Page 88 of By Blade, I Love
“And why is my life more important than yours?”
“Because it is!”
She flinched slightly when I yelled at her—and I never yelled at her.
Our reunion should be a beautiful one, but we were thrown into another critical situation, so we had no time to savor the joy.
Leo must have been eavesdropping on our conversation because he came over with a tentative stance. “I’ll keep an eye on her. I’ve known my sister for a long time, and I know when she’s not going to change her mind.”
I didn’t appreciate his taking her side and ganging up on me, but I did appreciate the way he supported her.
“You know I wouldn’t let anything happen to her.”
I had a smartass comment to make, but I chose not to make it. It would be easy to throw the past in his face when the past was so recent it nearly felt like the present, but that was combative and unproductive. “You go with Don Russo through the garden while I hit them from the front with the others.”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
I turned to Leo. “Let anything happen to her, and I’ll skin you alive. You want that responsibility?”
He nodded. “None of us would let anything happen to her.”
I didn’t like this. I didn’t like my wife being separated from me during a fight, but it would be stupid to have her with me when I crashed the gate and came at everyone head on. My intention was to draw Icarus straight to me while Don Russo secured thehouse from the rear and got his family out. Francesca was safer with them.
I shifted my gaze back to Francesca.
Leo took the hint and walked off.
“Are you sure about this?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “Nobody—and I mean nobody—touches my man and gets away with it.”
I drove with Santino in the passenger seat, other guys in the rear. I was driving an SUV with damaged windows, while Francesca and Leo went with Don Russo and the others. For the whole drive, all I did was worry about her.
The drive was spent in silence, all of us thinking about what we were preparing to overcome. I wanted to kill Icarus to honor my debt to Don Russo, but in truth, I just needed him dead. He was smarter than I gave him credit for, realizing he hid his intelligence behind his psychopathic demeanor. He pretended to be unpredictable and unhinged, but he was playing the long game before anyone else knew the match had even started.
I respected him—but I still wanted him dead.
Santino lifted his phone toward his face to read a message. “Don Russo is in position. They accessed the passage.”
“Alright, then we move in.” There was an underground passage that led from the garden, under the road and partially through the sewer system, to a basement that connected to a restaurant a couple blocks away. All they had to do was use that passage toreach the garden, and with everyone focused on us, they should be able to do a lot of damage.
Santino’s vest wasn’t strapped tight, so he fastened it into place before he made sure his handgun was loaded. Everyone else in the car did the same, and a line of cars was behind me as we approached headquarters in the center of Palermo.
Icarus would know we were coming from a mile away.
I turned the corner and came onto the street where headquarters were located. I spotted the limestone that surrounded the property in the distance, and the closer we came, the more I could see the armed men blatantly standing on the sidewalk even though it was only nine in the evening. It was dark, and no tourists were on the road, probably because of the gunmen stationed there who obviously weren’t police.
“Ready, boys?” I asked.
“Ready,” Santino said. “Not gonna let this asshole take our home and the boss’s family.”
I floored it, and the second I was within distance, they lit us up with bullets. All of our automobiles were bulletproof, though after so many rounds, the integrity of the vehicle would become compromised and vulnerable, but we still had time.
They shot our tires and the engine, whatever they could do to slow us down.
I approached the gate and expected it to be closed, but it was bashed in from Icarus’s initial conquest. I drove onto the paved roundabout, and more bullets struck the car. I kept the car moving as we were sprayed with gunfire. Drove right up thesteps and ran over an asshole so we could get close to the front door. “Go.”
Santino hopped out first and used the car for cover to shoot at the guys near the front. I came in after and took my position by the hood, using the scope of my gun to pick off the guys near the gate to cover my men as they came in behind me.
