Shielded Wrongs (Bellandi Crime Syndicate 4)

"What the fuck were you thinking?" he asked, his voice a menacing whisper as the dangerous beast came out to play. He made no effort to shove it back down, glancing around the table and listening for more people.

"I was thinking your stubborn ass was determined to die. I wasn't feeling that idea, though if you keep poking at it, I might change my fucking mind," I whisper-hissed.

"Get your gun out and you fucking stay here. Do you understand me? If I catch you wandering around thinking you're enough of a badass to survive bullets, I'll kill you myself, Sadie," he ordered, pulling a knife from a holster in his boot while I fumbled through my tote for my gun. "Keep your head down and only shoot when absolutely necessary. Don’t let them know where you are if you can avoid it." He darted off, bending low to sneak through the mostly open space as Rebel hurried after him.

"No shit," I mumbled after him, ducking down and keeping my back to the table. My skin felt slick with sweat and blood. With the adrenaline pumping through me, it kept the pain manageable. If what I had in that moment was manageable, I'd need some serious pain killers and an entire bottle of whiskey when the adrenaline went away.

If I lived that long.

&nbsp

; Gunshots sounded in the space, and it took everything in me not to peek out. Not to glance to see if Enzo was safe. A man's pained shout confirmed someone was killing them, and that filled me with a moment of hope. Glocks only held seventeen rounds, and without knowing how many men had come to kill us or who fired when, there was no way to guess what happened.

The sound of footsteps drew closer as I clutched the gun to my chest. With my heart pounding in my chest, I pressed my back into the table and waited.

I counted to five as I peered out the corner of my eye.

A black boot came into sight, a denim clad leg followed soon after. The man walked into view with a gun clutched tightly in his hand. Staring down at me with a menacing smile, and I hesitated to fire.

I’d seen a body. I’d never been the one to make it dead.

His hand grabbed me by the hair, yanking me to my feet as I yelped. The pain in my shoulder and scalp drew me out of my hesitation, my good arm lifting to drive the gun I’d managed to keep hold of under his chin.

I pulled the trigger.

Wet exploded across the side of my face as the bang reverberated in my eardrum. The hand released my hair as the man fell to the floor. I didn’t dare look down at him and see what I had done. Chest heaving, I stepped away and looked for a new place to hide. The stairs next to me beckoned, but I hesitated to put that kind of distance between Enzo and I.

Rebel growled somewhere nearby, a reassurance that at least she was alive as she made her way through the warehouse. I made my way to the stairs, not seeing a place to hide that didn’t have a body next to it as a dead giveaway.

The figure that stepped in the open back door chilled me to my core as pale grey eyes met mine and a cruel smirk twisted his face. He tilted his head to the side, studying me as I raised my gun and fired at him.

I fucking missed. Wasting no time, I turned and darted up the steps when he growled at me. I threw myself into the office where random office furniture gave me a place to hide. Folding myself into the small space under a desk, I hugged my knees to my chest and willed my breathing to quiet down.

“Where are you, Pretty Girl?” Sean called. “Nobody likes a cock tease.” I stayed in my spot, listening as he stepped into the office. Plastic rustled near the doorway, his steps slow and measured as he made his way through the room. “You look so pretty in red. I think I’ll bathe you in Enzo’s blood after I cut off his head and send it to Matteo.” He chuckled, as if his horrific threat amused him greatly. “I haven’t decided if this is before or after I fuck you on his corpse.”

Holding the gun out in front of me, I watched and waited for him to come into sight. Keeping myself silent despite the urge to scream.

The need to see Enzo alive and know that we’d both walk away in one piece hovered at the edge of my consciousness, but I shoved it down. And when Sean walked in front of the desk, I pulled the trigger and shot him just above the knee.

“Fucking cunt!” he roared, clutching at his leg and hopping. Catching me by the wrist, he yanked me out from under the desk and threw me to my stomach on the filthy floor. Dust kicked up around me as I spun to my back, moving to raise the gun and fire.

But his boot stomped down on my wrist, pressing down so hard I felt the bones grind together. I winced, my grip on the gun loosening despite my best efforts. His grey eyes were victorious as he shifted his booted foot from side to side. A strangled whimper broke free from my lips, staring at the face of the man who would be my downfall.

There was no doubt he’d kill me because I sure as fuck wasn’t leaving with him. Over my dead body would he ever touch me.

He shouted in pain suddenly, his foot leaving my arm, and I tightened my grip again through the agonizing pain of what I suspected were broken bones. Rebel growled as she shook his leg viciously.

There was zero hesitation in me when I watched him raise his gun to point at my girl. I aimed mine and fired a single shot into his face. It exploded, and I only barely rolled out of the way as he collapsed to the floor where I’d laid only a moment before.

Rebel padded over to me, nudging my side as I trembled on the floor. Pushing to my feet, I fought back the tears from the pain. The gun was heavy in my right hand, pulling at my wrist as I cradled it to my chest. My left shoulder throbbed with the sharp pain of a bullet lodged in it. “Where’s Enzo, baby” I asked, rubbing a shaky hand over her back and wincing in pain. My hand came away red, her fur so slick with blood that she was damn near unrecognizable.

My little monster. Who’d saved my life again.

She walked to the doorway, looking back at me as if she needed to ask if I was coming. I paused, considering if it would be safe to go back downstairs, but the only sound that I could hear when I made it to the doorway was the eerie quiet that came after a massacre.

The stillness to the air and the metallic scent of blood drew me out until I peeked down the stairs to the main floor. The vague shapes of bodies littered the floor in my line of sight. The one I’d shot bled from the hole on the underside of his face. Near him another bled from a wound in the neck similar to what Rebel had done. But the laceration was straighter where hers had been jagged and torn.

Swallowing, I tucked myself against the wall and out of sight.