17. Roman #3
She was always fond of my Makarov, and it seems that she’s invested in her own.
She’s wearing a vest, too, which I can only assume is bulletproof.
“Why the fuck are you here, Nata?” I ask, stepping forward into the bright glare of the car’s headlights.
“You weren’t supposed to be here yet. Yegor had his whole pretty little plan for later, didn’t he? Too bad it’s ending tonight.”
The front door of Yegor’s house swings open and the three other men step out, all holding guns out toward me.
I feel like my heart is going to come out through my fucking throat.
So they never got Yegor.
But they fucking got her.
“I should have known,” I tell Nata, holding out my gun steady toward her while Maks faces toward the others.
“Yes. You should have,” Natalia says. “You should have known that my loyalties will always go toward the people who actually give a fuck about their family legacy. It’s a shame that Petrov used to be that family, and now, it is the Malettis, isn’t it?”
“Say the truth,” Maks barks at her. “The Malettis just gave you more money, didn’t they?”
She snorts a laugh. “Of course they did. But you two know I don’t need more money. They gave me money and gave me something that you never could, Romik. They gave me access.”
Natalia had always asked me to involve her in my tasks.
She wanted access to weapons.
To my body.
To information.
And of course I never gave her that.
“My mother loved you,” I tell her.
She shrugs a shoulder. “And I loved her.”
“Lzhets,” I scream at her.
Liar.
The most evil fucking kind.
“Give us the Landrey boy,” Lucian Farina says as he steps closer to the car. “We take him, we get our money from Luke, and this all ends cleanly.”
“Nothing is ever clean,” I tell him. “And you will never see Tate again in your life.”
A gunshot sounds through the air and I don’t know who took the first shot.
I lunge to the side and see the bark of the tree behind Maks fracture. Maks drops to the ground and fires a shot at Lucian Farina, hitting his shin.
And then the gunshots come so fast I don’t know which is which.
I take cover behind a tree and run deeper into the forested edge of the yard. I can see that Maks is safe, but a bullet from Natalia’s gun grazes his arm.
The fear in my heart only returns when I see more people coming.
Figures coming from further down on the street, where I spotted the other cars earlier.
And then I see who walks out.
No.
Niko is here, holding a gun in his hands, too.
Sev is behind him, and he nods at me before moving across to the far side of the front yard.
Hunter comes out next, and my heart freezes.
He can’t.
He can’t fucking be here—
Tate emerges from the forest, and my heart drops.
I run toward him instantly, feeling like I’ve just fallen into a living nightmare.
Tate is all I see.
I lunge at him, all of the other sound falling away around me, and I use my body to block him from all of them.
I don’t know if they’ve seen him yet, over in this tree-lined edge of the lawn. I shove his body to the ground immediately, pinning him there as he hits the grass.
My words spill out in a hoarse, desperate plea. “You have to get out of here. You have to leave. Run, Tate, and don’t fucking come back.”
His beautiful eyes.
His body, so vulnerable, so close to all of this senseless violence.
He shoves at my body, trying to get me off of him, but it’ll never work.
I don’t budge an inch.
“I couldn’t stay there,” he says, “knowing you were going to get hurt. How could I leave you like this? I’m not afraid, Roman.”
Another gunshot goes off behind me and I push down harder on Tate’s body.
He reaches low into his pocket beneath me and he pulls out the knife I lent him earlier, and he grips it firmly in his fist.
“Be afraid,” I roar at him.
“I was sitting in that house and all I thought of was you.”
Two more gunshots sound out from closer toward the house. “I need to go. Don’t fucking move from this place.”
I lace my fingers into his hair and give it a squeeze, leaning over to crush a kiss to his lips before I run back over toward the house.
Tackle is laid flat on the ground already.
Maybe dead, but I can’t tell.
Yegor is hobbling on one leg, dragging the other behind him, and is leaning around the front corner of his house, pointing his gun in the direction of Natalia.
Maks has Benny subdued, but Natalia is beside them, waiting for something.
Waiting for…
Crack.
