Because no longer was I safe.
No longer was I just trying to make it through a school day, and suddenly I was reminded of the stupid Game of Thrones commercial.
Enemies in the East.
Enemies to the West.
Enemies to the North.
Enemies to the South.
That was my life.
Enemies in my house.
Enemies in my bed.
Enemies vying for my heart.
Enemies ready to steal my soul.
Dante shot him three times.
I didn’t blink.
I needed to see it.
To remind myself that he was the very monster I had been fighting my entire life. NO matter what, I would not allow myself to get close.
And if I did — it would be a ruse, a ruse so that I could feel my hands around his throat while I watched the life leave his body.
The only out was in.
He was going to force my hand.
Because I wanted to be free.
Of all of this.
The choking fear of loss surrounded me.
All I had left to fight for was me.
The idea of me.
The idea of life my parents blessed me with.
To live beyond the murder, the money, the drugs, the family name.
I escaped.
I was captured.
Set free.
Captured again.
I would not lose.
He sat on a throne of power.
A throne of lies.
He glanced over at me, his expression blank. I nodded my head at him once, and waited while Ike’s body was dragged across the bloody cement floor, his red stained palm print pressed against the wall, and RIP with a date written over top of it.
People celebrated.
They cheered like we were in Rome and this was our Coliseum. I barely had time to run out of the place before I puked my guts into the bushes. Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand before something touched my back.
I jerked away.
Chase sighed and offered me his shirt, peeling it off his body without question, waiting for me to gag into it and wipe my face.
“You saw?” I asked.
“He basically told me where he was going. Dante doesn’t do shit like that on accident, I think he was worried something would happen to you.”
I snorted and wiped my mouth again, his shirt was soft, it smelled like detergent, it smelled normal. “Does that look like a guy who’s worried about who lives or dies?”
Chase hesitated for a second then grunted. “He made an impossible decision. The only way he was walking out of there with you by his side was shooting that gun. You do realize that right?”
“I refuse to believe that was the only way.”
“Trust me,” Chase leaned in closer as people started walking out of The Spot. “You live this life long enough and you learn to study every single exit, every single face, every single option — I watched the entire thing, I would have done the same, except I probably would have gotten my ass kicked a lot more, kid can fight.”
“Kid?” I repeated.
“Fine, the man can fight?” Chase offered with a wink.
“Don’t tease, don’t… not when someone’s dead.”
Chase shrugged. “That someone, you’re feeling so heartbroken over, had a rap sheet longer than Phoenix’s black folder stack. He killed his last girlfriend for cheating on him… sells drugs to the student body, and is selling a street drug eighty times stronger than heroine… people have been dying, it’s only fair that he should too.”
I gulped and then argued, I had to. “Human life is human life.”
Chase’s eyes fell. “Keep that innocence as long as you fucking can, El. It’s the thing we love the most about you.”
“I’m not innocent.”
“And yet here we stand.” He smirked. “Arguing over the slain monster.”
The door jerked open.
Dante strolled out.
Took one look at us and kept walking.
Chase followed in silence, I fell into step beside him.
Five black SUV’s waited.
Chase opened the door to one.
I got in.
Dante followed.
“El,” Dante licked his lips. “We should talk—”
“I’m all talked out,” I hissed.
He reached for me.
I jerked away. “Touch me again and I’m using the knife you stashed in my bra.”
Chase’s eyes met mine from the rearview mirror. “Nice… you stashed a knife in her bra? Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Probably because I’m a Nicolasi and own a brain… Abandonato,” Dante finished in a teasing tone.
How could they joke?
Someone was dead!
His handprint on the wall!
I crossed my arms.
One wrong didn’t make a right.
Several wrongs didn’t either.
There was no line.
It was blurred between right and wrong.
There was no black and white.
Only gray.
Rain pounded on the windshield.
The SUV stopped in front of a large building.
“Chinese?” Dante asked. “We’re getting takeout?”
“Yeah.” Chase chuckled. “Something like that.”
“El,” Dante tried again as we walked into the abandoned looking restaurant.
A bartender stood on the other side of the bar.
And a man who looked vaguely familiar stood.
I hid behind Dante.
“Oh, now you want my protection?” Dante said under his breath before jerking me forward and into the arms of The Doctor.
One of the most infamous assassins in the Russian Mafia.
And naturally, owner of a Pulitzer for medicine.
The world was a cruel and confusing place.
“Nikolai Blazik,” I said his name out loud, had to, to believe it.
Tattoos littered his knuckles, the man was a fallen angel. I refused to look into his eyes.
He forced me when he tilted my chin toward him and whispered. “That bastard deserved what he got for touching you.”
And that was it.
He nodded to Dante, shook hands with Chase.
And suddenly, within seconds.
I was surrounded.
By all bosses of the Italian Mafia.
And the one snitch I never saw coming from the Russians.
Nikolai.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Dante
“YOU LOOK LIKE death.” Nikolai’s eyebrows shot in my direction and then he took a step forward and sniffed the air like a freaking animal. “It looks good on you.”
I think that was the equivalent of a compliment from the Russians.
“Thanks.” I met his dark gaze before glancing around the empty restaurant. There was only one reason he would be there, in Chicago, and I had a bad feeling it had everything to do with what had just happened.
And the aftermath.
Nixon jerked his head toward the hallway.
I followed the rest of the group, while El stood by my side, I could feel the heat of her body, the ripple of tension running through her fingertips as they grazed the side of my right hand over and over again, like she was ready to grab and run.
The room was dark.
A single candle lit in the middle.
Chairs were placed around a square table.
A glass of wine in front of each chair.
And as every boss and associate sat, it became very clear that I was expected to do the same.
Weeks. Weeks I’d suffered under these guys, gotten brutalized, beaten, bloodied.
And now, it seemed, they still had one last test.
Because beside the last empty seat at the table was a knife on the left a gun on the right.
I sat while El stood near the door.
She semi-blocked the only exit.