Carlo’s eyes narrowed as he trained the gun on his cousin. “Grant Pants has joined us, I see.” He waved the gun toward the sofa though his eyes never left Grant’s incensed crystal glare. “Get over on the sofa with your bitches.”
“No,” Grant said, ignoring the gun. He stole a glance at Sophie, whose abject fear ripped into him. He was putting her in danger, like he promised he’d never do. “Let’s take this outside,” Grant offered in a placating tone. “This has nothing to do with them. This is between us.”
Quickly checking his female prey, Carlo returned his gaze to Grant. He did not feel so smug anymore. Three hostiles outnumbered him, even though he was the one with the gun. “Do you want to die, cugino? Get your fucking ass on that sofa!”
Carlo gave the gun a definitive shake, aiming it straight at Grant’s chest.
“No!” cried Sophie.
Frantically training the gun on the women and then back to Grant, Carlo screamed, “Get over there now!”
“We’ll resolve this outside,” Grant said again, refusing to budge from his position. He had to keep Sophie safe. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“No, Grant!” Sophie cried again, clutching Kirsten’s arm in terror.
“I’ll give you five seconds to get over there, Madsen, snuggled right up next to your whore. Five seconds before I shoot you dead.”
Grant’s heart thumped, and he frantically searched for a way out of the situation.
The sound of blood pumping in her ears nearly deafened Sophie, and she desperately tried to clear her head. She was missing something important. Watching the menacing stranger threaten Grant without hesitation, seeming to enjoy the impending kill, a realization suddenly dawned on Sophie.
Over Carlo’s menacing count—”Five … four … three …”—Sophie shouted, “It was you!”
Carlo and Grant couldn’t help but turn their heads from their tense standoff. “What?” they asked in unison.
“It was him!” Sophie announced, meeting Grant’s blue eyes while emphatically pointing at Carlo. “He killed Logan!”
Carlo’s eyes widened with stunned guilt before he quickly composed himself. “What the fuck are you talking about?” he screamed at Sophie. Wheeling around to face Grant, he insisted, “I didn’t touch Logan!”
But the performance didn’t fool Grant. He’d seen Carlo’s initial reaction to Sophie’s accusation and knew she was right. “It was you!” he echoed. Taking a step toward Carlo, Grant growled, “You killed my brother. Of course it was you.”
Carlo shook his head vehemently. “Cugino, I would never be so stupid as to cap Enzo’s son!”
They were not buying his denials. With the infuriated stares of three people on him, Carlo felt caged in. Grant took another step forward and Carlo thrust the gun in his face. “Stay back!” he cried.
“How dare you,” Grant snapped, his fury blinding him to the gun. “How dare you kill Lo!”
“Swear to God, Grant. You get any closer, you’ll be sorry.”
Grant felt a boiling rage, and all he wanted to do was lunge for Carlo’s throat, the gun be damned. He took another step closer, unknowingly crossing the invisible line Carlo had drawn.
Swiftly, decisively, Carlo rotated toward Sophie and lowered the gun an inch before firing a deafening shot.
Grant gasped and Kirsten screamed.
Sophie felt the astonishing impact of the bullet ripping into her, sending her reeling back into the sofa cushions. Her left arm was on fire. She gasped for air, unable to move, totally overwhelmed by shock and a searing pain above her elbow. Kirsten reached across her friend, frantically scanning her body. She felt warm stickiness when her hand encountered Sophie’s left elbow, and Kirsten pulled back in fear.
Carlo instantly trained the weapon back on Grant, who gaped at Sophie and moved to go to her when he felt the hot muzzle of the gun on his temple.
“On your knees,” Carlo ordered. “Or the next shot goes straight through her heart.”
Grant complied immediately. Kneeling on the carpet, he lifted his arms to the side in a gesture of surrender and begged, “Please don’t kill her. I’ll do whatever you want, just please.”
Carlo smiled, delighted to hear his cousin’s pleas.
“We need to call an ambulance!” Kirsten shrilly demanded.
“Shut up,” Carlo snarled. “No cops.”
Sophie groaned as a spasm of pain raced up her arm. Grant flinched at the horrific sound and closed his eyes. His fear for Sophie was so overwhelming he barely registered the gun pressing into the side of his head.
If Carlo had killed Logan, surely he and Sophie had no chance at surviving this. And Kirsten was likely going to die too. She was completely innocent—her only fault was befriending Sophie. And Sophie’s only fault had been falling in love with him. He waited for the blinding flash of a gunshot to pierce his brain, praying his own death might somehow save them.
Carlo’s mind raced as he considered what to do. He longed to pull the trigger and end the family competition forever. But his father’s incensed black eyes haunted him. How would Angelo react if Carlo killed both brothers? He glanced at the girls on the sofa. Sophie’s face was drawn in anguish, and Kirsten applied pressure to her wound, which oozed blood. Her eyes begged him for help.
“Please, Carlo,” Grant implored. “Please let us call for help. I won’t tell anyone it was you. All I care about is saving Sophie. We’ll keep it a secret, okay?”
Wrenching his eyes from the blood on Sophie’s arm, Carlo stared down at the unmoving crown of his cousin’s head. Could he just walk away? Bouncing his eyes back and forth from Grant to Sophie, Carlo clenched his jaw. Of course they would go to the cops. His little extortion game was now out in the open, as Grant and Sophie knew he was pitting one against the other, so nothing would stop them from reporting him to the police. And there was no way he’d submit to being on the run the rest of his life like Logan. He was going to have to kill all three of them. There was no way around it.
The jarring ring of a cell phone filled the air, freezing all four in place. The phone’s cheery ring kept going for three, four, five seconds, interfering with Carlo’s concentration and making him tense. “Whose fucking phone is that?”
Finally, the phone stopped ringing, only to resume the incongruous happy melody seconds later. “Goddamn it!” Carlo fumed. “Whose phone is that?”
“It’s mine,” Sophie gasped, swallowing pain. “It’s my father. He’s … he’s going to hunt you down if you hurt any of us.”
“Then I’ll kill him too,” Carlo retorted.
“Please let me get the phone,” Kirsten said. “I’ll turn it off.”
“You stay right where you are, bitch,” Carlo said, taking the gun off of Grant for a split second before returning the muzzle to his temple. “Nobody is going anywhere.”
The phone rang incessantly, fraying Carlo’s nerves. Kirsten inched forward on the sofa. “I’ll just stop it from ringing,” she negotiated, training her gaze on the unpredictable murderer in her living room.