Page 105 of A Shot at Love
It was then Gemma noticed the gun in his hand pointing at Tiege. Ritandi’s finger hovered right over the trigger, cocked and ready. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“What is this?” The SAC yelled. “I brought this bitch to you, I got Pappandreos arrested. Calafano’s dead. I’ve done everything you asked. Everything.”
“Yeah, you have,” Ritandi said with a smile that never made it to his eyes.
“So? What more do you want?”
Ritandi shook his head and seemed to ponder the question. When he gazed at Tiege, Gemma felt her insides turn liquid. His brown eyes were the deadest she’d ever seen on a live person; cold, hard, and scary as all hell.
His lips pulled back revealing stained teeth as he grinned at Tiege. There was a sharp edge of madness cut into his expression.
“Nothing.” Ritandi pulled the trigger and shot Tiege straight between the eyes.
Tiege’s body flung back, falling in one, single flat line. An eerie silence followed the echo of the shot as it moved through the tree line.
“Get rid of him,” Ritandi told the two silent thugs. “I don’t care how.”
He trained his cold eyes on her while they dragged Tiege’s body into the woods.
“And now you.” He lifted the gun and pointed it at her face.
“I thought you wanted to kill me slowly,” Gemma taunted. “Make me suffer.”
Something shifted in his eyes at her words. He looked…gleeful.
She tampered down the bile pushing toward release. This man was truly the definition of evil.
A shot boomed from the direction the men had taken Tiege’s body. Ritandi raised his head to the sound, then cursed. He pulled Gemma up from her knees and yanked her against his body.
“Walk!” he commanded as he pulled her along with him toward the dock.
“What’s going on? Where are you taking me?”
She struggled against his hold. With her hands secured behind her back in the cuffs, she could do little more than wiggle and pull against him.
“Shut up and get moving.”
She stumbled and would have dropped to her knees again, but his grip was as secure and tight as Tiege’s had been.
“Stop! Federal agents!”
A bullet hit the ground close to them.
“Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” Winter’s voice called.
Two agents in tactical gear appeared at the bottom of the dock stairs, weapons aimed up at them.
“Shit!”
Ritandi pivoted, keeping Gemma up against him as a shield, her back plastered against his front, his arm secure around her neck.
Ky and Jon came around the side of the house, several agents, all armed, their weapons primed, with them.
“Let her go, Ritandi,” Ky commanded.
“Not a chance. She’s my ticket out of here.”
Ky shook his head. “It’s over. You can’t get out of here alive. I’ve got agents everywhere, surrounding you. Your men are in custody. It’s just you and all of us. Let her go.”
“I said not a chance.”
Gemma could feel the man’s heart jack-hammering against her back. His grip tightened around her, almost cutting off her air.
“I don’t want to shoot you, but I will if you don’t release her,” Ky said.
“No you won’t.”
Ky’s eyes shifted for a second to Gemma, then back to the mobster. “Yes, I will.”
The man laughed, actually, laughed, at Ky.
He was enjoying this.
Gemma changed her description of him from evil to insane.
She needed to get Ky’s attention on her again. She said his name. As soon as the word left her lips, two things happened.
Ky’s gaze shot over her face and Ritandi’s arm around her neck constricted even more. She couldn’t move her hands, couldn’t wind them under his to gain any slack in his increasingly tight hold.
With Ky looking straight at her, Gemma blinked and mouthed “Trust me” before closing her eyes and letting her body go slack.
The effect of her knees dropping, purposefully allowing them to relax, pitched her forward. Ritandi lost his hold as she slid down. When he tried to reposition her, he fired off a shot.
Gemma hit the ground, the sound of the gun’s explosion above her deafening, as Ritandi’s body fell backward. A hail of bullets from every direction sailed above her and the sickening thud of Ritandi’s now lifeless body hitting the ground next to her made her slam her eyes shut again.
