Bratva Sinner (A Possessive Mafia Romance)

Maher made it into one of the cars and started driving. It slammed into Franklin’s inert truck and sent it spinning with a crush of metal and glass then tore away, driving fast, swerving all over the road.

The men still in the parking lot were dead. None of them moved, and all of them bled, so much that it looked like a rainstorm swept through.

The gunfire came to a stop.

Luke looked down at me. “You okay?”

I nodded. “I think so,” I said, or maybe I yelled, I couldn’t tell.

He knelt down. “Are you sure?”

I nodded, touching my chest, my legs. “I’m sure.”

He seemed relieved. His plan was solid—use Franklin and the dossier as bait to draw in Maher, since we all knew that Franklin couldn’t keep his mouth shut—but we were the one uncertainty. From the start, Luke knew we’d end up out in the open when the shooting started, but he said he’d get me out and make sure I survived, and he kept his promise.

Somehow. The whole thing was a blur, and my hands shook, my heart raced, and I had to keep blinking to stop myself from passing out.

Luke stood and walked out from cover. Nothing happened. The bodies didn’t come to life, didn’t stand up and start killing again. He went over and began to kick at them, looking for any survivors, and shot two of them in the head.

German came walking down the parking lot from the school. He had a rifle slung over one shoulder and a big smile on his lips. I stood and moved toward them, still leaning against the roof of the car.

“All dead?” German asked.

I blinked and rubbed my ears. My hearing was coming back, though everything was still muted and distant like we were underwater.

“All dead,” Luke confirmed. “Except Maher got away.”

“He won’t last long. Fucker was shot at least once or twice.”

Luke grunted but didn’t look happy. “The whole point was to get him.”

“We just slaughtered his crew. It doesn’t matter if Maher got away, at this point he might as well be dead.”

Luke nodded grimly at that. “Gather up the guys and get out of here. Cops will be on their way.”

“This is gonna bring a lot of heat.” German laughed like he enjoyed the police attention. “At least Maher won’t be bothering you for a while.”

“For a while, anyway. That guy’s a cockroach.” One of the bodies groaned and Luke shot him in the head. I looked away, trying not to cry. “Get everyone out of here.”

“You got it, boss.” German walked off and whistled, high and piercing in the night.

Luke came to me and led me by the arm. He helped me into the car, went to the driver’s side, and got us moving again. We left the parking lot, the wheel trailing blood for a while, until it rubbed off on the pavement and we were gone.

He put a hand on my leg. “I know that was hard to watch.”

“It’s fine. I’m fine.” I leaned back and closed my eyes, but I still saw all those bodies getting ripped to shreds by bullets.

“That sort of thing’s going to give hardened criminals nightmares. It’s okay if it bothers you.”

I rubbed at my face. “It’s just, it was so easy. Once they were all out in the open, the guns just killed them, just mowed them down.”

“That’s why we picked this parking lot, plenty of high paces to shoot down from, make it nice and easy. We have the manpower and the firepower, and all we needed to do was trick Maher into thinking he could roll up and win this fight in one fell swoop.”

“He was wrong, and now they’re all dead.” I whispered the words and could hardly hear my own voice.

“We’ll have a drink when we get back. That’ll help calm you down a little bit.”

“What do we do now?”

He hesitated. “Find Maher. Make sure this is done. And then, I don’t know.”

“It’s not over. The Lionettis are still pissed.”

“And they’re still coming. I’m sorry, Cara, but this might not be the worst of it.”

I leaned my head back and let tears stream down my face.

He said nothing as he navigated the car through the city streets, and the sound of sirens broke out in the distance, echoing off the brick houses, like the cops were all over—or nowhere at all.

17

Luke

It wasn’t hard to find Maher.

Shit cut both ways. Maher knew me and my crew too well, but I also knew him and all his little hiding places. I had my guys check his safe houses, one after the other, until eventually they found one place with the lights on and all the doors locked. I ordered German to stay out, and headed over there with Cara two days after the firefight.

She didn’t talk about it much. I tried to get her to say something, anything, but she couldn’t seem to bring herself to do it. Not that I could blame her—watching eight men get shot to death in the middle of the parking lot, their bodies ripped to pieces, their blood pooling like a manmade lake, it’s not something people are supposed to see. Hollywood movies didn’t do it justice, didn’t reproduce the stench and the screams and the viscera.