Gunfire fills the church, and before I realize I’m doing it, I shove Snow behind one of the large speakers at the front of the altar and use my own body to shield her.
I knew this was a bad idea. I knew nothing good could come from using our wedding to bait whoever is fucking with us, and yet I allowed her to continually reassure me.
“Stay right here. Do not fucking move until myself or one of your brothers tells you to.”
Snow nods frantically. Her hand slips up the skirt of her dress and reveals a gun. Where the fuck did she get that from? “I’ll be okay,” she promises.
I watch her for another moment, but a loud explosion to the left of the building pulls my attention away from my bride. One of the exits has been destroyed, and guests are panicked as they try to escape the chaos.
“Elijah!” Storm shouts from behind one of the other speakers, and I quickly make my way to him. Stray bullets fly around me, but I don’t have time to try to dodge them right now. I have to get my wife the fuck out of here and figure out who the hell is doing this to us.
“Where are Wynter and Emerson?” I ask quickly, my eyes locking on two men in full combat gear as they push through the crowd. Without so much as a thought, I aim at the first one and fire, hitting him in the throat, the only bit of skin not covered with gear. Quickly, I move my aim to the other one and fire. The moment the bullet penetrates through his forehead, he drops to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
“Rayne took them out the back. You should get Snow out as well.”
I glance at the back exit and then at Snow across from me. Her dress is still immaculate despite the rubble around us. She’s been far enough away from the explosions and gunfire that she hasn’t been tainted by it yet. “I have a bad feeling.”
“What do you mean you have a bad feeling?” Storm snaps. “Get my sister the fuck out of here.”
“Not through that door.”
Almost as if my words summoned them, the door swings open and three men in the same gear as the rest of the attackers walk through with guns drawn.
Snow’s face pales as their sights set on her, and dread seeps into my chest.
“Where the fuck are our guys?” I shout.
“I don’t fucking know. We’re outnumbered by a long shot!” Panic isn’t something I ever expected to hear in Storm’s voice, and I expect if we make it out of this church alive, I likely won’t hear it again. “Where the hell is Everett?”
I glance over the speaker, scanning the church until my eyes lock on my cousin above the crowd in the upstairs pews, a rifle trained on the men approaching Snow.
Storm follows my gaze and I swear he lets out a relieved breath. “We need to get her out of here.”
“All the exits are covered, and I’m not risking walking her into a gunfight.”
“As opposed to sitting in the middle of one?”
I glare at him, but my focus is back on my wife. I have to get to her, but bullets are flying everywhere and there’s no way I’ll make it back without being shot.
“Grab the girl, and let’s get out of here.” One of the men nods toward Snow and her eyes widen.
Panic assaults my senses as she lifts the gun to point at one of them. Her hands are steady and sure despite the fear in her eyes.
The men look at one another, their faces covered with balaclavas, and then they start laughing. As if the idea of Snow being the one who shoots them is preposterous. Her eyes narrow on one of them, she takes in a deep breath, and then she pops off three shots in succession and they drop like flies.
Storm lets out a shocked breath as pride fills my chest. My little warrior.
“Get her out of here, Elijah.”
I look up to where Everett is picking off the men who come into his range. I need to draw his attention to cover me while I get to Snow, but he’s too focused on taking out the enemy.
“Elijah, don’t,” Snow shouts from the other side of the altar, her eyes wild with fear and adrenaline. If it was any other time, I would be finding somewhere to bend her over and fuck her until she couldn’t breathe, but sex should be the last thing on my mind right now. All that matters is getting her out of this building.
Everett finally looks down at me just as I push myself off the speaker and leap toward Snow, and he immediately starts picking off the men aiming at the stage. There are so many of them, easily four dozen, maybe more. Who the fuck has this much firepower behind them? As far as I know, the Russo and Saint James families have been running this city for the last twenty years without so much as a whisper of challenge, so where the hell has this new enemy come from?
