My eyes widen at the sight of the man bursting into the Skull & Serpent Society.
“D-Dad?” I mutter, shaking in my boots.
Oh boy.
Felix, Lana, and Jason turn to look at me like I know what’s going on.
“Wait, that’s your fucking dad?” Lana’s eyes almost bulge out of her skull.
Felix grabs me by the shoulder. “Did you call him here?”
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Three concise shots push us apart as Felix ducks for cover behind a pillar. All three shots are buried deep into the stone.
Fuck.
“Penelope! I’m coming for you,” my father growls, and he turns his head only briefly. “Engage.”
More men pour into the building.
“Fight back!” Dylan yells from down below.
And out of nowhere, the boys from the Skull & Serpent Society start attacking the men my father brought.
All the doors open up, and knives and weapons are thrown around the room.
“Stop!” I yell, but no one can hear me through the onslaught of guns going off one after the other.
“Penelope, answer me!” Felix roars as he chucks one of his knives at one of my father’s men, who’s charging Dylan with a machete.
But I’m too occupied trying to find my dad in the haze of blazing guns and smoke bombs going off.
Felix suddenly grabs both my arms and shakes me. “Tell me!”
“No. I just told him I knew who caused my sister’s death. And I gave him a name …” My eyes widen, and I gasp out loud. “Caruso.”
Felix’s eyes immediately flick down to where most of the fighting is happening. Alistair and Dylan are both fighting off my father’s guards, punching and cutting their way through people like their life depends on it. But most of the men only seem focused on one thing.
“Dylan,” we both mutter in sync.
I run down the steps of the stairs, but Felix just jumps over the railing, his boots sidestepping the stone pillar for a safer landing. And as I come down the last step of the stairs, he rams his knife into one of my father’s guards.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!
I have to do something.
BANG!
I duck for cover behind the pillar. A gunshot misses me by just an inch, but my hair is still singed.
When I take a peek at who shot, I notice more people coming in through a side entrance. But they’re not sporting the same type of gun my father’s people have.
What’s going on?
More shots are audible, and Alistair passes right by me, hiding behind the same pillar I was just behind. “Penelope. You gotta run.”
I shake my head. “It’s my father.”
His eyes widen. “What? Did you contact him?”
“I sent him a text, but I didn’t know he’d come for me.”
BANG!
The shot is so loud it makes my whole body shake.
“Then tell him to stop!” Alistair barks.
“I can’t fucking see him!” I retort.
Frustrated, he takes a peek behind the pillar, only to be shot at. “I can’t see a damn thing either. Too much smoke.”
“There’s people coming in from the right side entrance too,” I say, pointing him in the right direction.
“Fuck, Dylan’s close,” Alistair says. “I gotta go help him.”
Alistair runs off before I can say another word.
Dylan
I hold up my lighter, and all those fuckers think I’m waving it around to scare her father’s men away, and they all snort at me. But with a smirk on my face, I fish a canister of deodorant from my pocket. “Say hello to my little friend!”
And while laughing like a complete and utter maniac, I light the bitch on fire, setting the entire hall as well as the people who were pouring in ablaze.
“Whooo! Now that’s what we call a barbecue!”
Some men are on fire and run off screeching like chickens. Serves them right for trying to break into our fucking society.
I turn to look across the hallway. There are bullet holes littered throughout the walls and floors, and men are wrestling and knifing each other everywhere. Felix and Penelope are across the hall, fighting men who pour in from the front entrance. Penelope’s staring at the canister in my hand.
“Did you see?” I scream enthusiastically.
Her eyes are wide open, but she still nods. Her dropped jaw followed by an impressed smile fills me with pride. She turns around and stabs a guy in the guts.
I’d burn down the world to see that smile. That lust to fight.
Fuck.
And here I was, thinking that deal we made would just be temporary.
Fleshly.
But Alistair isn’t the only one who’s fallen.
And I doubt I will be the last.
Something itches near my leg, and my eyes veer down. A snake slithers between and up my calves.
“Nessie,” I mutter, and I grab her. “What are you doing here?”
I completely forgot her cage broke from the bombs going off.
She hisses at me.
Goddammit, what do I do with her?
I can’t let her get crushed by rubble or shot by those fuckers.
I swiftly tuck her into my pocket.
But the moment I turn around, everything suddenly goes black.
Penelope
Minutes ago
Right in front of me, Felix slices through a guy’s throat and slams him down onto the floor before attacking another guard.
If I don’t stop this, they’re going to kill everyone.
“Dad!” I scream.
“Penelope!” he calls for me. “Come to me!”
“I can’t!” I yell back. “Call off your men!”
“We’re here to save you!” he replies.
I don’t know what to do. It’s too dangerous to cross the floor. Gunshots fly from every direction, and the people in the side entrance … I don’t recognize any of them.
What the fuck is going on?
Alistair shoves his knife into someone’s chest up ahead and throws him to the floor, blood pooling at his feet. But he doesn’t stop as he immediately jumps on some dude’s back who was about to attack Felix. Felix turns around and slices through his belly like it comes easy to him.
I swallow back the panic and focus on the rain of fire coming from the front door. He has to be there somewhere in the smoke.
“Dad!” I yell across the room.
But the noises of an all-out war between Mafia families drown out my voice.
I don’t want them to fight.
Even though these boys have caused me trouble, someone far worse is out there.
Suddenly, a guy from the right-side entrance who doesn’t look anything like a guy my father would hire aims his gun right at my face before I even have the chance to pull out my knife.
From the stairs, Felix jumps down right on top of him, elbowing him in the head and crushing his skull. He gets up and turns to me, breathing wildly, his whole body covered in blood.
“Are you okay?”
I nod, but I don’t know if I really am.
A guy with a machete charges at him from behind.
My eyes widen, and instinct takes over as I jump at Felix and ram my knife straight into the guy’s guts.
He groans, and blood spills from his mouth before I pull out again. The guy falls down in front of us, dead.
Felix’s strong arms are on my waist and arm as he glances at the man. “That would’ve killed me.”
I wipe my knife on my pants and tuck it back into my pocket. “I guess we both owe each other a life now.”
As I’m about to walk off, he grabs my arm, forcing me to stay put. The look in his eyes is feral. And he leans in, whispering, “I’ll protect you with mine.”
He presses a kiss right underneath my ear.
I’m too stunned to even respond.
His lips leave a scorching hot mark on my skin.
He marches off, pulling more knives out of his belt before continuing his hunt.
I’m left in a daze, utterly confused and enamored by how hard he fights for me.
Until I see Dylan getting pummeled in the back of the head by a gun while he had his back toward the side entrance.
“Dylan!” Alistair’s voice rips through the hallways as he fights off two other guys, unable to assist.
I jump over a dead body and rush to his side, but they drag Dylan’s body away through the side entrance.
And a bunch of guys with heavy guns blocks the way.
Fuck.
