Page 85 of Wicked Mafia Sinner

I get stiff nods from everyone who can hear me.

Rafael steps behind the opposite pillar from me. Marble chips fly everywhere. He doesn’t flinch when bullets whizz by his head as he takes out his phone, coordinating the response from security while keeping a clear line to the east corridor.

All the while those mother fuckers haven’t laid off the triggers.

Soren grabs Raine by the arm and hauls her behind the reception desk. She fights him for a full second, teeth bared, before dropping behind the granite counter with her hands already reaching for something useful.

“My sister!” Raine screams, thrashing against Soren's grip. I don’t know what Soren tells her but she must have understood Cora is safe because I don’t see her bolt across the room looking for her.

Chaos erupts in the stairwell.

“Ahh, it looks like more of my friends have arrived.”

My son is earning his place in a prison cell or a coffin the longer he plays this game.

Rafael looks at me and Soren looks at Rafael. I learned patience a long time ago. The price I paid for the wisdom that comes from learning to wait was steep. I lost a wife because I failed to stop and think. I lost a son because I was impulsive.

I hold my hand out a fraction to signal for my brothers to hold their positions. Going balls to the wall and having a chaotic shootout isn’t the way to go here.

We hold.

Cora peers out from the corner of her hiding spot and I shake my head.

And then there’s silence.

“Now!” I bellow.

Soren, Rafael and I all step out from behind our cover as Nikolai’s hired muscle reloads.

Fear blooms over their faces when they realize their mistake.

The first man swings his weapon toward my chest and I close the distance in two strides, catch his wrist, redirect the barrel past my hip, and drive my fist into his jaw. The impact rattles through my knuckles, sharp and satisfying. His knees buckle against the marble. The second one comes from my left. I take the hit on my forearm, redirect his momentum past me, and drive my elbow into the base of his skull. He drops face-first onto glass with a heavy, wet sound that feeds my soul.

I don’t risk leaving my focus on either of them for long. I can’t afford to give my son more ammunition against me than he already has. He knows how much Cora means to me. He will use her to get what he wants and I will give it to him.

Beside me, Rafael and Soren take care of the remaining fuckers.

I scan for Cora across the lobby. Glass and overturned furniture and bodies create a maze of chaos between us. She crouches behind a column with Raine, her white hair catching emergency light in a flash of silver against the stone. Her face is tight with controlled fear, her hands gripping Raine's arm, her mouth moving. She's telling her sister something I can't make out over the chaos.

But she's alive.

A round catches my left arm above the elbow, a hot, sharp line across the skin, but I ignore the pain. I step over a body that is no longer contributing to the fight, and close the distance to Cora's column.

I reach her just as Nikolai comes around the opposite side.

Evil gleams in those soulless eyes.

Twenty years of Bratva training has honed his skills and made a weapon out of my boy. His arm locks around Cora's throat and the muzzle of a Makarov grinds against her temple before my next breath clears my lungs.

Every sound in the lobby thins to static. I sense more than see my brothers hold their position.

Raine crouches three feet to the left, a gun in both hands I assume she got from Soren. Her face is white as chalk, but her fingers steady on the trigger. Soren stands behind her with his body angled to block a shot she'd never see coming, amber eyes on Nikolai, calculating without moving.

"Take me." I strip my words of all emotions and leave nothing but the command. "I'm the one you want, Nikolai."

My son laughs. Twenty years of anguish leaves a man bitter. "Why? But I had her first, dear Daddy." His arm tightens around Cora's throat and her fingers claw at his forearm. "So I think it's only fair I get to keep her."

He presses his mouth to Cora's cheek. Then he drags his tongue up the side of her face, slow, deliberate, jaw to temple.