I gave my head a little shake. No. That couldn't be right. How the fuck could a woman like her love a monster like me? I was seeing things. Trying to give myself a reason not to do it. She was making me fucking soft. Weak. Just like my brother. But I wasn't like him. Not anymore.
Steadying my arm, I took aim at the center of her forehead. I didn't want her to suffer. A gust of warm summer wind blew by, ruffling the soft strands of her hair. I wished I could run my fingers through them one more time.
"I forgive you," she said softly as her eyes grew shiny with tears and one slipped down her cheek. "I want you to know that."
"Don't do that," I whispered. The door I had shut tight on my emotions rattled inside of me. "Don't fucking do that."
"I'm so sorry he did that to you." Another tear rolled down her face, and she blinked hard.
I watched that tear travel along the side of her nose to the corner of her sweet lips, still swollen from my kisses, and drip off her jaw. I wanted to taste her pain as I tasted her blood that first night. Take it away from her and inside myself so she wouldn't hurt anymore.
There was a sharp, stabbing pain in my chest. Another crack in the ice I'd held around my heart.
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.
Shoot her! Just fucking shoot her! I had to go through with this. I had to. If I didn't, I was as good as dead myself. If my brother didn't kill me this time, someone else would, once they knew I had a heart to crush. Veda would end up a pawn in the endless death games the families played. As soon as word got around that she was a weakness for me, she'd be hunted like an animal. My enemies would come after her as a way to get to me, just as I had with Mario. It was how it worked. She would never be safe. She was better off dead now.
"Luca..."
Enzo's urgent tone came to me as if through a fog. I realized the gun was shaking in my hand. No. My hand was shaking. My arm.
"Just do it, Luca," Veda whispered. "It's okay."
But she stared at me with those luminous eyes. The wrong color, but still her looking out at me. They drilled everything she was feeling right into my heart. Right into my soul. Goddammit, I could fucking feel her inside of me. What would happen when I went through with this? How would I breathe without her beside me?
I caught movement in my peripheral. I shifted my gaze just in time to see Mario make a motion with his hand. He lunged for Veda as shots fired around me.
In slow motion, I swung my arm to the left and pulled the trigger. Mario's right shoulder jerked back as my bullet caught him, but he didn't stop. He kept going, ducking behind Veda like the fucking coward he was and pulling her against him with his good arm as I took aim again.
Something primitive and feral snapped inside of me the moment he dared to touch her, breaking me down and violently shaking me out of the prison of revenge I'd caged myself in.
Ignoring the bullets flying back and forth between my guys and his, we stood at a standoff, my gun still aimed at his head. But I didn't dare shoot.
Mario had one arm around Veda's throat and one around her waist, the tip of his Glock shoved into the bottom of her breast, pointed at her heart. He whispered something in her ear and her eyes widened as they locked onto mine.
I gave her a fast shake of my head. Too fast for anyone but her to see. And I could only hope she understood my meaning and wouldn't let on who she really was. If she told Mario her true identity, she would be dead within the hour.
Tristan grunted to my right, and I felt more than saw him go down to the floor.
"Fuck! Luca, we gotta go," Enzo yelled. "We have to go!" He stepped in front of me, still firing shots. "Get Tristan."
"I'm not leaving here without her," I told him as I stepped around him and fired off a few rounds, catching one of Mario's men off guard. His gun fell to the ground with a clatter of metal on pavement, his arm hanging useless at his side.
A bullet grazed my head, so close I heard the air move above my ear. Lifting my hand, I touched my temple. When I pulled it away, there was blood on my fingers.
Veda's scream cut through the ringing in my ears. Mario was dragging her backward, his men closing ranks around them.
I took a step toward them, getting off two shots before someone hit me from the side, knocking me down to the ground.
"Get back! Get back!" Enzo yelled, his heavy weight holding me down. Grabbing the back of my jacket, he pulled me with him behind a car. "What are you fucking doing?" he asked me.
I didn't answer him. I didn't fucking know what I was doing. All I knew was that that fucking bastard, Mario, was taking away the woman I loved.
Again.
"How's Tristan?" A bullet ricocheted near my head, and I ducked behind the tire as Enzo returned fire.
"He's alive," he said.
"Veda?"
A door slammed and tires squealed.
"Gone," Enzo said. "But alive."
I sat there on my ass, breathing hard as Enzo went to check on Tristan. It was suddenly quiet. Too fucking quiet. All I could hear was the pounding of my heart and the voice inside my head telling me I had failed, both Veda and myself.
"He's okay," Enzo shouted. "He was wearing his vest. He's just stunned, and he'll have a hell of a bruise."
Drawing up my knees, I closed my eyes and covered my face with my hands, one still holding my gun. If Mario found out who Veda really was, how I'd deceived him, he would take his fury out on her.
I met Enzo's eyes, and I could see he was having the same thoughts. "I will fucking find her if I have to kill everyone to do it," I told him.
He gave me a nod, and together, we got Tristan out to the car and headed back to the house to plan the second abduction of Veda.