Chapter 13 Alessandro
Chapter Thirteen
ALESSANDRO
The windshield explodes inward.
There is no sound at first—just a sudden, violent pressure change that pops my ears, followed by the terrifying disintegration of the world in front of me. Glass sprays across the cabin, not like diamonds, but like shrapnel—sharp, stinging hail that bites into my cheeks and eyelids.
"Down!"
Killian’s hand is a heavy weight on the back of my neck, shoving me forward.
My face smashes into my knees. A split second later, a second round tears through the space my head just occupied.
I hear the thwip-crack of the bullet passing, followed by the wet, dense thud of lead burying itself in the leather headrest.
The shooter is adjusting. The first round was the glass—clearing the obstruction. The second was the kill shot.
"Out. Your side. Now."
Killian’s voice is unrecognizable. It isn't the voice of the man who kissed me in the kitchen or the man who confessed his childhood trauma ten minutes ago. It is a growl, stripped of humanity, pure command.
I fumble for the door handle. My fingers are numb. I shove the door open and roll out onto the wet asphalt. The impact jars my shoulder, scraping skin through the jacket, but I scramble on hands and knees, putting the engine block between me and the sightline.
Killian is out his side. I hear his boots hitting the pavement—heavy, fast. He isn't taking cover. He is moving away from the car.
"Go south!" he roars. He’s twenty feet away, sprinting toward the open lot, making himself a massive, moving target in the darkness. "The loading bays! I’ll pull them east!"
A third shot rings out. Sparks fly from the pavement near Killian’s heels.
He’s drawing fire.
The realization hits me harder than the asphalt. He is deliberately running into the sniper’s scope to pull the crosshairs off me. He is trading his life for mine without a microsecond of hesitation.
"Go!" he screams, firing his Glock blindly toward the roof of the warehouse to suppress the shooter.
I run.
I sprint toward the south side of the building, my breath tearing at my throat.
The loading bays are a row of corrugated steel doors, dark and rusted.
The security light flickers and dies, plunging me into blindness.
I stumble over a pallet, catching myself on the rough brick wall, and scramble into the narrow service alley between two structures.
Behind me, the gunfire changes rhythm. The rhythmic crack-crack-crack of the rifle is answered by the rapid, angry pop-pop-pop of Killian’s handgun.
He is engaging. He is fighting a rifle with a pistol to buy me time.
The alley is a canyon of shadows and garbage. It smells of rotting cardboard and wet iron. I move through it, my body remembering lessons I haven't used in fifteen years. Keep low. Check the corners. Don't stop.
I hear footsteps behind me.
They are not Killian’s. Killian moves like a tank. These steps are light, quick, skittering. The cadence of a pursuit. The sniper has a spotter, or a ground team.
I duck behind a rusted dumpster, pressing my back against the cold, wet steel. I draw the Beretta from the vest. My hands are shaking so badly the gun rattles against the holster. I grip it with both hands, forcing the tremors to subside.
Breathe, Yosef’s voice whispers in my memory. The shake is just energy. Use it.
The footsteps slow. Stop.
Silence stretches, thick and suffocating.
Then, the scrape of a boot on concrete. Close. Maybe five feet away.
The barrel of a weapon appears around the corner of the dumpster—a compact submachine gun, ugly and black. The man follows it. He is young, wearing a dark hoodie, his face pale in the gloom. He sweeps the muzzle toward my hiding spot.
I don't think. I lunge.
I grab the barrel of his gun with my left hand and yank it downward.
The heat of the barrel sears my palm. The man yelps, stumbling forward, his finger clamping down on the trigger.
A burst of gunfire tears into the concrete at our feet, deafeningly loud in the confined space. Concrete chips spray my legs.
He slams into me. He’s heavier than he looks, panicked and strong. We crash into the side of the dumpster. The submachine gun is a metal bar between us, crushing my chest. He headbutts me—a clumsy, desperate blow that splits my lip and fills my mouth with blood.
I can't get the Beretta up. He’s pinning my right arm.
I let go of his gun with my left hand. I jam my fingers into his eyes.
He screams. His grip loosens just enough.
I shove him back, creating six inches of space. I bring the Beretta up, jamming the muzzle under his chin, into the soft flesh of his throat.
I pull the trigger.
The gun bucks in my hand. The sound is a physical blow, a thunderclap that rings in my skull.
The man’s body goes rigid. His eyes roll back. Then he collapses, all the strings cut at once. He falls onto me, heavy and dead, sliding down my chest to the wet ground.
