Page 146 of Righteous Enforcer
“Where’s Vitale?”
“Took off like a chicken shit,” Alessandro says. I hear him fire. “I’ll deal with him later.”
That’s good. Less men for us to kill tonight.
The gunfire has thinned out. I feel victory in my grip. I signal two of my men to circle around the eastern side while I take the western approach.
A flicker of movement catches my eye. I stalk forward, keeping my profile low as I slide behind a steel column, waiting for my shot. When a head pokes out, I shoot. It jerks back, and another Bratva bites the dust.
But where is Ivan? That's all I’m thinking about now.
I slip out from the column and in between a stack of crates, moving along the maze. I hit an intersection, carefully looking around the corner. When I see nothing, I step into the opening.
"NO!"
The scream tears through the air as a figure launches from the shadows, colliding with Ivan just as he swings his weapon toward me. Fuck. Where’d he come from?
His shot goes wild, the bullet embedding in the column beside my head.
“You fucking bitch,” he growls, grabbing the person who collided with him.
Oh, fuck. It’s Eva.
I think she just saved my life.
Ivan yanks her against him. The barrel of his gun presses into her temple.
"Drop your weapon or I paint the walls with her brains," he snarls.
I keep my gun trained on him, but for the first time ever in my life, I’m afraid to pull the trigger. Afraid I’ll miss.
Eva's eyes meet mine, wide but surprisingly steady. There's bruises on her face. She doesn't look like a willing accomplice, but for all I know, this is part of their scheme.
"Let her go," I say. "This is between you and me, Ivan."
Ivan's laugh is ugly. “Fuck you.”
“You a pussy man, Ivan?” I keep my gun trained on him, making sure if I fire, it hits him, not her. “Have to hide behind a woman? Maksim would be disgusted by you.”
“You’re the one too chicken shit to take a shot because you might hurt a woman. Who’s the pussy now?”
I spare a glance at Eva. She isn’t struggling. She doesn’t even look afraid. It’s almost as if she’s resolved to die.
Her gaze locks with mine. "I love you. I've always loved you. Tell Mirabella I love her too."
It takes me a minute, but then I realize she’s saying goodbye. She expects to die, wants to die if that's what it takes to end Ivan and save me.
She saved me.
When she knocked Ivan out of the way and yelled out at me in warning, she’d made sure Ivan’s bullet didn’t hit me. And it would have. I have no doubt.
Something shifts inside me. Whatever happened in the past, whatever I thought I heard at Ivan's house, Eva just put herself between me and a bullet. And now she's ready to die so I can end this.
I won't let her make that sacrifice.
I narrow my focus on Ivan. The crack of two guns firing splits the air. Time slows as I watch my bullet hit Ivan square between the eyes, his face freezing in surprise before his body crumples backward.
But Eva falls too. And the way she jerked to the side tells me he didn’t pull her down. No. He fired his gun. He shot Eva.
