Chapter Twenty-Five
Dmitri
I’d been delayed leaving the courthouse by Viktor. He wasn’t happy that I’d forbidden him from harshly cross-examining Sarah while she was on the stand. I knew he still wanted to paint her as a potential villain in the eyes of the jury. I understood the impulse. Creating reasonable doubt was the key to winning this case. Sure, the DA had no real evidence, but he was leaning hard into the fact that organized crime must be stopped in the city. Playing on the horror that the average person might feel about mafia violence could sway the jury, and my lawyer wanted to give them someone else to think about.
But it couldn’t be Sarah. She’d be crushed if I let that happen to her.
He left her alone, as I demanded, but he insisted that I stick around for a while after court was adjourned to discuss our legal strategy. I wasn’t too concerned about it, though. With Sarah’s honest testimony—which had completely blown me away—I didn’t think there was a chance in hell that I would be convicted.
By the time we were done speaking, Sarah was long gone, but I had a message from the man guarding Alexis that told me she’d gone to pick up her daughter. Sending one back, I told the guard to follow them home. Once they were there safely, the men watching the house could keep an eye on them until I returned home.
I’d never been so concerned about anyone’s safety before, but it came naturally when I thought about Sarah and Alexis. I suspected it always would.
Getting into my own vehicle, I drove toward home, thinking about how I was going to tell Sarah that she was sleeping in my room again tonight. No excuses. One night between the sheets with Sarah wasn’t enough. I’d never been so reluctant to leave my bed before. For a man who was used to sleeping alone, it was shocking to me that it felt so damn good to feel her wrapped up in my arms and have her soft brown hair tickling my nose. Then she woke up and smiled at me while blinking her sleepy eyes. That overwhelming emotion rose up inside me again, and I decided I wanted to wake up like that from now on.
She’d have to accept that because I was a man used to getting his way.
With that in mind, I was looking forward to getting home. I was still a couple of miles from my place, just about to reach Brooklyn, when a car blew through a stoplight just as I drove through the intersection.
It happened so damn fast that I barely had a chance to react, but I managed to slam my foot down on the accelerator and fly forward just enough to keep the car from T-boning me in the driver’s side door. That probably would have killed me with the speed the car was going. Instead, it hit my back left side, sending my car spinning in the middle of the intersection, and I was lucky that it was a low-traffic time of day, or else I would have hit other cars driving through. Instead, I spun around, the world a nauseating blur of color until I stopped, my car halfway up on the sidewalk.
My head snapped forward, slamming into the steering wheel just as the airbag exploded out in front of me, knocking the breath from my lungs. My seatbelt tightened on my chest and it was definitely going to leave bruises. But there was no time to worry about my injuries. The person driving the car that hit me was slumped over the wheel with a head wound that I could see bleeding even from fifty feet away, but the man in the passenger seat was getting out of the car with a gun in his hand.
Fuck.
This was no random accident. Popping open my own door, I practically fell out of my car, my legs shaky from the rush of adrenaline. But I pulled myself together and ran toward the back of my car for cover.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t fast enough, and a shot rang out. Immediately, a searing pain slammed into my left shoulder, and I grunted as I stumbled forward.
“God damn it!” I muttered as I reached the back of the car and stayed low as I pulled out my own handgun. At least I was right-handed, so my new gunshot wound wouldn’t affect my ability to shoot. That was about the only positive in this shitstorm of a situation.
More shots rang out, pinging off my car and pissing me off even further. As if this fucker hadn’t done enough damage to my vehicle?
Gritting my teeth against the pain in my shoulder, I forced myself to lie on the ground. This allowed me to see underneath the car to the man’s feet as he walked toward me. The asshole was confident, probably thinking that if he rushed me, he’d have the advantage. It wasn’t a terrible plan, considering how being hit by a car would disorient just about anyone. But he was underestimating me.
Taking aim, I fired, hitting the bastard right in the ankle.
He screamed in pain as he went down hard, but I had already popped up to my feet. Rushing around the car, I pointed my gun at his head and pulled the trigger.
It was messy andwaytoo public, but I had no choice. The only saving grace I had was we were in an industrial district, and there weren’t many people around on the streets on a Monday afternoon, and the ones who were here fled when the shooting started. I’d get Nikolay to hack into the cameras on the traffic lights and erase the footage to avoid any more trouble with the law. It was the last thing I needed.
But first, I had to get the hell out of here.
Breathing heavily, I rounded the car again and got back behind the wheel. Pulling out my phone, I made a few phone calls to cover my tracks and get help to meet me at the safehouse. Then I called Lev.
More than anything, I wanted to see Sarah. So, I ordered Lev to bring her to meet me. It was a decision purely driven by emotion, not logic. But as pain radiated through my shoulder and anger pulsed in my veins, I couldn’t bring myself to give a damn about that.
The doctor was already waiting when I arrived at the safehouse. His response time was always good, and it should be. We paid him a fortune to be at our beck and call.
Maxim was also there already. He must have been nearby when he got the call. The rage in his eyes matched the way I felt, and he stayed at my side while the doctor tended to my wound.
“Did you recognize the shooter?” he asked.
I didn’t answer immediately because I was gritting my teeth as I pulled my shirt off over my head. It hurt like a son of abitch, but once the shirt was off, the doctor was quick to give me a shot that numbed the area. It was a good thing too, because he started digging around in the wound to remove the bullet, and I was pretty sure I would have passed out from the pain if I could feel it.
“I didn’t know the guy, but I’d bet everything I own on him being one of Baldoni’s men. That fucker is getting bold.”
“The Italians must not be confident about winning the case anymore,” Maxim said. “This move reeks of desperation.”