Brutal Vows (Queens & Monsters #4)(31)

All are empty.

Near the staircase in the foyer, a man clad in black combat gear lies facedown in a pool of blood. His weapon is missing. The front door stands wide open. I see three of Gianni’s guards sprint past outside, in pursuit of someone running on foot.

Several seconds later, there’s more gunfire, then some shouting in Italian that sounds celebratory.

If there were only six men who entered the property, there’s one more to go.

Reyna’s nowhere in sight, so I run up the stairs and go from room to room, checking them one by one to ensure they’re empty. When I’ve confirmed they are, I trot back down the stairs, then hurry through the remaining rooms on the ground floor. They’re all empty, too.

Then I hear an angry voice coming from a nearby salon, the last one still unsearched. It’s a voice I’d recognize anywhere.

“Go ahead, fucker. You’ll be doing me a favor. But I’ll see you again in hell, and then I’m going to cut off your balls and choke you with them.”

Reyna.

My heartbeat surges into overdrive. Moving fast but quietly, I stride over to the salon, gun in hand, and slow just outside the doorway.

When I glance in, my pounding heart skids to a dead stop.

Reyna stands in front of an unlit fireplace, eyes flashing with fury, chin lifted in defiance. A man stands across from her, about six feet away.

He’s pointing a semiautomatic hand gun at her chest.

A rifle lies on the floor beside him.

I think it’s the one she was carrying. He must’ve surprised her somehow and pulled it from her grip.

I say loudly, “Oy. Dickface.”

He jerks his head to the right.

I squeeze the trigger and put a bullet in his temple. He collapses like a rag doll into a heap on the floor.

Then something kicks me in the shoulder from behind.

“What the...?”

I spin around to find another masked guy in black crouched on one knee in the corridor, arms outstretched, holding a Glock semiauto in his grip. Before I can raise my weapon, a shot rings out.

Blood mists from his mask in a spray. He topples sideways, gun clattering against the marble, then lies still.

Breathless, Reyna runs up beside me. “It’s too bad you can’t count, Quinn. There were seven of them, not six.”

Too stunned to argue, I stare at her holding the rifle in her hands. “Did you just shoot a man to protect me?”

She looks at me, blinks, then winces. “Shit. Must’ve been a reflex.”

“Or maybe you were feeling gratitude for both times I saved your life in the last ten minutes.”

She scoffs. “Please. I didn’t need your help.” Then she gasps and her eyes grow wide.

“Don’t tell me. You just remembered you didn’t make me supper yet.”

“No, Quinn…” She reaches out and lightly touches my shoulder. “I think you’ve been shot.”

I look down at where she’s touching. A wisp of smoke rises from a small hole in the fabric of my jacket. The acrid smell of scorched silk hangs in the air.

Watching a ring of wetness grow larger around the hole, I sigh.

Fuck. This is my favorite suit.





12





Rey





“Let me take a look,” I tell Quinn, reaching for his lapel.

He brushes me off impatiently. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine, idiot. You have a hole in you. You’re bleeding. I can help.”

“I don’t need a nurse. Especially one who’s likely to stab me in the neck when I’m not looking.”

Realizing that arguing with him will get me nowhere, I give up. “Okay, Macho Man. Good luck with that nasty infection.”

He glowers at me. “I don’t have a nasty infection.”

“Not yet. But it’ll set in soon from the debris that entered the wound along with the bullet. You know, threads from your shirt and suit, bone fragments, burnt powder, all that fun stuff. The wound needs to be irrigated, disinfected, and stitched up or things will get ugly fast. You could end up dead.”

I try not to look too pleased by the thought, but I’m sure I fail.

He pauses to consider me for a beat. “Have much experience with bullet wounds, do you, wee viper?”

Irritated by that heinous nickname, I grind my molars. “I’ve lived all of my thirty-three years in the Mafia. What do you think?”

He quirks a brow. It turns to a smirk. Then he drawls, “So you’re thirty-three. Hmm.” He looks me up and down. “You don’t look a day over forty.”

“At least thirty-three is my age and not my IQ.”

“And at least I don’t have the personality of a cold toilet seat.”

“God, I wish you’d fall onto a hive of murder hornets. In the meantime, why don’t you go outside and see if you can miscount any more intruders? I’m going to check on my mother.”

As I walk away, headed to the kitchen, he calls out, “How do I get to the safe room?”

“Make two right turns at the end of that hall. You’ll hit a set of double wood doors. The stairway to the basement is behind them.”

I walk into the kitchen and flick on the overhead lights. Mamma sits at the table with an empty glass and a bottle of wine on the table in front of her. She’s got a small silver pistol in her left hand.