“I need you to be my Fury now, Scarlett,” he whispers.
I know what he means. I nod, try to pull myself together.
“Did he—” he stops, unable to say the rest of the words.
I shake my head. “I’m okay,” I say. “He didn’t…” I trail off looking at the dead man, realizing what that warm wetness was. Blood. His blood.
He stands and helps me up.
“Don’t look at him. He doesn’t deserve your gaze.”
Dante reads something on his phone, and I see the Glock he’s holding at his side.
“Our men are on the grounds, not in the house yet though.”
I hear gunfire outside the house then and a moment later, a small explosion.
Cristiano goes to the window, one arm wrapped around me, as he looks out over the front yard. I see the men out there, the gunfight. I notice the fire at the far end of the house.
“We need to move,” he tells Dante, then turns his attention to me. “Is Felix on site?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
He nods. “If he is, I’ll find him. But I need to get you out first.” He holds my hand, and we walk around the bed to where the dead man is lying face down in his own blood. He bends to tug his knife out of the man’s side.
I notice the new injury on his side then. The bandage over the new set of stitches long gone. I touch it.
“You’re hurt.”
He takes my wrist, shifting his grip to my hand. “It’s nothing. Let’s go. Once I get you out, I’ll come back for Felix.”
“Wait, Cristiano.” I grab his arm when Dante opens the door.
Another explosion rocks the house and I let out a little scream.
“We have to go, Scarlett,” Cristiano says with some urgency.
“Mara,” I say.
Dante whirls to face me. A crease forms between Cristiano’s eyebrows.
I look at them both. “She’s alive. She’s here. Or she was here.”
“Alive?” Dante asks, taking a step toward me.
I nod. “A man called Petrov has her. He…bought her.”
“Petrov?” Dante looks sick suddenly.
I nod.
“If Petrov has her, she’s gone,” Cristiano says. He turns to say something to Dante, but gunfire breaks out in the corridor and we duck to take cover.
Everything happens so fast then. So many men. So many shots fired. Heavy boots beat down the lush carpet as they rush through the halls. Cristiano drags me with him, refusing to let go of my hand as war breaks out inside the house.
I don’t know who’s who. I can’t tell who’s on our side, who’s on theirs. And I feel like dead weight as Cristiano covers me again, shielding me from harm, putting his body in the way of any bullet that might come for me.
There’s another explosion, this one closer, knocking out a door at the far end of the hall.
“Stairs,” Cristiano calls out over the noise, pointing.
I recognize them. They’re the stairs I climbed when we first got here.
“They’ll take us to the kitchen!” I scream to Cristiano and Dante as soldiers bear down on us.
We get to an open door and Cristiano shoves me into the room, freeing himself to reload his weapon before stepping out into the hallway again.
“No!” I call out when I hear the bullets.
But a moment later, I see Dante. He’s caught up to us. I hadn’t realized we’d lost him. He switches out the Glock’s magazine, turns and takes another shot. More boots charge up the stairs at the opposite end of the hall, running over the fallen bodies of soldiers.
We get to the stairs that lead to the kitchen and sprint down, Cristiano catching me when I fall.
“Get her out!” Cristiano yells to Dante, releasing me as soon as we’re in the kitchen. From here I see the fire in one of the outbuildings.
Dante turns, sees something, and immediately throws himself in front of Cristiano. His body jerks violently and he stumbles back to the wall, stunned momentarily.
“No!” I cry out because a circle of blood is already seeping into his shirt at the center of his chest. “No.”
Cristiano goes white when he sees his brother stumble, slide down a little. When he sees the smear of blood on the wall, that shock morphs into something else. Something powerful and violent and vengeful.
He is Fury now.
He turns to face the oncoming soldiers and I scream. I cover my ears and scream and scream. He kills every one of those men before one final, massive explosion rocks the house. The floor beneath us seems to sway, men falling, the click of an empty pistol loud in the moment before this tsunami touches down.
Cristiano turns to me, then to his brother.
Dante stumbles. Cristiano wraps one arm around him, the other around me, and we almost make it to the door before the house explodes around us.
45
Cristiano
Dying is a strange thing. To be half a part of this world half a part of another.