Page 110 of Single Mom's Daddies
Costello swings for me, but he doesn’t have the angle and he’s lost his strength. He misses, but I kick him in the ribs for good measure.
I spit, “Mike shot Nadia in the head after she tried to make peace between us. Telling me Mike suffered will only make me smile.”
His face twists. “At least Mike made it quick.”
I punch him across the jaw. He slumps. Not out—but dazed. Fading. I crouch beside him, grab a fistful of his hair, and drag him upright enough to see my face.
“Mike suffered for how long?”
Joe spits blood at me again. This time, it lands on my shirt.
“Ten minutes? Twelve? Come on. I know you were counting.”
His bloody nostrils flare, making him wince. “Thirty-seven.”
I lean closer. My voice is ice. “That piece of shit had it coming.”
And I knock Joe Costello out cold. His head hits the floor with a dull, final thud. Blood fans beneath him—nose, lip, scalp—but he’s still breathing. Barely.
I could finish it. I want to finish it. One more punch. One twist of the neck. A blade behind the ribs.
But I don’t. If he dies now, he won’t have the humiliation of a trial.
I rise slowly, breath still ragged, vision tunneling around the edges. My ribs ache with every inhale, and my right hand is swelling fast. I flex it anyway, teeth gritted against the pain.
I step back. Look at the destruction we’ve painted into the floorboards.
The hall is half-lit by flickering wall sconces. Smoke curls along the ceiling. Someone’s blood decorates the banister in a long, dragging streak.
Somewhere inside the compound, I can still hear fighting—quick bursts of gunfire, the shouts of men, the thud of boots against wood.
The war isn’t over. Not yet. But Joe’s part in it is done.
“Victor.” Nik’s voice crackles through my comms, breathless. “Front cleared. You still breathing?”
“Yeah,” I say. My voice is wrecked. Gravel ground into steel. “Got Costello.”
A pause. “Dead?”
I look down at the heap in front of me. Bloodied. Beaten. Ruined. “No.”
Another beat of silence. Then, “Copy.”
I don’t wait for more. I reach for the wall, press my palm flat against the cool plaster, and steady myself for just a second. Just one breath. Then I push off it, reload my sidearm, and head back into the smoke.
Because this fight isn’t over. And I’m not done.
32
NIKOLAI
The east wingis a maze of echoing gunshots and splintered furniture. My boot slides through something sticky. Blood. Could be ours, could be theirs. Doesn’t matter.
The last wave came in hot—heavier than I would have thought. Sloppier too. They’re panicked now. They didn’t expect resistance like this. They didn’t expectus.
Dumbasses.
I move like a shadow through the wreckage. Two bodies down near the conservatory. Ours, goddammit. I kneel to check pulses—nothing. A third slumps against the wall, moaning, one hand pressed to a gut wound. One of Costello’s. I let him bleed and keep going.
