Shielded Wrongs (Bellandi Crime Syndicate 4)

e room as the others flinched away from the shot and left him to his pain did nothing to settle the beast in my soul.

To calm the monster rattling the cage bars and demanding vengeance for the harm done to my woman.

“Jesus fuck! You shot him!” one of the male employees shouted as he backed away. Jumping down off the stage, I landed on my feet and stepped into the bastard’s face as he clung to the wound in his leg.

The barrel of my gun touched his forehead, and I applied just enough pressure to make him raise it to stare me in the eye. “Who let him in?” I growled.

He whimpered, swallowing around the saliva building in his mouth. The shifting weight, the guilt on his face even as he struggled to contain the pain. I already knew the answer to my question.

I just didn’t know why.

“I never meant for anyone to get hurt,” he said.

Matteo growled a warning, stepping into his face and pushing my gun away from his forehead. I holstered it, despite wanting nothing more than to put a bullet in his brain. The time for that would come, but answers were more important.

For the moment.

“What did you think would happen when you let someone unauthorized into the back rooms? At best, he would have gotten handsy with one of the girls. At worst, he could have killed Enzo’s woman,” Matteo said, shaking his head as his lips curled in disgust.

“I fail to see how that could have ended any way that didn’t involve someone getting hurt,” Ryker echoed. With his arms crossed over his chest on the stage, he towered over all of us like a monstrous sentry in black jeans and a black shirt.

“I left the door for five minutes. That’s all, I swear. I didn’t think anybody would be ballsy enough to stroll through it!” the man protested.

I stilled, considering how much worse the situation could have been. Five minutes.

Did he have any clue how many men could walk through a door in five minutes?

“Why would you abandon your post?” I asked him, my voice calm despite the storm that raged inside me. The time for blood approached. His answers were naïve enough to believe he’d genuinely just been stupid. I did not suffer idiots in my line of work.

“There was a woman. Blond hair, brown eyes. Tall and sexy as fuck. She wanted me, so—”

“So you thought it was appropriate to endanger everyone in the club so you could get your dick wet?” Ryker’s voice went quiet, his cool fury echoing my own.

“Women like her don’t go for men like me,” he groaned, clutching his thigh in agony. “We don’t all have a buffet of pussy waiting for us if we so much as glance at it.” His bitter sneer transformed his face as the reality of what he faced overcame him.

Without another glance for approval, I withdrew my gun again and pressed it against his forehead. With the sharp crack of the shot reverberating through the space, his body collapsed to the floor. “Anybody else feel like putting my woman at risk with their own stupidity?” I asked the quiet room.

The chorus of responses around the room didn’t come as a surprise. Turning my attention to Ryker, I saw him look down at the body thoughtfully. “I’ll get rid of it. The other one has already been delivered,” he said, referring to the present he’d chosen to leave strung up in Tiernan’s home.

“Find the fucking bitch,” I growled. When he nodded, I turned on my heel and strode out the front doors. Phone in hand, I called Seb to have him send me a copy of the security footage.

They’d better hope I didn’t find the cunt before they did. I’d never killed a woman before.

But there was a first time for everything.

28

Sadie

I drowned in the length of Ivory’s clothes, the sole pair of pajama pants she owned rolled up around my ankles as we walked in from the garage at Enzo’s house. I’d very much appreciated the shower at the Bellandi estate, and the comfort of my friend by my side to bring me back from the shock I’d suffered in the strip club.

Even though the tiles in their guest bath looked nothing like the white ones on the floor of the bathroom at Tease, I’d had a moment where I saw blood spreading across them.

Ivory was quick to remind me it was normal. That it was okay to not be okay.

I’d just never thought it would happen to me.

The familiar comforts of Enzo and Rebel at my side grounded me and enveloped me in the order I recognized as mine. I didn't know what that meant for my apartment or our future. With the shock of the day finally abating, I needed to not make any major decisions.