Page 30 of Vows of Blood

The first clip is shaky, panning across the crowd, everyone laughing and celebrating, in the moments before everything went to hell. I recognize friends and business partners, all of them dressed in their finest, glasses raised, smiles wide.

Then the window explodes, and the sound of music and conversation is replaced by the pop, pop of gunfire and screams.

The phone jerks wildly, capturing a blur of ceiling and floor as the person holding it dives for cover. The footage switches to another angle, from someone closer to the bar, and the chaos becomes clearer.

Glass rains down across the marble floor. Bodies hit the ground as they dive for cover. My men are drawing weapons, all of them oriented toward the blown-out front windows where the first shots came from.

I curse. The distraction worked perfectly.

On the screen, I rush across the frame, shoving past panicked guests, toward Sienna, frozen in the middle of the room. I shift in my seat, uncomfortably aware of Nico watching as I launch myself at her, taking her down, and shielding her body with mine. She twists her face, looking up at me, terrified, as I scan for the threat from above her.

Nico says nothing, just waits as the footage switches to another angle.

This one shows the far side of the room where he’s shoving our father, protecting him while formulating an exit plan. Father is fighting Nico, wanting to stay, but Nico holds firm and ushers him to safety.

I feel a flash of pride. He did well tonight. “Good job.”

When I glance at him, he refuses to meet my eye, instead nodding his head toward the TV.

"Here. This part." Nico moves closer and points as the footage changes once more to that of a woman talking to the camera as she records.

The image quality is better than the others. Behind the woman's pouting face, there, in the shadows, is a figure in black, a ski mask pulled low, the smoking gun still slightly raised in his gloved hand. He’s calm amidst the pandemonium around him.

He's not firing. He’s not running. He's looking at someone.

The camera turns slightly, and suddenly, I can see what he's looking at.

Sienna.

She's pinned beneath me, but while I’m shouting orders, the shooter looks at her, and she looks right back.

“What is she doing?” I hiss. My heart rate spikes, even knowing that she’s home safe with Tony posted at her door. “She’s lucky she didn’t get herself killed.”

Nico grunts. Eye-balling someone pointing a gun at you is never a good idea. Their stare off only lasts a couple of seconds, but it feels like forever.

Then the gunman raises a finger to his lips and backs away into the shadows.

A rush of cold dread floods my veins.

“She didn’t mention this?” Nico asks, but I ignore him, needing to be sure what I just saw.

"Play it again."

Nico rewinds, and I watch it unfold a second time.

"Again."

The footage loops, and I lean forward, hands braced on the desk, watching her share an unspoken moment of connection with a shooter while I’m shielding her fucking body with mine.

Stay quiet. Keep this between us.

And she did. She didn’t say a word.

"She lied to me." My tone is measured, but Nico knows to recognize the danger in that. “She said she thought he bumped into her earlier. But she never mentioned… this.”

Nico doesn’t comment, knows there’s no need to. “I’ll see if I can find that in the footage.”

Nodding, I stare at the screen and think of her standing there in her towel, all that defiance, telling me not to come back. The whole time she was hiding this. And I was too affected by the memory of us, by being close to her again, to push her as hard as I should have.