Page 269 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet
I fought to stay conscious.
Which was why I missed the cacophony at the door as my Family arrived.
I groaned as Agostino carted me to my feet and pressed my back tight to the front of his body. A second later, the cold bite of metal met my temple.
He’d recovered the gun from under the couch.
But my vision cleared enough to see the hero who stood in the doorway.
Dante.
His face was thunderous as he glared at us over the barrel of his gun. His expression was so terrifying, so without mercy, that I could finally understand how he got the nickname The Devil of NYC.
He’d come for me.
“Dante,” I croaked, just needing to say his name and hear his voice.
“Stai zitto, trioa,” Agostino snapped in my ear, grinding the gun deeper into my temple.
Shut up, whore.
Across the room, Dante coiled tighter, the air around him buzzing with potential energy.
“Speak to her like that again and I won’t hesitate to put a bullet in your brain,” he threatened.
Agostino laughed, moving the gun from my temple to my lips, pushing until my teeth tore the inside of my mouth, and I was forced to open around the barrel. For the second time in my life, I knew the taste of a gun. “You would never take the shot. She’s too close. You could end up killing her.”
There was a noise in the hall, and then Jacopo appeared in the door, gun raised, face set to stone.
My heart turned to ash when I looked at him. I knew he was just protecting his sister, but I couldn’t believe he’d turned on Dante. They were cousins and friends, comrades.
“Bambi?” Jaco whispered as his eyes blew wide and his mouth dropped.
He’d spotted her.
In the commotion, with an obvious concussion, I had almost forgotten her.
Jacopo dropped his gun to his side and raced through the stand-off between Dante and Agostino to drop to his sister’s side. Blood had pooled in the center of her chest, but not much. It gave me a brief flare of hope before Jacopo shifted, moving her slightly so that I could see the lake of blood staining the ground beneath her.
One look at her angelic face lost to repose, and I knew she was dead.
Jacopo burst into tears, hauling her onto his lap.
Neither man shot him.
Dante seemed to realize this, his eyes narrowing. He didn’t seem to mourn Bambi at all, but I knew his entire focus was on getting both of us out of here alive.
“Jaco,” Dante called, his voice like smoke, dark and acrid. “Jaco!”
His cousin didn’t respond, still bent over Bambi, watering her with tears.
“You didn’t suspect, did you?” Agostino gloated. “You had no idea your dear sweet Bambi was reporting to me. What, Jacopo, huh? Did you suspect?”
Dante’s face didn’t give anything away. He only stared into my eyes, trying to communicate that everything would be okay.
I had a gun shoved between my lips, a dead friend at my feet, and Aurora witnessing it all from the kitchen cabinet, but I trusted him.
I had to.
