Page 82 of Raziel
“You think this is about love?” I spat, taking a step forward, my gun trained on Enzio. “This is about your psychotic jealousy and your daddy not setting boundaries for you. Let. Her. Go.”
“Or what?” Enzio sneered. “You have no power here.”
“I do,” Caine said, his voice a quiet, deadly murmur from the shadows behind me. He stepped forward, his pistol aimed with a chilling steadiness. “And I have plenty of bullets.”
Enzio’s eyes widened slightly. “Caine. This doesn’t concern you.”
“My brother concerns me,” Caine said, his tone conversational, like he was discussing the weather. “And it seems you’ve inconvenienced him. Now, we can do this the easy way, where you walk away and never look in his direction again, or we can do it the hard way. I’m rather hoping for the hard way.”
Alessia wasn’t listening. “If I can’t have you,” she whispered, a terrifying clarity in her eyes, “no one can.”
It happened in a split second. Her hand came out of her purse with a small, pearl-handled pistol. She didn’t aim at me. She aimed at Maya’s heart.
There was no thought. Only instinct.
I lunged, putting myself between them.
The gunshot was obscenely loud in the concrete space. The impact hit me like a sledgehammer to the back, slamming the air from my lungs. The Kevlar stopped the bullet from piercing my heart, but the force was brutal, agony exploding across my spine.
I stumbled forward, crashing to my knees.
Chaos erupted.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
Caine’s suppressed gun coughed three times in rapid succession. From the rafters, two of Enzio’s men I hadn’t even seen crumpled and fell to the concrete with sickening thuds.
“Get to the car!” Caine barked, his voice cutting through the ringing in my ears. He laid down covering fire, precise and ruthless, forcing Enzio to dive for cover and sending Alessia scrambling.
I clawed my way to my feet, my back screaming in protest. Maya was staring at me, her eyes wide—and I realized she had been drugged. My heart dropped.
Hysterical tears streamed down her face. “Ra… Ra…? She ruined it.”
“I’ve got you,” I grunted, hauling her up, throwing her arm over my shoulder. Every step was fire. Caine was a whirlwind of controlled violence, herding us toward the door, putting himself between us and any threat.
We burst out into the cold air. I shoved Maya into the back of Caine’s SUV and collapsed beside her, breathing in ragged, painful gasps.
Caine slid into the driver’s seat, slammed the car into gear, and we peeled out, leaving the warehouse and its ghosts behind.
Maya was sobbing, clawing at her own arms, lost in a drugged, terrified haze. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…” She kept repeating. “I don’t like this feeling no more.”
“How bad?” he asked, his eyes flicking to me in the rearview mirror. Calm. Always fucking calm.
“Vest… caught it,” I managed to grit out. I thought I was fine.
That’s when I felt it. A searing heat blooming low on my right side. A pain entirely separate from the brutal impact on my back.
My hand went to it instinctively. My fingers came away slick and dark with blood. A second shot. I never even heard it or felt it. It had gone under the vest, tearing through muscle and whatever else was in its path.
The world tilted on its axis. All sound faded into a distant hum.
“Maya?” Maya’s cry was distant.
The car swerved to a violent stop. The driver’s door flew open and Caine was there, his face frantic. He was shouting, but I couldn’t hear the words.
“—the hell, Raziel! Look at me! LOOK AT ME!”
His hands were on my side, applying pressure that sent a fresh wave of nauseating pain through me. I tried to speak, tried to tell Maya I loved her and everything would be alright, but only a wet, choked sound came out. My vision was tunneling, darkness creeping in from the edges.
