Chapter 6 - The Fall of the Falcon
Time slowed to a crawl.
I saw the black hole of the muzzle. I saw Julian’s finger whitening on the trigger. I saw the desperate, feral hatred in his eyes.
I didn't have time to scream.
Dante moved with a speed that defied human anatomy.
Despite his taped ribs, despite his shattered shoulder, he threw his entire body across the space between us. His broad, muscular frame completely eclipsed my vision, his arms wrapping around my shoulders like an iron shield.
BANG!
The concussive roar of the gunshot detonated in the closed room.
A sharp, ragged grunt tore from Dante’s throat. His body jerked violently against mine, the sheer force of the impact driving us both back against the heavy drapery of the stage.
"Dante!" I screamed, my hands flying to his back.
My fingers plunged into warm, sticky wetness. Crimson soaked through his charcoal overcoat, spreading rapidly across the fine wool over his left shoulder blade.
Before Julian could cycle a second round, Marco’s suppressed submachine gun barked three times from the base of the stairs.
Pfft. Pfft. Pfft.
Julian’s eyes went wide. The gun dropped from his lifeless fingers. He took one drunken, shuddering step backward and collapsed off the edge of the stage, crashing through a table of crystal champagne flutes, his blood pooling across the white linen.
The ballroom descended into shrieking chaos.
"Dante! Look at me!" I cried, dropping to my knees as his weight bore down on me, his head slumping against my collarbone.
"I'm fine, little bird..." he wheezed, a bloody cough racking his chest, his gray eyes struggling to stay focused on mine. "Just... a graze..."
"You idiot!" I sobbed, tears spilling over my lashes as I pressed both of my bandaged hands hard against the wound in his back to stem the bleeding. "You jumped in front of a bullet for me!"
A faint, breathtaking smile touched Dante’s bloody lips.
"You jumped down a mountain for me, Cara," he whispered, his trembling fingers reaching up to cup my jawline, ignoring the panic of two hundred screaming people around us. "Fair is fair."
His eyes rolled back, and the Don of the East Coast went limp in my arms.
"MARCO!" I screamed over the roar of the crowd, my voice carrying the fierce, protective fury of a lioness. "GET THE MEDIC! MOVE!"
Behind us, Vanessa scrambled on her hands and knees across the stage, trying to reach the private service exit while the room was in turmoil.
She never made it.
I stood up from Dante’s side, the emerald silk of my gown soaked in his blood. The exhaustion was gone. The fear was dead.
I took three long strides, grabbed Vanessa by the platinum twist of her hair, and yanked her backward with all the fury of eight years of surviving on the streets of New York.
Vanessa screamed, hitting the floor on her back.
I pinned her chest beneath the heel of my designer shoe, pressing down until she wheezed for air, looking down at the woman who had tried to murder the man I was falling hopelessly, terrifyingly in love with.
"You're not going anywhere, widow," I spat, my voice laced with venom. "Your husband isn't dead. But your life is over."
Marco and four armed guards surrounded the stage, their weapons locking onto Vanessa.
"Take her to the cellar at Blackwood," Marco ordered coldly, gesturing to his men. "Strip her of every piece of jewelry, every phone, and every cent. She stays in the dark until the Don wakes up."
Two guards dragged the screaming, sobbing blonde away, leaving her black veil trampled in the mud and shattered glass.
May you like
I dropped back to my knees beside Dante, taking his cold, limp hand into mine, pressing it against my cheek as the medical team rushed up the stairs with a stretcher.
"Fight, Dante," I whispered into his ear, kissing his bloody brow. "You promised you wouldn't leave my sight. Don't you dare break your word."
