Dan didn’t hesitate, just dropped into a crouch.
I squinted, fired off two rounds, and one of my cousins hit the ground.
Family and blood and bullets and death. How many Toscalos would I be responsible for eliminating that day? And how many had been like me? Were innocent until they were pulled and coaxed and cajoled into a serious situation they couldn’t get out of.
I’d managed to find a way to exit the family.
But it had taken years, and my survival after leaving the family had largely been due to me stumbling onto a KTS agent.
I’d helped Laila when she was injured, offering what little money I’d earned at my under-the-table waitressing job and letting Laila stay with me in my hidey hole until she’d been able to contact headquarters. Laila had brought me to KTS, offering protection. That protection had turned into self-defense training, and that training had transformed me into someone who was strong, who wouldn’t be taken advantage of again.
And that training had brought alongside it a safe home and something that resembled a family.
Even though I had been so damned careful to keep Laila out.
My friend had gotten in anyway. Then Olive and Dan and Ryker.
“Clear,” I murmured. “Take that right and then there should be a stairwell at the end. It leads upstairs.”
We made it to the stairs and up the short flight.
And then we were creeping through a dimly lit room. It was large and open, the only barrier between the windows showing the sea in the distance a narrow stretch of wall separating the dining area from the rest of the space.
“I’m assuming you did me a favor, cousin?”
I stiffened at the sound of the voice. “Sergio,” I murmured to Dan.
Footsteps on the marble floor, several men I didn’t recognize coming out to flank my cousin, where he sat on a large cream couch.
One of them stepped close, whispered in his ear.
And I watched a sick smile spread on his lips.
“Are you the reason your dear father has a bullet in his skull?”
I swallowed, whispered. “Three exits. One back down in the dungeon, another through the kitchen via a servant’s door, the final one behind that couch there.”
Dan nodded slightly.
“I’m leaving,” I said. “You do with the family what you want.”
I’d take Sergio out with KTS’s help another time.
Today, I wanted to get the fuck out of here alive.
Still in Dan’s arms, still feeling very much like a pathetic damsel in distress, I held tight as Dan shifted, moved toward the door I’d indicated with my head.”
“Not so fast,” Sergio said casually. He glanced at his watch.
Clicks surrounded us. Safeties disengaged in unison.
Another rumbled shook the house. “Ah, right on time. Your pathetic little play army is trying to blast into the dungeons.” A nod. “Go take care of that.” Two men peeled off, pounding across the floor and slipping through the narrow door that led back into the dungeon. “Now,” his cold gaze fixed me in place. “Where were you? Ah”—he tapped a finger to his chin—“you were about to tell me all that KTS knows about the family.”
“I’m not telling you anything.” I knew that much, even though my head was growing fuzzy.
Sergio lifted a gun from his lap. “I think I can convince you.”
“I’m getting really tired of guns being pointed at us,” I muttered.
“Now, cousin.” Sergio casually lifted a shoulder. “Or I pull the trigger.”
“Hang tight,” Dan whispered.
He spun, and I held up my own gun, using the angle he gave me to get off several shots. But the poor light and the distance meant that I’d missed, Sergio diving to the side, firing rounds back at us, the rest of the goons following suit. Dan jumped behind a wall, hitting the deck just as more feet pounded into the room, as more bullets began to fill the air.
Attempting to breathe through the jarring impact as we hit the tile floor, I knew I wasn’t going to last much longer.
Not in a fight for our lives.
I was a liability.
“Go,” I said, gasping out a breath. “I’ll cover you.” I swallowed hard. “The servant’s door is down the hall. Go out the kitchen and take the path down to the beach. Follow it, and you’ll find the dock.” I lifted my gun, returned fire. “There are always boats there. Take one and get the fuck out of here.”
“Ava.”
I snagged the gun from the waistband of his pants, blinked against the plaster bursting into shards from the bullets hitting our faces. “Hurry, Dan.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
Already my fingers were having a hard time squeezing the trigger.
“You need to go—”
He gripped my chin, pressed his mouth to mine roughly. “I’m not leaving you. So, get that the fuck out of your mind right now.”
“You have to!” I returned fired. “Dan. I can’t be the reason you don’t make it out of here. Think about your family. Your sister—”
“Fuck that,” he snapped, grabbing me and shifting us down the wall as more bullets pinged repeatedly against the plaster. He grabbed a table, threw it on its side, and shoved me behind it. “We’re both getting out of here alive. So fucking suck it up, agent. Get your head out of your fucking ass and clear our path to that exit.”
Someone peeked around the opening.
Dan fired, and the man went down.
“Now, Ava.”
I scrambled to focus, to not keep arguing with the stubborn man. “We need to get across the opening behind us. From there, we’ll have a clear shot to the exit through the servants’ quarters. Right at the hall, a hundred meters down. The door is hidden behind a bookcase.”
“Got it.” He rose, grabbed a mirror from the wall. “Ready with a shot?”
Hobbling forward, following close behind him, I waited until we were in position, then hissed, “Go!”
He leaned around the wall and slid the mirror across the tile, sending it right toward my cousin and his men.
I leaned, too, then closed one eye, focused before firing off a shot, and . . . it shattered.
Glass burst into the air, blinding the men momentarily.
It was enough. Dan scooped me up and ran like the fucking devil was behind us. And maybe it was. Because this house, this fucking house of horrors—
“Here,” I said.
He skidded to a stop, shoved the bookcase open, then we slipped inside and came face to face with—
His gun was out in an instant.
“Wait,” I said, recognizing the woman, pushing Dan’s arm down. “I know her. She’s—”
“Eva?” she whispered.
My eyes drifted to her arm, to the arm, the hand that was no longer there. “Isa.”
She stepped forward, touched my cheek with the other hand, and it was just like when I was a child, when she’d wipe my tears away. “You’re hurt, caro.”
“Yes, I—”
Voices echoed through the hall.
We all looked to the door.
“Go.” Isa spoke in rapid Italian. “Hurry. Through the garden. My car is parked behind the vines. Keys are under the seat.” She reached up and threw a lock that was installed on the inside of the door, just before it started rattling, men yelling through the wood. “Leave and don’t ever come back to this place.”