Page 111 of Possessive Mafia Vows

We’re running out of time.

“I get nothing!” The wind snatches his shrill voice and carries it over the cliff-edge and out to sea.

I widen my eyes at Sienna and drop them to the ground. I do this on repeat, until she mimics my movements. The timing has to be impeccable. I’ll wait for Sienna to knock him off-balance, pullmy gun from my waistband, and fire during that one-or-two-second window while he’s figuring out what’s wrong with her. I can’t afford to miss my target.

This is the part that worries me the most.

I’m a lawyer, I’m not a violent man.

Pulling this trigger will be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but Sienna’s life is at stake here, and I’m trusting my heart to ensure that my aim is true.

“Well,” he’s still yelling, “that’s all about to change. Right now!”

The world seems to freeze. The slanting rain is like a sheet of beveled glass separating me from Sienna and Nick as I watch her raise her legs and land on her knees in slow motion.

As predicted, Nick is caught off-balance as she slips from his grasp. The gun hovers somewhere above Sienna’s head.

Moving on autopilot, I reach for the pistol tucked inside my pants. My fingers find the handle, but before I can pull it out, take aim, and press the trigger, a shot rings out and my entire body prickles. The sound reverberates inside my skull.

But my eyes are locked onto Sienna.

Realizing that he has relinquished control of the situation, Nick tries to grab her, and she rolls away from him. Then she disappears over the edge of the cliff.

“Noooooooo!” My hoarse scream is drowned out by the storm.

I’m running towards the edge.

Nick is lying spreadeagled on his back on the ground, blood seeping from the bullet wound in his chest. A guttural soundescapes his lips as I approach him. It almost sounds like he’s calling for help, but I don’t look at him.

Footsteps behind me.

A familiar voice screams, “Kyle! Come back.”

My mom.

I don’t know where she came from, or how she found us. I don’t even know if she fired the bullet that will end Nick Morris’s life. All I can think about is Sienna.

The edge is closer than I realized. My feet skid across the waterlogged grass when I try to stop myself from hurtling over the side, and I land on my back with a dull thud, pain shooting from my coccyx to the top of my spine. I roll over and claw at the soil, dragging myself away from the edge, soggy clumps of stringy mud coming away in my hands.

Great heaving sobs lodge inside my chest making it difficult to breathe.

“Sienna…” I murmur her name over and over, as I crawl closer to the edge on hands and knees, petrified of what I’m going to find.

I swipe rain from my eyes with muddy hands. The wind batters my face, forcing me away from the edge as if trying to protect me from the unimaginable horror below.

I sit back on my haunches, tilt my face towards the cloud-heavy sky, and yell, “Why? Why did you have to take her?”

“Kyle.” My mom’s eyes are dark, and her voice is firm as she crawls over to me. “Don’t move.”

She watches me closely, the wind whipping her hair around her face, until she is convinced that I heard her. Then, she flattens toher stomach on the ground and drags herself towards the edge, burying her hands in the soil as she peers down below.

My mom is lying there, motionless, for so long that my mind and my chest feel empty. Numb. Hollowed out. It feels as though someone slit me open and scraped my internal organs out with a spoon leaving behind an empty husk.

I already know what she has seen.

Sienna’s bloody broken body on the rocks below.

My tears force their way out, hot and stinging, mingling with the torrential rain.

---