Another gunshot, louder this time, comes from the edge of the yard.
I turn and see Sevan. He fired a round but didn’t seem to be aiming to hurt anyone, just wanting to make a distraction.
And it works.
I get a moment to move forward, running in the gravel toward Natalia.
I kick the gun from her hand, then go for the rope in my pocket, immediately yanking her thin wrists back as she screams at me to let her go.
I restrain her arms behind her onto one of the wooden pillars in the front of the house.
“Too slow, Romik,” she utters. “You think you’re perfect, but you’re too fucking slow.”
I follow her gaze toward Lucian on the ground.
And I see that he’s grappling in the gravel, and his hand closes around his gun right as Tate emerges from the trees.
“No!” I shout at him.
But she was right.
I am too slow.
Too late, only when it matters.
Lucian’s shot fires right at Tate. My heart lurches up and lodges somewhere near my throat as I run over, trying to position my body in between Lucian and Tate.
I watch as Tate stutters on his feet and the shot misses him.
It missed.
It fucking missed, and I still have time—
“Fuck. No, no, Tate,” I try to say, each word coming out like a sobbing cry.
I level my handgun and look to fire another shot at Lucian but he’s crawling behind the car now, hidden from view.
Tate ducks behind a large tree trunk and I say a thousand silent prayers in my mind.
Hunter and Niko run toward the car from two directions, lunging for the gun in Lucian’s hand. He fires right as Hunter ducks to slash at his legs with a knife, and Hunter shouts.
He’s shot, I realize.
Hunter’s arm is bleeding, down near his elbow.
And then Lucian shoots again, crawling a couple more inches around the car, and points the barrel of his gun straight at me.
The pain comes before the sound.
In my belly, there’s a fast, hot flash of shocking pain, blooming outward.
He got me.
He…
“He hit me,” I say out loud, not knowing who I’m saying it to.
“You won’t win this,” Natalia says from behind me, still bound to the pillar.
My vision goes hazy, and the only thing I’m looking for, beyond the trees, is blond hair.
Be safe.
The thought burns through my mind.
I groan as I feel hot blood start to drip down my stomach, I look down, and all I see is red.
I look up, and I blink, trying to force my vision to focus.
Fight the shock.
I’m looking at Niko, now, as he grips the gun from Lucian’s hand and takes it away. Lucian is fast, though. Even with his wound, he’s able to scramble away in the gravel, tripping for a moment but then running, fast, toward the trees.
He’s going in Tate’s direction.
“Go,” I try to shout, but it comes out more like a groan.
Lucian turns to look back at us, one last time, with a crazed look in his eyes. “This could have been so fucking easy, Petrov.”
And I see, behind him, Tate walking up.
He has my metal flashlight in his hands.
And he brings it down, hard and true, right at the center of Lucian’s skull.
Not even a real fucking weapon, beauty.
My vision is hazier at the edges now as I watch Lucian sway in place. Shock is settling in my nervous system. I’ve felt it before, but I’ve never had a gunshot this close to my vital organs before.
Tate brings the heavy flashlight down onto Lucian’s head again.
And then again.
Look at you.
You never needed my protection, did you?
So capable. So utterly perfect, all on your own.
He is my guardian angel, and I don’t know if I’m losing consciousness, but I know that Tate Landrey holds my heart in his hands, and I would trust him with it forever.
Forever.
A surge of adrenaline flows through me, giving me enough energy to rush back into clarity for a brief moment.
I reach lower, patting around for any weapon I can find, but the reach makes my stomach drip with too much blood.
Have to finish it…
Have to kill him.
“Roman, rest,” I hear Yegor’s low voice from beside me. “Let me. I owe it to you… I owe you everything.”
Yegor’s shot is true.
His bullet hits Lucian Farina, going right through his temple, and I exhale relief. My own pain isn’t registering anymore. It’s setting in… and finally, I am free. Tate is free. As I slip into the darkness, only one thought swirls through my mind.
You are safe, my beauty.
That’s all I ever wanted.