Chapter 9
*Crack!*
The compact pistol kicked hard against my wrists.
The round took the soldier directly behind the ear. His head bounced off the concrete, the shotgun discharging harmlessly into the wooden pallet beside him as his body went limp.
Dominic spun on his heel at the sound of the gunshot, his weapon drawn, ready to fire—until his eyes met mine.
I was standing in the pouring rain, twenty feet away, smoke curling from the barrel of the gun in my hands, my chest heaving, the blood from my torn sutures soaking through my trousers again.
Dominic’s eyes widened with pure, primal realization.
"Emma!" he roared.
Before he could reach me, an engine roared to life at the edge of the dock.
Vittorio Ross had reached the speedboat. He cast off the heavy mooring rope, leveled an automatic machine pistol at me, and pulled the trigger.
"If I can't have the Falcone crown, nobody will!" Vittorio screamed through the storm.
A hail of nine-millimeter rounds tore through the air between us.
Dominic didn't hesitate. He launched himself across the wet concrete, throwing his entire six-foot-two frame into mine.
The impact knocked the breath from my lungs. We hit the floor together, skidding across the slick surface behind a steel fuel drum.
*Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!*
Three rounds slammed into Dominic’s back with sickening, muffled thuds.
A choked gasp escaped his lips. His weight collapsed heavily on top of me, pinning me to the cold concrete.
"Dominic!" I screamed, terror ripping through my throat like broken glass. "Dominic!"
"I'm... I'm good," he wheezed, his teeth grinding together in agony as he rolled off me.
His tactical vest had caught two of the rounds, but the third had grazed the side of his ribcage, tearing through the Kevlar seam and slicing deep into the flesh beneath his arm. Blood was already pouring through his black shirt, hot and crimson.
"Vittorio..." Dominic gasped, coughing as he tried to raise his weapon with his left hand.
I looked toward the open bay doors.
The speedboat was pulling away from the dock, churning up white foam against the black, choppy waves of the harbor. Vittorio was standing at the stern, laughing maniacally into the rain.
I didn't hesitate.
I grabbed Dominic’s dropped Glock from the floor—the full-sized frame heavier and colder than the small pistol I had been holding.
I dragged myself up onto the edge of the fuel drum.
*Point and squeeze. Don't hesitate.*
I braced the heavy pistol with both hands on the rim of the barrel, exhaled the burning air from my lungs, and adjusted for the wind blowing off the lake.
One shot.
*Pfft.*
The suppressed round shattered the glass windshield of the speedboat.
Second shot.
*Pfft.*
The bullet struck the fuel tank mounted to the outboard motor.
A spark caught the leaking vapor.
*BOOM!*
A massive fireball erupted fifty yards out in the water, lighting up the midnight sky in a roaring blinding flare of orange and yellow. The shockwave rattled the corrugated walls of the warehouse, throwing a wave of heat back across the docks.
The speedboat disintegrated into burning splinters of fiberglass and fuel, sinking instantly into the freezing depths of Lake Michigan.
Vittorio Ross was gone.
The remnants were dead.
The silence that returned to Warehouse 14 was absolute, broken only by the rhythmic drumming of rain on the roof and the sound of my own ragged, sobbing breaths.
The heavy gun slipped from my trembling fingers, clattering onto the concrete.
I dropped to my knees beside Dominic, my hands pressing desperately against the bleeding wound beneath his ribs.
"Stay with me," I sobbed, tears mixing with the rain streaming down my face. "Dominic, please! Look at me! Look at me!"
Dominic slowly turned his head. His face was pale, his lips slightly blue from the cold, but his eyes were wide open.
He looked at the burning wreckage out on the water.
Then he looked up at me.
A weak, bloodied smile touched his lips.
"Remind me..." Dominic whispered, his voice rough and laced with pain, "...never to make you angry, Emma."
"Shut up," I choked out, laughing through my tears as I ripped the sleeve of my robe to press against his side. "Daniel! Daniel, get over here! Call Dr. Russo!"
Daniel’s heavy boots came sprinting across the concrete, sliding to a stop beside us. He took one look at Dominic, tapped his radio, and shouted for the medical transport.
Dominic reached up with his bloody right hand, his fingers curling around the back of my neck, pulling me down until my forehead rested against his.
"You're not a maid anymore, Emma," he murmured, his breath warm against my cheek.
"I don't care what I am," I whispered back, clutching his tactical vest with both hands. "Just don't you dare die on me."
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"Never," he promised, his eyes holding mine as the darkness of exhaustion began to pull him under. "Not when I finally found my queen."
***