I scramble back, kicking his legs away. I press myself against the brick wall, gasping for air, the gun still raised, pointing at the corpse.
Blood is sprayed across the front of my jacket. Dark, hot speckles on my hands.
I killed him.
I stare at the body. He looks like a kid. Maybe twenty. A Bratva soldier who thought this was just another job.
Twenty seconds ago, he was hunting me. Now he is meat.
My heart is hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird, beating so fast it hurts.
The adrenaline is a drug, flooding my system, making the colors of the alley too bright, the sounds too sharp.
I can hear the distant siren of a police car.
I can hear the drip of water from a gutter.
I can hear the blood rushing in my own ears.
I need to move.
I holster the Beretta. I crouch down and strip the dead man’s submachine gun—a ?korpion. I check the mag. Half full. I sling it over my shoulder.
I run to the end of the alley. There is a chain-link fence with a gap cut in the bottom. I squeeze through, the metal tearing at my jacket.
I am in a secondary lot, filled with shipping containers stacked two high. A maze of rusted steel.
I find a container with a broken padlock. The door is slightly ajar. I squeeze inside and pull it shut behind me, plunging myself into total darkness.
The silence is sudden and absolute.
I slide down the wall until I am sitting on the floor. The metal is freezing cold through my trousers. The container smells of industrial grease and stale air.
The crash hits me.
It starts in my hands. The shaking comes back, violent this time, uncontrollable. My teeth chatter. My chest heaves, fighting for oxygen that doesn't seem to reach my lungs.
I wrap my arms around my knees, rocking back and forth. The image of the man’s face as the bullet took him flashes behind my eyelids. The sound of the shot. The weight of his body.
I killed him. I ended him.
And I liked it.
The thought is a monster rising from the deep. I didn't just survive. I felt a surge of power, a spike of dominance so pure it was intoxicating. The kill wasn't just necessary; it was a release.
And then, the second wave hits.
Heat.
It starts in my belly, a hot, coiling pressure that has nothing to do with fear. My blood, already boiling with adrenaline, rushes south. I am hard. Painfully, confusingly hard. My cock strains against the fabric of my trousers, aching for friction, for release.
It is a biological imperative. Fight or fuck. The nervous system, overloaded with death, demanding life. Demanding sensation.
I try to breathe through it. I try to recite the Fibonacci sequence. I try to think of spreadsheets, of profit margins, of anything clean.
But all I can see is Killian.
Killian running into the gunfire. Killian stepping in front of me. Killian in the kitchen, his hands in my hair, his mouth on mine.
The need becomes unbearable. It is a physical pain, a burning itch under my skin.
My hand moves. I can't stop it.
I fumble with my belt. My fingers are slippery with sweat and the dead man’s blood. I undo the button, shove the zipper down. The sound is loud in the echo chamber of the container.
I wrap my hand around myself.
The sensation is electric. The contrast between the cold air and the heat of my skin makes me gasp. I squeeze tight—too tight—and stroke.
Killian.
I imagine him here. In the dark. I imagine him finding me. I imagine his reaction to the blood on my jacket, the gun in my lap.
He wouldn't be horrified. He would understand. He is a creature of violence, just like me.
I stroke faster. I spit into my palm, the saliva mixing with the grit and the blood residue. It makes a slick, wet sound.
I imagine his hands on me. Not gentle. I don't want gentle. I want the rough, calloused grip he used in the kitchen. I want him to pin me against this cold steel wall and tear my clothes off. I want him to fuck the fear out of me.
"Killian," I whisper. The name scrapes my throat.
I imagine him grabbing my hair, forcing my head down. I imagine his cock in my mouth, choking me, silencing the noise in my head. I imagine him taking me from behind, driving into me with that brutal, relentless rhythm, possessing me so completely that I forget who I am.
My hips buck off the floor. I am fucking my own hand with a desperation that borders on madness. My other hand claws at the floor, scraping against the wood of a pallet.
I want to be ruined. I want to be broken open. I want to be claimed.
The image of him standing between me and the guns at Murphy's flashes in my mind. The look on his face. The absolute certainty. He's with me.
He owns me. I tried to fight it, tried to manage it, but the truth is here, in the dark, with blood on my hands. I belong to him.
I stroke faster, harder, chasing the edge.
"Please," I whimper to the empty room. "Please."
The climax hits me like a car crash.