“You didn’t think I’d let you off easy, did you? I have several more bullets here, and I’ll make sure only the last one is fatal.” Father takes another step toward Mikhail and cocks his head to the side. “What should I pick next? A leg maybe? Or the other shoulder? You could give me guidelines, it’s your speciality.”
I spring to my feet and run for Mikhail’s gun on the floor near the doorway.
“Bianca!” my father yells. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Leave that thing alone. You’ll hurt yourself, you idiot!”
“Get out and run!” Mikhail shouts at the same time. “Fucking now, Bianca!”
I ignore them both. I’m not running, and I’m certainly going to hurt someone. And that someone won’t be me. I look up at my father, who is standing three yards in front of Mikhail, take the gun in one hand, insert the magazine, and cock the gun. It takes me no more than a few seconds, I practiced this many times with Angelo. The look in my father’s eyes as he watches me stand up and aim the gun at him is priceless.
For a few moments, the two of us just stand there looking at each other, my gun pointed at my father’s chest as he regards me.
“You don’t have the guts, cara mia.” He smiles and starts turning toward Mikhail.
No, I guess I don’t have the guts to kill my father. I take a deep breath, aim at his thigh, and pull the trigger.
Bruno Scardoni screams, and his gun falls from his hand. He crumbles to the floor, clutching his bloody thigh.
I take a couple of steps until I am standing right in front of him.
“That’s for me,” I rasp, then I aim again—this time at his shoulder—and fire. His body jerks and he falls backward onto the floor. “That’s for . . . my husband.”
Ignoring my father’s weeping, I kick his gun toward the other side of the room.
“Bianca, give me the gun, baby.”
I look up at Mikhail and his outstretched arm, walk toward him, and put the gun in his free hand.
“Bianca, look at me, solnyshko.”
She raises her eyes to mine, and I see she’s crying.
“Can I kill him, baby?” I look over at Bruno who is panting on the floor. If Bianca wasn’t here, he would already be dead, but I won’t kill him in front of her unless she wants me to.
She shakes her head, then pulls off her T-shirt and squeezes it in a bundle. Standing there in only her bra and jeans, she presses it to my bleeding shoulder. My hand is still cuffed to the radiator pipe, and my shoulder is screaming in pain, but there is no way I’ll risk her going near that bastard to find the key. Instead, I wrap my free arm around her and hold her to my chest, making sure that the gun in my hand doesn’t touch her skin.
The door bangs into the wall and Denis rushes in, gun drawn, looking around.
“Eyes to the floor,” I bark. No one is seeing my wife half naked except for me, special circumstances be damned.
“The key to the cuffs.” I motion with my head toward Bruno. “Tie something around his leg and call Maxim to have someone pick him up and deliver him to the don.”
Denis finds the handcuffs keys in one of Bruno’s pockets and rushes to unlock the cuffs for me.
“We need to get you to the hospital, boss,” he whispers.
“No. Let’s go to Doc’s. I’m not going to a hospital with a gunshot wound unless it’s necessary. We’re taking your car.”
“Why it’s always my car when transporting vomiting or bleeding passengers?” Denis mumbles while he’s calling Maxim.
I place a finger under Bianca’s chin and raise her head. “Are you okay, dusha moya?”
She takes my hand and places it on the shirt she’s been pressing into my shoulder, cups my face with her hands, and kisses me.
“No. But I will be.” She signs and kisses me again.
“We need to set up some rules. When I tell you to run, you run, Bianca. Is that clear?”
“And leave you to be killed?”
“Yes.”
Bruno could have killed her. I didn’t think he’d do that, but I would never risk her life, even if there is a one percent possibility that she would end up hurt.
“I can’t promise you that. I’m sorry.”
“Bianca, baby, if you don’t promise me, I’m going to lock you in that apartment and put two men at the door. I am so angry with you for what you pulled out there. Please don’t test me on this.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, what? Okay, you promise you will do as I say?”