Page 76 of Bedazzled
“Cover me, you fekkin’ little-” Padraic O’Connell coughed up a gout of blood, trying to scream at his son to come back and save him.
“Maksim!” I shouted into the mic on my jacket, “Colm’s got Tania! Kill the old man. I’m going after her.”
“Wait-” I could barely hear him, “Yuri, wait for backup!”
I shot the reeling, staggering guard between me and the door they had disappeared through. There was no time.
Chapter Twenty-Four
In which Tania and Yuri discover how much of a manipulative asshole a sociopathic billionaire can be.
Tania…
“Drag your feet and I’ll fekkin’ shoot you right now!”
Colm was trying to yank me loose from my desperate grip on the doorway. O’Rourke had juststoodthere, smiling behind his impenetrable barrier of bodyguards while poor Byrne and I were dodging bullets. He’d just left us out there! Now this homicidal fuck was probably going to kill me as soon as my usefulness as a human shield was gone.
I’d seen Yuri. He was sprinting for the stage, eyes wide with horror. Did he know it was me? Did he recognize me, even in disguise? Oh, god he was distracted, they could shoot him oh god-
A red wave of pain slammed into my cheekbone as Colm hit me with his gun.
“Move, ya slag or I swear-”
“Drop the gun, O’Connell.” Yuri was there, blocking the way out with his gun trained on this prick who had me in a chokehold. “Take your hands off of her and I’ll let you live.”
“You’re full of shite, Morozov,” he shouted, “I shoulda cut your fekkin arm off when-”
Yuri was looking at me, his gun steady and aimed at O’Connell’s head. His eyes moved to the left briefly and he gave me a small nod. I dropped to my knees, falling to my left and away from the gun pressed to my head as I heard Yuri fire. I barely heard the thud through the ringing in my ears, I definitely felt the spray of something wet against my leg as I curled into a ball, shuddering. Gasping, I tried to suck more air into my lungs, but they weren’t working. There were dead bodies everywhere in that room and the stench of smoke and gunpowder and-
Thick arms wrapped around me, holding me tightly. “I have youmoye serdtse, my heart, shhh, you’re safe.” It took me a minute to realize it was Yuri. I wanted to be brave and tough. Instead, I started sobbing, wiping compulsively at O’Connell’s blood on my arm.
“I’m sorry, I know this is hard,” he soothed, “I need you to listen to me. Gavrill is here, he’s going to take you to a safe place while we finish this-”
“Don’t!” I clutched his shirt, “Don’t go. Please just stay with me, okay?” Through my ringing ears, I could hear the gunfire slowing down to sporadic bursts now, and I buried my face in his neck.
“I have to go back, I have to make sure everyone is safe. I will only be a moment. Can you be strong for me, myKoroleva?”He tried to soothe me as I nodded my head mindlessly. He handed me over to Gavrill, gently pulling my fingers loose. There were two other guards covering us and he glared at them. “Keep my wife safe,” he said. “Nothing else matters.”
I was sobbing too hard to say anything else, and Gavrill took off, carrying me tightly. “It’s okay, Miss Tania,” he said, “he’ll be okay. I'm going to get you out of here.” I closed my eyes to block everything out and then it all faded to black.
After that, even when I woke up there were just… flashes. A word here and there, a penlight shone in my eye, and my pulse taken. I was too tired to answer any questions.
Yuri…
The entire gunfight at the distillery took less than ten minutes. Ten minutes and a hundred O’Connell’s dead. Even for men hardened and used to death, this was overwhelming. Most of our men were silent, but oddly, the Toscano soldiers were chuckling, sharing smokes and flasks of something that smelled a lot like rubbing alcohol.
“Is there anything that shakes the confidence of thefamiglia?”I asked Giovanni, who was watching his troops with some amusement.
“We have seen worse,” he said cryptically.
We were in a warehouse provided by Thomas, who was still impeccable in his suit and snowy white shirt, and gazing at a handcuffed and bloody Padraic. He had his hands in his pockets, thoughtfully looking over the last O’Connell as he struggled against his bonds and screamed obscenities from his bloody mouth.
“Fekkin’ bastards, you’re all gonna die for this!” He spat out blood and Thomas casually angled his stance so that it landed on the floor with a nauseating splash. “I’ll have your families killed! Everyone from your sweet gran to the smallest baby, you-”
Thomas casually backhanded the old man, sending another spray of blood on to the wall. “You won’t live long enough to issue any orders, and anyone who would take them is dead in that distillery.” O’Connell howled in rage as Thomas walked away, chuckling.
Maksim put his hand on my shoulder. “Do you want to stay and finish him, or go to Tania?”
“What I want,” I said, teeth clenched, “is O’Rourke. I want him to tell me why he put my wife in the line of fire before I beat him to death.” All my fury and terror came back to me, the horror of realizing the redhead on stage was Tania and knowing he did this to her.
