Chapter 48
DENNY
SHOTS RING OUT as we surround Tula’s men, and I elevate my voice from behind the tree I’m taking cover under. “Cease fire! Tula, please, goddamn it, we just want to take him home! Tula, we surrender!”
A feminine order sounds in Italian before a long bout of silence ensues, and she finally replies. “You all have got to be the dumbest goddamn men to ever walk the earth!”
“Right now, I don’t disagree!” I yell. “We’re typically a lot more polite company, so I apologize—”
“Not fucking accepted, and it won’t be,” she shouts. “It’s too late.”
“Is he breathing?” I ask, fear filtering through my system as I gaze on at a lifeless Tyler, yards away as Tobias mutes himself mid-order over the wire, and I know it’s because he’s holding his breath. We all fucking are.
“He’s ours until I say otherwise,” she states as stuttered relief sounds in my earpiece.
“Julien,” Tobias snaps in prompt.
“Already in position,” he states, cool as a cucumber, always so damn cool.
Knowing he has the donna in his crosshairs, I feel his impending wrath if I don’t de-escalate this situation, and fucking fast. For Tyler, Julien will burn down the fucking world.
As mistrusting as he is of everyone, Tyler is as close to a friend and significant other as it gets.
Then again, for Tyler, we’d all gladly take a bullet, no matter the strength of it.
“If she lifts that fucking gun,” Tobias hisses, his warning clear.
“She won’t,” Julien assures.
“Hold up,” I interject, “please, brother, just … let me fucking try.”
“Show yourself,” Tula demands as I lift my hands in the air, clearing the tree. The shot’s still ricocheting through my head and chest. The guilt becoming unbearable.
“Denny, stand down, that’s an order!” Tobias barks in my ear, and I know he, too, is closing in. It was the favor I called in with Julien that got me closest first. A position that has me hiding my rough swallow at Tula’s narrowing gaze as I slowly approach, empty palms up.
“Tula, we don’t want war,” I assure, throwing my earpiece down, knowing it will cost me later. “None of us do, but the problem is, we can’t go back home without that man and prefer him breathing.”
“Denny!” Tobias shouts audibly from where he’s rapidly closing in from the other side of the grove. No doubt having figured out Julien’s and my tactic to get me to the front line first. It’s everywhere in his outraged voice.
“Denny!” Jeremy parrots, rushing toward me from his position a few rows over, and I hold up my fist, jerking my chin in refusal.
Expression grave, he stops his footing and hangs his head.
Making peace with whatever is coming, I stalk toward the woman standing next to Tula, both women’s expressions marred with confusion.
Larissa, looking utterly lost, traces me just as carefully as she did in the woods the first time we locked eyes, as Tula poses the question for them both.
“Who in the fuck are you?” the older donna snaps.
Dropping my gaze to Tyler, who’s knocked out cold and lying at their collective feet, I slowly lift my eyes to the bastard nearby, his gun poised, before focusing on the only woman who deserves my answer … and confession.
“I’m the man who killed your brother.”