Page 149 of Tempting My Mafia Monster

Gio and some soldiers strolled down the steps towards them as Aleksandr and his entourage of intimidating men piled out of the cars. I frowned, slowly rising to my feet.

“What’s wrong?” Lili asked, her voice laced with worry the second she saw my face.

“Aleksandr is supposed to be in Belgium. What is he—“

My sentence stopped dead. So did my heart. The man I hated with the heat of a thousand suns climbed out of the car behind Aleksandr’s, calm as anything, unbuttoning his suit jacket.

Sean McKenna.

The world slowed. From this distance, I saw it happen in fragments. Gio reached for his weapon, but Sean already had his arm raised, a gun in his hand. Gio’s body dropped to the gravel. A raw scream pierced the air. Not mine. Liliana’s. Then… chaos. Gunfire erupted everywhere. Glass shattered. Men shouted in three languages. Italian. Russian. Irish. Bodies scattered for cover.

Then it hit me. The ambush wasn’t ours. Sean had known all along. The Russians had gone against us. Aleksandr had handed my family a location in another country and emptied our house of the most ruthless men capable of defending it. They were working with McKenna. They were here for Aria. And to slaughter every one of us.

Move, Soraya. Move.

I spun around and grabbed Lili’s shoulders as tears slid down her cheeks. “You have to hide. Lili, listen to me. You have to hide in the stables right now. When you see an opening to escape, get on a horse and ride. Lili, are you listening?”

Her bloodshot eyes were fixed on Gio’s unmoving body. My brother. Her papi. The Boss of this family, face down on the driveway. As much as I wanted to fall apart, I couldn’t.

Her whole body shook as sobs tore from her. She wasn’t listening, and we were running out of time. I grabbed her hand and yanked her towards the back of the stables, my pulse hammering in my throat. I shoved her down into the straw of an empty stall, then searched for a weapon. Grabbing a pitchfork, I thrust it into her hands.

“Stay here. When you don’t hear anything, mount a horse and get as far away as you can.”

I snatched a hay bale hook off the wall and moved towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Lili cried. “Don’t leave!”

“I have to,” I said, glancing back at her one last time, memorising her face in case it was the last time I saw her. “Don’t wait for me. Don’t come looking. No matter what you hear, just get out.”

Before she could say anything, I pushed open the stable door and ran, keeping low and hiding behind trees and bushes. Twenty metres from the house, I saw my bodyguard, Ivano, crumpled on the grass, shot in the back, his gun still loose in his outstretched hand. Guilt and sadness washed over me in a violent wave, knowing he must have come looking for me. Making my way towards him, I dropped to his side, pried the gun from his fingers, and hauled myself through the music room window, tumbling onto the floor inside.

My heart slammed against my ribs when I heard them: Irish and Russian men storming through my house.

“Tie them all up. Where are the women?” His Irish voice shook the walls like a hurricane, so recognisable it sent bile clawing up my throat. “Find Soraya and Arianna. Now. I want them alive.”

A scream echoed from somewhere in the house, either from Olivia or Arianna, followed by the brutal scrape and thud of a woman being dragged down the stairs against her will. I pressed my back to the wall and squeezed my eyes shut. Think. Think. My family was scattered throughout a house filled with killers. Who did I help first?

A body slammed into the wall on the other side of the door. Grunts and the brutal sounds of two men fighting for their lives filled my ears.

I edged towards the doorframe. Raffaele was pinned on his back, a soldier straddling him, a blade trembling between them. Raff had both hands locked around the man’s wrists, arms shaking as he tried to keep the knife from his throat. His face was reddening with the effort. He was losing.

Stepping out into the corridor, I lifted the gun and shot the soldier in the back of the head. He slumped over Raff’s chest, a dead weight. Raff shoved him off, his chest heaving, brown eyes staring at me through the blood splattered across his face.

“Raya, watch out!”

An arm clamped around my waist and ripped me off my feet. Remembering what Maddox taught me in the bunker, I twisted and hooked my arm around his neck. Then I yanked the hook up and drove it into the side of his neck. The soldier’s eyes bulged, mouth falling open. I hauled with every bit of strength I had, tearing the metal sideways and ripping through flesh and cartilage. Hot blood squirted all over me, and his arms fell from my body. He dropped to his knees and then face-planted on the floor.

“Monster’s rubbed off on you, Soraya.”

Sean’s smug, amused voice sent shivers down my spine as I slowly turned around. I swallowed. Raff was on his knees before him, Sean’s fist gripping his hair, a bloody knife pressing against the softness of his throat.

“Drop them,” Sean commanded calmly, nodding at the gun and hook in my hands. “Or I’ll open up this pretty boy right here and let you watch him drown in his own blood.”

My eyes flicked down to my nephew. He shook his head, barely, just a fraction of a movement. His eyes screamed at me not to do it. He’s going to kill us both anyway, so don’t give up your only chance.

I ran through the odds in my head. Could I raise the gun, aim and fire before Sean’s wrist twitched and cut? A cruel smile tugged at his lips, as if he could read my mind, and he yanked Raff’s head back roughly, baring more of his throat.

“Try it, Princess.”