Page 72 of His Kingdom

I spin around and walk backwards so I’m looking directly at him. “I can’t wait to be wined and dined by you.” I smile, my feet coming to a stop when Louie wraps an arm around my waist again.

“I love you,” he says. His lips descend towards mine. And just before they reach, a glint of something behind him catches my eye.

No, not something. A gun. Pointed right at Louie’s back. I push him to the side. Which mustcatchhim off guard, because somehow I end up in front of him as he stumbles out of the way. And then a sharp burning pain tears through my right shoulder.

Screaming. There’s so much screaming. I stumble back. Into a body.

“Fuck, Charlotte!” Louie shouts. His arms wrap around me, and I lean against him as we both fall to the casino floor.

No. He wasn’t hit. He couldn’t have been.

I pushed him out of the way. I know I did. But Louie is still screaming, and chaos is erupting everywhere. I see guns, so many guns. Followed by loud bangs, which send a high-pitched ringing through my ears.

I look up at Louie. “I love you,” I tell him, my voice barely above a whisper.

“Don’t…” Louie growls. “I need a fucking ambulance now!” He calls out over the deafening noise, his hand pressing against my shoulder.

It hurts. I close my eyes. I can feel sleep pulling me under. If I sleep, maybe it won’t hurt so bad.

“Charlotte, don’t you dare leave me! Stay with me, sweetheart, please.” Louie’s voice has my lashes fluttering open. “That’s it. Look at me. You said you wouldn’t leave me. Why would you do that? Why would you jump in front of a fucking bullet?”

“Because I didn’t want it to hit you,” I tell him.

“Where the fuck is the ambulance?” Louie yells out again.

“I’m just gonna sleep for a little bit.”

“No. Don’t!” This time, Louie sounds like he’s underwater. Or maybe I am. I like being underwater. It’s calming here.

ChapterThirty-Three

“How the fuck did someone get a gun into my casino?” My voice echoes off the walls of the hospital hallway. There’s no one here, bar the doctors and nurses surrounding Charlotte.

My wife.One fucking day with my last name attached, and I’ve already failed her. It’s my job to keep her safe, and she was shot in my own fucking house.

“He was a dealer,” Carlo says, looking over a shoulder to where Jazzy is sitting on one of the shitty plastic chairs. He put a pair of noise canceling headphones on the kid and gave her an iPad. Judging by the way she doesn’t budge at my outburst, I’d say she can’t hear shit right now.

“A dealer.” I shake my head. “Everyone’s been vetted.”How could this happen? With one of my own staff?

“He was related to that Greggory fuck. Cousins, from what I hear.”

“Who the fuck is Greggory?” I grunt.

“The kid we offed last week, the one Justin squealed to about the drop spot,” Sammie says.

I run my hands through my hair. “Where the fuck is Emmanuel?” I haven’t seen or heard from him since yesterday.

“No idea.” Carlo shrugs. “He’s gone off the grid.”

“Fucking hell. We’re supposed to be collecting a shipment in three hours.” I can’t leave this hospital. I can’t leave her. What if she wakes up and I’m not fucking here?

“I got it,” Sammie tells me.

“You can’t go without backup,” I remind him. “Especially when we don’t know if this fucking asshole was working alone. What else do we know about Greggory?”

“Nothing. He had no links to any known family. He was just a street thug.”

“We’re missing something. Find it,” I hiss. “And take the kid home. She shouldn’t be stuck here.”

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