DOM: Alliance Series Book Three (114)

CHAPTER 79





Val





“Dominic!” His hands let go of mine, dropping to his sides. “You can’t be sorry,” I cry. “You can’t go!” I sob. “You need to stay with me.” I press one hand to his bleeding chest and one hand to my stomach. “You need to stay with us!”

Dom’s head lolls to the side as more blood seeps from his chest, between my fingers.

And the loss rips through my mind.

He’s not gone.

He can’t be gone.

Not today.

He can’t die today, of all days.

A fresh round of gunfire blasts from up the road, where I last saw the cars.

I reach into my front pocket and pull out the black handkerchief with blue lettering and put it between my palm and his body. I don’t know why I grabbed this today. I just wanted to have it with me.

Another sob breaks free.

We’ve come so far.

I press the handkerchief harder against him.

And he’s not going to make it.

Without a miracle, he won’t make it.

None of us will.

My pocket vibrates.

I’m still practically in Dom’s lap, but I reach down and pull it out. King’s name on the screen.

He must’ve hung up and called back.

I answer the call, but I can’t stop crying.

“Nine minutes,” King tells me. “Val, my men will be there in nine minutes.”

The gunfire up the road slows, one side having overwhelmed the other.

And I know what that means.

I know it’s not my side that won.

“W-we won’t last nine minutes.” I admit the awful truth.

“Can you run?”

I focus on King’s steady voice and look over my shoulder at the deserted airfield. “No. There’s nowhere to go.”

And I can’t leave Dominic.

Not while his heart still beats.

And not after it stops.

“Do you have a weapon?”

I look down at the gun next to me. “There’s a rifle.”

“Use it,” King commands.

King taught me how to shoot two summers ago. And I was good, but I haven’t practiced.

“It’s been too long,” I choke.

“You know what you’re doing, Val. You know how to do this.”

“I don’t know if I can!”

“You have to!” This time he shouts.

And I know he’s right. This is my only chance. Our only chance.

I reach for the gun with my free hand. “If-if I don’t make it…”

“Val.”

“If I don’t make it.” Tears stream down my cheeks. “I just need someone to know—”

But I can’t say it.

I can’t say the words out loud.

Because if I don’t make it, neither will they.

“Val,” King says, focusing me. “Right now, you aim at everything that moves.”

“Okay.” My voice is cracking. “Okay. I’m putting the phone down now. Thank you, King.”

“Thank me later. Now go kill the bastards who dare to fucking shoot at you. You are The Alliance, Val. Show them why.”

I set the phone on the ground next to Dominic’s thigh and move toward the front end of the SUV.

My eyes close for one breath.

Lean in.

I fill my lungs.

My hands lift the rifle, and I rest the stock against my shoulder.

I pull the bolt back just enough to see that there’s a round already in the chamber.

Them or us.

It’s them or it’s us.

I twist around the front of the vehicle.

A man crests the top of the street, his figure silhouetted with the fluffy snow fall.

I squeeze the trigger.

His face disappears.

Them or fucking us.

Movement to my right draws my barrel.

I exhale and squeeze again. Twice.

Blood sprays from his chest.

One more head.

One more bullet.

Another man down.

I roll back behind the vehicle and stay low as I rush back around, past Dominic and past the dead bad guy, until I’m at the back doors.

A pair of men appear above me, but their attention is on the front of the SUV.

Where I was.

I squeeze the trigger.

The first man falls. Half his neck gone.

The second man drops, but not before I get off one more shot.

I run back around, not daring to stop and check on Dominic.

He’s alive.

He has to be alive.

I peek my head around the front of the vehicle and see the pair of men too late.

There’s a barrage of gunfire, and I pull back, but not before a round hits the barrel of my gun, jerking it to the side and out of my grip.

It falls to the ground, past the front bumper. Out of my reach.

That last shred of hope I’m clinging to frays.

I can’t reach the rifle.

Scrambling, I crawl back to Dominic.

It’s been one minute. Maybe two. Not nine.

King’s men won’t get here in time.

“Just hang on,” I whisper to my handsome husband as I shove my hands into his pockets. “Just hang on, okay?”