Page 109 of Ruthless Savior
Rocco's men.Here. In the place where I thought they wouldn’t follow.
"Ronan, what's happening?" Leila sits up, her hair tangled around her face, eyes wide with fear.
"Rocco, I think. He’s figured out where you are." I reach for my clothes, keeping the gun close. "The bathroom, Leila. Now."
To my utter relief, she doesn’t argue or waste time asking questions. She scrambles from the bed and starts to head quickly toward the bathroom, but before she reaches the door, our bedroom window explodes inward in a shower of glass and gunfire. Someone is at the back of the house, shooting up into the windows.
I move faster than I thought possible, grabbing her and taking her down to the floor with me, covering her body with mine as bullets tear through the space where she’d been standing seconds before. She makes a small sound of pain beneath me, and I pray it's just from hitting the hardwood and not from something worse.
“You need to get to an interior room,” I say sharply, breathing hard as the gunfire dies down. “Stay low. Come on.” I reach for her, helping her up as we quickly move toward the door. “The smaller library room, or the sitting room without windows. Or any room large enough that you can stay away from them.”
"What about you?" Leila gasps as we exit into the hall. I can hear the sounds of shouting from the front courtyard, the rattle of gunfire.
“I have to find out what’s happening. But then I’ll be right behind you.Go.”
She looks like she wants to argue this time. But we both know that I can’t hide with her while my men fight off Rocco’s. I don’twantto, as much as I want to keep her close.
I want to kill any man who had the fucking audacity to walk onto my estate and threaten my wife.
This isn’t going to happen again. Not while I’m here to do something about it.
Another burst of gunfire, this one from inside the house. My security team is fighting back, but I can hear the distinctivesound of semi-automatic weapons that my men don't carry on them for guard rotations. Rocco came prepared for war.
"Go," I tell Leila, helping her to her feet. "Stay low. Move fast."
She nods, and I watch her slip out of the room, keeping to the shadows along the wall. Pride and fear tangle together in my chest as I watch her go for a brief moment. She’s brave and smart and doing what needs to be done.My wife, I think, my chest tightening, and then I shake my head, moving quickly toward the servant's stairs that lead directly to the security office. Colin is there, barking orders as he looks at the security feed from outside.
“What’s going on?” I snap, and he turns to face me.
“Fifteen men, possibly more. They came over the south wall during the shift change." His jaw clenches. "They’ve been watching. They knew exactly when we'd be most vulnerable."
Another rattle of gunfire. “They’re inside the house?”
"At least four of them. The others are keeping our perimeter team busy. I was about to come find you. We need to?—"
I’m already grabbing another gun from the locker in the security room when I hear Colin make a startled sound. I turn to see the security cameras that watch the east wing of the house—the wing where Leila is headed—go dark.
“Fuck!” I curse aloud. “Colin, get every man we have on these fuckers. I want them all dead. If you can keep one alive for me to question, do. If not, don’t let a single fucking one get away.”
He nods sharply. “Where are you going?”
I'm already moving toward the door. "I'm going to get my wife."
The hallways I've walked since I was young feel foreign in the darkness, transformed into a maze of potential ambush points. I move carefully but quickly, the weight of the gun familiar in my hand. Every shadow could hide an enemy. If they’re in thehouse, there’s no telling if there’s men lying in wait—although that doesn’t seem to be the style for this attack. It seems like Rocco told them to hit fast and hard.
He clearly has no care for the lives of the men working for him. Only whether or not he can get what he wants, and bring me low in the process.
I’m halfway down the hall where I left Leila when I hear a sudden sound—a woman's voice, sharp with defiance, coming from the direction of the library.
"I said, get away from me!"
Leila.
Panic floods through me, but I force myself to keep my steady pace instead of blindly running toward the sound, even as every cell in my body demands that I break into a run and get to her as soon as possible. If they have her, charging in will only get us both killed.
The door is open, and the moment I reach the doorway, I see the scene inside, illuminated in the moonlight. Two men in black tactical gear have Leila cornered near the far wall, but she's not cowering. She's holding something large and heavy that glints glasslike in the dim light, her stance defensive but ready to fight. One of the men has blood running down his face—she's already connected at least once.
"The boss wants you alive, bitch," one of them snarls in accented English. "But he didn't say you had to be unmarked."
