradling my hand to my chest.
Matteo and Simon emerged through the front door. The man from Indulgence who wanted to brand Vanessa trailed at their heels, lacking a gun like the other two clutched in their hands. "Don't look at him too long," Ryker warned, leaning his hatchet against his leg as he spun me to inspect the bullet wound in the back of my shoulder. "Rafe's psychotic, and that's coming from me." His eyes went to my wrist where it was already turning purple, his jaw clenching.
"Seems that way," I said, watching as a man stepped out from the shadows. Seeming to mistake Rafe for the weak link because of his lack of a gun, he lunged for him. Rafe dodged, grabbing the man's head between his hands and twisting so quickly that the snap of his neck echoed up the alley as he fell to the floor.
Rafe glanced at the body for a moment, his lip curling in distaste before he stepped over the body carefully and straightened his tie. "Who is he?" I asked Ryker.
"A friend of Matteo's from Spain," he answered as choruses of "clear" rang through the space from in the loft.
"We're clear down here," Seb said, moving to Enzo at the front of the building.
Ryker put a hand to the middle of my back gently, guiding me up the alleyway where Enzo waited. He didn't move to close the distance between us, his face still twisted with his fury until we reached him. "I told you we should wait," I said stupidly with a smile, sidestepping the bloody puddle around the dude with the Cheshire grin on his neck. Enzo didn’t react, staring down at the body by his feet.
I reached out a hand to touch his chest, his free hand grabbing my bruised wrist in a crushing grip that made me cry out. Ryker twitched, stepping forward, but Matteo held him back with a warning hand to his chest. “Enzo,” I whispered, my voice laced with pain as his fingers tightened. “Lorenzo, it’s me.” I curled my fingers into his chest, digging in as much as I could through the pain. His features relaxed slowly as he stared at me, his body going slack as I pressed myself into him for comfort.
To calm him and draw him back from the brink where he'd gone in his murderous rage. His arms closed around me, his breath coming slowly until his heart pulsed in time with mine instead of a rapid race to the finish line of life. "Don't you ever do something like that again. That's twice in two days that you put yourself in danger stupidly, Carina."
Looking up at him, I winced in pain as the muscles in my shoulder shifted to accommodate the new angle. "I regret trying to run toward the fire, but I will never regret taking a bullet for you," I
