Page 170 of I Will Revel in Glory (Death by Daybreak MC 3)
I turn back to the scene below me.
Grey is watching his father’s back like he’s preparing to put a knife through it. Actually, I think that’s exactly what he intends to do. He’s got one held in his hand, tightening his fingers on the hilt just before Alvise turns back to him.
Their eyes meet, and I can see in that moment that neither of them trusts the other.
Maybe Alvise hasn’t trusted Grey for a long time—just like Cat didn’t trust Gaz.
Without warning, Alvise lifts his gun up and then pistol-whips Grey in the face, hitting him directly in the right eye. Blood splatters and Grey lets out this sharp, surprised sound. I imagine that if Alvise wasn’t concerned about being heard or seen by the other people in the barn with him, he’d have just shot his son.
Instead, he hits Grey again, causing him to drop the knife in his grip. Again. Again.
Even though I know I shouldn’t do it, I can’t stand here and watch this.
I lift the Magnum with the intention of firing a single shot into Alvise’s hideous face when he turns his attention up to me, as if he knew I was there all along. He darts around the tarp-covered stack of crates on his right, disappearing from my view.
My eyes flick over to Grey but just for a minute, just to see if he’s still alive. There’s a huge pool of blood widening around his head, and he isn’t moving. Fear threatens to seize my muscles and paralyze me, but I push through it.
“Sin,” I hiss, drawing his attention back over to me. He makes his way across the loft as I slide down the ladder, ignoring the pain in my left palm as it skims down the old wood. Splinters are nothing right now; I care only about speed and quiet.
I don’t kneel down next to Grey or check to see if he’s still alive; there’s no time for that.
Sin moves up behind me, watching my six as I check around the side of the crate stack, looking for Alvise. I can’t quite shake the idea that maybe we really could end this today, cut the head off the enemy hydra so to speak. Maybe not literally this time, but still.
I continue around the crates, putting myself between the front wall of the barn and the stack. It’s not nearly as defensible a position with the entrance to our right. The smell of smoke has intensified to an almost unlivable level. I can barely fucking breathe.
The urge to cough is strong, but I choke the feeling back, glancing over at Sin.
He catches my meaning without my needing to say anything aloud and we swing back around the stack, pausing beside Grey’s comatose form. Shots are still being fired between the two sides, bullets whizzing along the length of the barn and pinging off rusted metal, burying themselves into old, decaying posts, or spearing through flesh and blood and bone.
I try not to focus on that part of the equation; I need to find Alvise. He can’t have gone far.
Sin encourages me to move away from the crates and beneath the platform of the hayloft. There are old, moldering stacks of hay bales here to provide cover, but not much protection. If someone decides to shoot blindly at these, they won’t do much to stop a bullet.
We continue on, moving along the length of the wall until I see Beast up ahead, crouched behind a massive tractor tire. He’s spotted us already, of course, but there’s a wide-open space between us and him that isn’t worth crossing just now.
The sound of splintering wood draw’s Sin’s attention around quickly. Someone’s just kicked their way through a rotten board on the wall behind us, and a man is stepping through. Sin takes a shot at him before I get the chance to, but even with the silencer on his weapon, there’s still plenty of noise to draw attention.
The man he hits gurgles loudly and stumbles back, cracking another board as he grasps desperately at it before collapsing. Hell breaks loose then. A series of shots are fired our way and, as I predicted, the rotting hay bales do little in the way of offering protection.
Sin shoves me down and I stumble, hitting the ground hard but flat. He crouches, too, his attention lifting as a man appears around the edge of the hay bale stack. They’re far too close together for either of them to take a proper shot, so Sin throws himself at the man’s legs, knocking him down instead. He brings his weapon up so quickly that it becomes a blur, firing into the man’s chest twice.
That’s the last thing I see before this horrible creaking sound comes from above. I curse as a hot spark falls and burns straight through the leather of my pants, searing my calf as I let out a hiss of pain. When I look up, it’s like staring into a nightmare.
