“Emma, run.” My father’s voice is urgent now and desperate. “Run, now!”
But before I can escape from a tangle of skirts, Leo closes the remaining distance in three long strides.
His hand shoots out and his fingers close around my wrist like an iron manacle, hard enough to bruise.
Which makes me react immediately and violently.
“Let go of me!” I wrench against his hold, my other hand coming up to slap him. The sound reverberates around the room and I hear my mother cry out. “Get your fucking hands off me!”
If he feels the pain, he doesn’t show it.
His expression doesn’t change at all, those dark eyes locked on mine with an intensity that feels like being pinned by a physical weight.
Up close, I can see his eyes aren’t pure brown—there are flecks of amber in them.
I can see the individual dark hairs of his stubble.
His cologne envelopes me, something masculine with notes of cedar and bergamot.
I can see the absolute determination on his face.
I’m not walking out of this cathedral with my father.
I’m not marrying Tony Lombardo today.
I’m being taken.
“You’re coming with me,” Leo says, deadly calm despite the chaos and the thirty-plus guns pointed at his head.
“Like hell I am!” I twist in his grip, bringing my knee up toward his groin with all the force I can muster.
Leo sidesteps so smoothly it’s like he expected it, his free hand catching my other wrist.
Now he’s got both my hands locked in his grip and he’s so close I can feel the heat radiating off his body.
“Let her go, Santoro!” my father bellows. “I will kill you where you stand!”
Leo shrugs. “Then you’ll have to shoot through your daughter to do it.” He shifts, pulling me against his chest so that I’m positioned between him and my father’s gun, like a human shield.
His arm wraps around my waist, pinning me to him, and despite my struggles I can’t break free.
He’s too strong, his hold too secure, and every time I move he just adjusts his grip and holds me tighter. “I’d rather not kill anyone today, Connor, but I will if I have to. Your choice.”
Gunfire erupts somewhere behind us and its sharp, deafening cracks make my ears ring.
I can’t see what’s happening, but I can hear screaming and my mother’s voice rising above it all, hysterical and terrified.
“Mom!” I scream, trying to crane my neck to see her.
Leo doesn’t give me the chance.
He starts moving, dragging me backward down the aisle toward the doors.
His men form a protective barrier around us, guns raised and ready, and they're moving in perfect synchronization like they’ve rehearsed this a hundred times.
They probably have.
I fight him every step of the way.