Page 117
His grip tightens, causing Kira to gasp, her body arching against his arm, and the sound cuts through me like a blade.
“She’s mine.” Harry’s voice cracks on the word. “My daughter. My blood. You think marrying her changes that? I raised her and put a roof over her head. She owes me everything. Fucking everything. You might have gotten her virginity, but she can still make me money on her back.”
Fuck me, he’s truly deranged.
The gun presses harder into Kira’s side. Her eyes are on mine, and I see it there—not just fear, but something harder. Something calculating. Her fingers are splayed against Harry’s forearm, not pushing, just resting, and the position is deliberate. She’s waiting for something.
I keep my eyes on hers. Not on the gun. Not on Harry’s face. Just Kira, bleeding and terrified, and still somehow the strongest person in the room.
“You want money?” I ask. My hand is steady on my own weapon, aimed at the center of Harry’s chest. “I’ll give you money. Name a number. Double it. Triple it. Let her go, and you walk out of here richer than you’ve ever been.”
He laughs. “Too late for that.” The gun shifts, angling upward toward Kira’s ribs.
My world narrows to the space between Harry’s finger and the trigger. To the gun pressed against my wife’s body. To the blood on her face, and the calculation in her eyes, and the absolute, bone-deep certainty that I will burn this entire fucking country to the ground before I let him take her from me.
I keep talking because talking keeps his finger off the trigger. Doesn’t matter what I say. The words are noise, empty and warm, filling the space between us while my eyes stay locked on Kira’s.
“Harry. Listen to me. You walk out of here with cash, no questions asked. More than NovaGen ever paid you. Enough to start over somewhere new. Mexico. Costa Rica. Anywhere you want.”
“Is that fear I hear in your voice, Domenico?” Harry asks, his beady eyes filled with malicious glee.
“Would you feel better if it were?”
Harry shrugs and opens his mouth to speak, but before he can utter a word, Kira hisses, “Don’t you dare give him anything.” Her tone is colder than I’ve heard before. “Don’t do it, Domenico.”
My eyes widen as Harry tightens his finger on the trigger.
“Do you hear me?” she demands. “Promise me you won’t give this piece of shit anything.”
“Kira—”
“Promise me!” she screams.
I want to tell her to shut the fuck up when she keeps pushing her dad, who’s growing redder by the second.
Dropping his arm, he grabs her hair and throws her to the side. “You fucking useless cunt…”
As soon as he isn’t clutching Kira like a human shield, I pull the trigger.
Pop!
The shot catches him square in the chest with a wet, meaty sound that echoes in the small room. Harry’s eyes go wide. His mouth opens, but whatever he was going to say dies with him. He drops hard, his body hitting the floorboards with a finality that feels like punctuation.
I’m across the room before his fingers have stopped twitching.
Kira stumbles to her feet and into me, her body colliding with mine so hard I have to brace against the wall to keep us both upright.
“D-Domenico,” she stutters. Her burst of bravado seems to leave her as fast as Harry’s life is draining out of him. Her entire body’s trembling like a branch in a storm. “I-I…”
“Shh,” I murmur. “I got you, baby. And you did so good. You were so brave.” I kiss her face after each word: lips, nose, cheeks, forehead, and…
“Ouch!” she cries when I touch the cut on her face.
My hands find her face, her arms, her ribs where the gun was pressed—checking for entry wounds, for blood I didn’t see, for anything that means she’s hurt worse than she looks.
“Hey. Hey, look at me.” My thumb brushes the blood from her temple, sticky and half-dried. “You’re okay. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
She’s shaking. Full-body tremors she tries to hide by pressing closer, her face buried against my chest, her fingers clutching the fabric of my jacket like she’s afraid I’ll disappear if she lets go.
