Chapter One

Damon

How could time simultaneously stand still and rush by?

I had no fucking idea how, but it did.

One second, my sights were set squarely between Lorenzo’s eyes. My breaths were controlled as I started to squeeze the trigger, despite my promise to let Jillian take out her revenge out on him. He made his presence known before I could get Jillian and Carrie out of the building. Out of pure protective instinct, I was going to kill him where he stood.

Then everything went to shit.

Doors leading to the various other areas of the business opened, revealing several armed Sanfratello soldiers. Closets, bathrooms, private offices, and the distribution bay—the soldiers emerged with their guns drawn and murder in their eyes.

“Did you really think I was all alone? My men would never abandon me, and they know I’d never abandon them. They also know I’d never turn traitor against them. But that picture of me with the FBI was very convincing, for those who don’t know better. Bravo.” Lorenzo took a step closer, and his gaze shifted from me to Jillian.

“But you did betray them. They have no idea you’re pocketing the money from your embezzlement scheme and making it look like Damon took it instead.” Jillian’s revelation made many of the men pause, their eyes searching Lorenzo’s face for clues to the truth.

“Nice try, Jillian, but I’m afraid your lies won’t work.”

“Lies? No, Lorenzo, I have no reason to lie about it. But I do have proof of it. I wonder how loyal they’ll be when they see you’ve taken all the pension money and created a Ponzi scheme that they’re funding.”

Eyes all around the room shifted from Jillian to Lorenzo, their expressions changing from intrigued to suspicious. Unsure of who was lying and who was telling the truth, several men momentarily lowered their guns. Lorenzo glanced around at them, his face shrouded in a mixture of disbelief and fear, before he began bellowing orders.

“Why would you listen to Damon’s whore on the side instead of a man you’ve known your whole lives?”

“How else would she know about the pension money, Lorenzo?” One of Lorenzo’s soldiers spoke up, his voice accusatory and his stance aggressive.

I watched in slow motion as his index finger slid toward the trigger, his barrel pointing at Lorenzo. The worst-case scenario was about to go down, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. The time to get Jillian and Carrie out of harm’s way had passed. When the first shot was fired, all hell would break loose.

“You motherfucker. I trusted you. I stood up for you to your entire crew, and now you’ve made me look like a fucking idiot.” His finger wrapped around the trigger, his eyes narrowed, and his face contorted into a nasty snarl.

Just when I was convinced Jillian, Carrie, and I would be caught in the cross fire between Lorenzo’s men, the exterior doors burst open with a resounding bang when a dozen of my men kicked them in. With their guns drawn and ready to do battle, they began shouting orders at Lorenzo’s men to drop their weapons. The element of surprise rendered our enemies immobile long enough for me to turn to Jillian and Carrie and yell over the raucous noises.

“Run!”

I don’t know who fired the first shot, but that one blast from a gun was all it took to fill the room with flying bullets within a nanosecond. The wind off one nearly parted my hair as it whizzed by me. With my knees bent, I crouched in a defensive position and aimed, knocking one of the Sanfratello soldiers to the floor.

One of my guys turned a heavy oak desk over and crouched behind it, using it as cover to pick off more of them. Others quickly did the same, using desks, bookcases, and filing cabinets—whatever wasn’t bolted to the floor was knocked over as a makeshift barrier.

It felt like hours, but in reality, it had only been mere seconds since the first round was fired. In no time, casings littered the floor around my feet as I emptied my magazine into the men behind the guns pointed at me. With my path temporarily cleared, it was time to nab Lorenzo. If I had to, I’d kill him myself, but I only wanted to wound him so Jillian could finally have closure after her mother’s death.

I wanted to give her that, at least.

The noise level inside that room was off the charts, the decibels loud enough nearly to deafen me as I quickly glanced around the overturned furniture to locate the bastard. But my sixth sense was on high alert, and somehow, I heard one word over everything else.

My name, carried on the air in a terror-filled scream.

I whirled around, doing a complete one-eighty, to find Lorenzo holding Jillian in front of him as a human shield. Her hair was gripped tightly in his fist, and he used his hold to move her where he wanted with a violent jerk. The barrel of his gun was pressed against her temple. His ugly sneer mocked me. She was teary-eyed, and her terrified expression chilled my blood.

Then Benny rushed Lorenzo from the side, his stocky build slamming into the two of them like a locomotive and taking all three of them to the ground. When they fell as a single unit, Lorenzo’s gun discharged.

Jillian’s shrill scream was reduced to a pained whimper.

My heart stopped beating. My lungs stopped doing their job, not a molecule of oxygen moved through them. Time stopped ticking. The world stopped turning.

I saw red…dark red blood pooling on the floor under her.

My own blood ran cold. Like ice flowing through my veins.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a couple of Lorenzo’s men rush out the back door, quickly followed by my men. Only my immediate team was left standing inside the building. The Sanfratello soldiers littered the floor, their bodies riddled with holes.