Pain radiates through my side as I hit the ground, and by the terror in Snow’s eyes as she scrambles toward me, I know I’ve been hit.
“Stay where you are,” I growl and point my gun toward the pews, scanning for the motherfucker who shot me.
“I’m not leaving you,” Snow snaps, crawling across the altar in her ridiculously large dress. I should have insisted on the bodice being made from bulletproof material, but when I suggested that and had Snow and the dress designer stare at me like I’d lost my damn mind, I backed down.
“Snow, if you don’t get back behind that speaker right this minute, I’m going to spank you every night for the next year.”
“You can only follow through with that threat if you don’t bleed out first.” She wraps her arms around my upper body, the contact immediately settling the part of me that runs rampant when she’s outside of my grasp. But it’s no time to feel settled, not when she’s in danger, and certainly not when it seems she’s the one they’ve come for.
“There she is!” a voice to our left yells, and we both turn to see five men surrounding us.
My eyes dart to Everett, except he’s not in the top pews anymore. He’s not anywhere. I turn my attention to the other speaker I left Storm behind to see two men holding him down, his face pressed into the rough carpet of the altar.
We’re surrounded.
We’re surrounded, and there’s no escape.
I put my woman in danger. I allowed our wedding to be a trap. And because of that choice, we’re going to lose everything. And worse than that, I’m going to lose Snow. That’s a far worse punishment than death. A life without her, without my Snowflake, it’s not a life at all.
I can’t let that happen.
A burst of adrenaline shoots through my body, and I burst to life. I train my gun on one of the men and shoot him right between the eyes before moving to the guy beside him. But the others don’t slow their advance. If anything, they close in on us quicker.
“Elijah,” Snow whimpers, her body trembling.
“It’s okay, Snow. I won’t let them take you. I’ll never let anyone take you away from me.” I’m not sure which one of us I’m trying to assure of that, but neither of us appear any less tense after the words leave my mouth.
“Just give her up, Russo. Give her to us and we’ll leave,” one of the men reasons.
My entire body screams at me, but I force myself to my feet, all but forgetting that I’ve just been shot. “You’ll take her over my dead body,” I growl, stepping in front of her to shield her from them.
“That can be arranged.”
A gunshot fills the church, so loud and so close I could have sworn it was from one of the men standing before me, but they seem just as surprised by the sound as I am. Our heads whip to the side collectively, looking for the source, and when I find a lone gunman in the middle of the pews, the gun trained behind me, my stomach drops. Before I can turn around, Snow falls to the ground, red staining her white gown.
Fear and agony morph together across Snow’s face and a bloodcurdling scream claws up her throat. The sound sets something off inside me, something primal bites at the edges, the monster I hide from the world tearing through to the surface.
Burning red clouds my vision, rage beating through my veins with every beat of my heart, and then, as if my body has a mind of its own, I draw my gun and take aim at one of the men approaching Snow. I fire shot after shot at each of the men and revel in the sight of them falling to the ground until there are none left standing over my woman.
“Elijah,” Snow cries, her focus behind me where Storms surrounded.
“All you have to do is let us take the girl and you can get back to your lives. Isn’t that what you want?” one of the men asks, his pistol pointed at Storm’s head.
His eyes flare with anger as he shakes his head ever so slightly as if I would ever consider giving my wife over to whoever these assholes work for.
“How about this,” I muse, barely forcing the growl back from my throat. “You tell me who the fuck you work for, and maybe I’ll let you walk out of here alive.”
The man who spoke before laughs, and my finger tightens on the trigger, even if I can’t put a bullet in his head yet. There are three of them on Storm, one on his back pressing him into the carpet. Another has a gun pointed at his head. And the other, the one I’m itching to wipe off the face of the earth, he’s standing between us. “We’re not some tiny bug you can wipe from the city. You have no idea of our reach. And you can make us go away by giving us your little whore. Seems like an easy choice to me.”
