“Stay behind me, angel,” Massimo instructed, stepping before me. In his black fatigues, bristling with weapons, he was a fearsome sight.
I nodded and stepped back, then followed as he advanced. He reached back and grabbed my hand, guiding it to the back of his bulletproof vest.
“Hold on tight so we don’t lose each other. I can’t take it a second time.”
We advanced down the hallway, and Massimo’s gun fired ahead of me. We passed the bodies of Sergei’s men, fallen on either side.
The air smelled like fire and copper. The cooks scrambled out of the kitchen and ran for the back door, women for the most part. Massimo didn’t look their way as we passed by them. We reached the foyer and crouched. Massimo pointed toward a table.
“You wait for me there,” he instructed firmly, pulling a pin out of some kind of weapon.
He was in his element here. He wasn’t afraid, and somehow,neither was I. I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be, for the first time in my life, perhaps.
I nodded, and at his signal, ran for the table.
He tossed the object into the foyer, and smoke filled the space. Massimo slipped his mask on and walked in fearlessly. I couldn’t see everything, but I made out enough of him moving around and taking down the men who had just walked in through the front door to know no one would survive this if Massimo didn’t want them to. He was a one-man killing machine.
Silence fell, thick and heavy.
“Sergei? I think it’s time we were introduced,” Massimo called.
The silence had that particular quality of people trying to be quiet.
“I’m your daughter’s new husband. I apologize for not asking your permission to marry her, it’s just that I don’t give a fuck about what you think,” Massimo continued, goading in his tone.
There was a shuffling noise and then a flash in the smoke.
“You bastard! You think you can just marry my daughter?” Sergei roared, his voice rough with smoke.
Another flash. Sergei shooting at Massimo? No. No, that couldn’t happen. He couldn’t die.
“Where is my daughter? Tell me now, or you’re a dead man.” Sergei sounded so confident. Did he have a line of sight on Massimo?
“Stop!” I cried out and stood. “Don’t hurt him.”
“Katarina,” Sergei snapped. “Come here.”
Massimo was silent. Had he been hurt? I stumbled around until a hard hand closed on my arm. Sergei’s face loomed out of the smoke.
“What have you done?” he all but spit in my face, then hauled me up the stairs.
I frantically searched the lower floor for Massimo, but it was still too shrouded in smoke to make out.
“And this is exactly why I needed you taken care of at Hallow Hall until you were old enough to marry. Ever since your mother came and told me that I had a daughter and she was eighteen, no less, it’s been a fucking headache. Get up here.”
He yanked me even harder, and I went down on one knee on the stairs. Fuck, that hurt. But I’d been hurt worse. I tugged back against him.
“Let me go, I don’t want you to touch me,” I hissed at him.
“I’m your father!” he roared.
“You’re a fucking monster,” I screamed back.
We’d reached the top floor, and now he pushed me through a doorway I hadn’t seen before. It came out onto a platform on the roof. A helipad. I dragged clean air into my lungs and tried to keep up with his violent pace. Rada stumbled up the stairs behind us, tears falling down her face.
“Sergei! Wait for me!” She tripped and fell in her heels, but got up and followed.
He dragged me across the platform and then dumped me to the ground, taking his phone from his pocket. He still had a gun clutched in his hand.