My feet moved without conscious thought, knowing I had to get to her. I had to save her. Lorenzo’s eyes flew open wide when he met my murderous gaze. Benny had tackled them to the floor, his thick body covering both Jillian and Lorenzo. Jillian landed on top of Lorenzo, also trapping him in place. He tried to scramble out of the tangle of limbs, but I was much faster and on a mission.

My fingers gripped the back of Benny’s shirt, and I flung him off Jillian like he weighed no more than a feather. Blood covered her shirt, soaking her and the floor under them. With Benny’s weight lifted, Lorenzo was able to scoot back and almost reach a sitting position before I stopped him.

My gun was still in my hand, ready for action with a fresh magazine. I thrust the muzzle into his mouth as far as it would go. His entire body shook with fear, knowing a trigger-happy finger would relieve him of the majority of the back of his head.

“I fucking dare you to move. I dare you to even breathe. Try me, you fucking piece of shit.”

No way would I give him a chance to finish the job. I had to get Jillian out of there. I had to get her to the hospital.

“Jillian, talk to me, baby. Where are you hit?” I ran my free hand over her, pulling her shirt up to locate her wound. Blood was everywhere, but I couldn’t find the source. The more time I spent searching, the faster the blood would pour out of her body until she had none left to lose.

She turned her head, her brows drawn down and the skin around her eyes crinkled in pain. The guttural noises she made sounded like a wounded animal bleating. My heart leaped in my chest—she was still alive. But not for long if I couldn’t locate her injury, stop the bleeding, and get help.

“Jillian! Come on, doll, tell me where you’re hurt. Help me out here.”

She opened her eyes and finally spoke in a broken staccato. “Not. Shot. Winded.” Then she realized Lorenzo was still behind her, and she slid across the floor away from him.

“Whose blood is this, then?” My eyes flew over to where Benny still lay, where I dropped him in my rush to get to Jillian. The front of his shirt was stuck to his skin, soaking wet with his blood. The pallor of his skin was ghostly white.

Carrie dropped to his side. “Hold on, Benny. Help is on the way. Just hold on.” She covered the wound in his chest with her hands, applying pressure to slow the bleeding as much as she could.

“Jillian, are you okay, doll?”

“Yeah, I’m fine now. Benny’s shoulder hit me in the ribs when he took us down, knocked the breath out of me. I felt the gun go off between us, but the shock waves from the bullet were so close, I couldn’t tell which one of us it hit for a minute there.”

“Can you hold this while I help Carrie with Benny?” I inclined my head toward the barrel of my gun still securely rammed down Lorenzo’s throat.

“I’d love to.” She wrapped her fingers around the handle then shoved it a little farther into his mouth. “It’d be a shame if my trigger finger slipped, wouldn’t it?”

I jerked my shirt over my head and covered Carrie’s hands with it. She slipped them out from under the fabric, bunching it up over the wound, and pressed down again. Her worried eyes met mine. “I called our family doctor. He’s on the way, but I’m not sure Benny will last that long.”

“We brought help,” another voice called from the front door of the building.

I jerked my head in that direction and found the Consigliere and the Underboss of the Sanfratello family approaching, their muscled goons at their flanks. Behind them, two men in medical uniforms rushed toward us with a gurney in tow. They knelt beside Benny, assessing his wounds and grabbing medical supplies from the oversized container they brought in. Within seconds, they loaded him onto the stretcher and rushed out the door with him. The siren pierced the early morning hours as the ambulance sped away with my best friend.

The Sanfratello leaders stopped, and I pushed up to my feet to meet them. Whatever end they had in mind, I’d take it standing up like a man.

“Do what you want with me. Just let the ladies leave unharmed.”

“We’re here to collect the confused men who mistakenly followed Lorenzo,” the Underboss said. “Geno has plans for them, if they repent. We’re not interested in you or the ladies. This time.”

More teams of paramedics rushed in, helping the wounded and working quickly to move them out of the office until everyone who was still breathing had been evacuated. When the bosses were satisfied the job was finished, they turned to leave with their goons completely covering their backs.

Lorenzo wasn’t able to speak with my gun shoved halfway down his throat, so he reacted to their departure with loud, pleading noises. The Underboss stopped in the doorway and turned to look at us over his shoulder.

“Lorenzo, you made your bed. Now you have to lie in it. I’m not going to rescue you. Damon knows what will happen if he kills you. But you’re the one who started this. It was your scheme to steal money from the very men who protected you. We don’t tolerate disrespect in this family. As the Boss’s son, you should know that better than anyone.”

He gave me a pointed look before closing the door behind him, leaving us alone in Geno Sanfratello’s business. With Geno’s son left in a precarious state. I knew what message he wanted to send me. Killing a bona fide member of the Sanfratello family, even one as shitty as Lorenzo, would have consequences.

Killing him would be worth whatever they threw at us later.

“Today is just not your day, is it, Lorenzo?” I grabbed the front of his shirt and hauled him to his feet.

Jillian stood with us and withdrew the gun from his mouth when she saw Carrie righting an overturned chair. I pushed him into it, causing him to lose his balance and stumble ungracefully as he plopped down on his ass. After locating a broken lamp on the floor, I pulled out the cord and tied his hands to the legs of the chair behind his back.

“He’s all yours, doll.”