An inhuman growl forces its way from my throat and I barely catch myself from throwing myself forward and tearing him apart with my bare hands. How dare he speak of my woman like that. “You will not be taking her from this church, and I will destroy anyone that tries.” The words come out strained, the anger bubbling in my veins is barely contained. I thought I’d felt anger before. I thought I’d felt rage. But none of those moments compares to the emotions slamming into me with each second that passes.
My woman is bleeding behind me, but I can’t get to her without taking my eyes off the threat. Every single fiber of my being screams at me to go to her, to throw my gun down and get her the fuck out of here. But we wouldn’t make it. There’s no chance there aren’t more of their men at every exit. If we’re going to get out of here, we need to play it smart, and that means going against every instinct I have and allowing my woman to bleed without me.
I glance out at the pews, thankful when I see there are no other gunmen in sight, and it seems as if all the guests have escaped or been killed. I should care that people have died, our guests at that. But all I care about is getting Snow out of here safely, and any collateral damage along the way is worth it.
“Then you’ll all die.” He shrugs.
A loud explosion fills the space, and the ground shakes beneath our feet. Dust surrounds us, almost pulling my attention away from the men threatening my now brother-in-law. The men surrounding Storm look up for just long enough for me to take aim at the guy with the gun pointed at his head, and shoot, the bullet hitting him in the side of the head. Blood spurts from his wound, but I can’t take the time to enjoy the bloodshed like I normally would.
I quickly aim at the man on Storm’s back and unload a bullet in his head and then finally take aim at the leader before he can even register what has happened. He made a mistake when he underestimated us. They should have expected us to fight with everything we have. But then I suppose from the outside looking in, this looks like an arranged marriage. After all, they are common in the Mafia world, often used to seal alliances.
But that was their fatal mistake.
The moment he falls to the ground, I drop my gun and drop to my knees beside Snow, immediately pulling her into my lap. “I’m so sorry, baby,” I whisper.
“It’s not your fault.” She winces.
My eyes trail down her body until they lock on the red spot that seems to get bigger by the second and a fresh wave of panic hits me, knocking the air right from my lungs. How much blood has she lost?
“It looks worse than it is,” Snow hisses out.
I glare at her. “Don’t lie to me, Snowflake. You know I can see right through it.” Her weight settles in my lap, and even though I need to get her the hell out of here, I’m not sure I should move her.
Her eyes flutter closed, her breathing shallow and harsh. “Elijah,” she whimpers.
“It’s okay, baby. Just stay with me, okay? I’m going to get you out of here and get you some help as soon as I can, but I need you to hold on just a little longer. Can you do that for me?”
Snow nods, but the muscles in her neck barely hold the weight of her head. She’s fading fast.
“How is she?” Storm asks, crouching down in front of us.
“We have to get her out of here.”
Storm glances down at his phone and frowns. “I’m waiting on confirmation that we’re not walking into a fucking war zone when we get out there.”
“Make it happen,” I snap, brushing Snow’s blonde curls from her cheeks and cupping her face in my hand. “Just hold on for me, Snowflake. I waited too long to get you, I can’t lose you when you’re finally mine.” My voice cracks, but I don’t give a fuck if these people know Snow is my weakness.
“It hurts.” Tears roll down her cheeks, and each one that falls has another crack forming in my heart. The organ I thought was dead for so long, beats for the woman bleeding in my arms. Without her, there is no sense in living, because the sun can’t rise and fall without the moon.
“I know it does, Snowflake,” I whisper, holding her tight against my body. “Just hold on for me.”
The front doors of the church burst open and I’m in motion before I even realize I’m doing it. I move my back to the threat, holding Snow tightly against me to make sure she won’t bear the brunt of an attack.
“It’s Rayne. Let’s get her out of here,” Storm says, his eyes watching us curiously, as if he’s seeing us together for the first time. Up until now, he believed I was only with Snow as a bargaining chip, but now he sees it. Now he sees that my feelings for his sister transcend infatuation.
