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The second he steps out of the house, I run after him. I can’t shoot him again or I could risk killing him. But I don’t have to shoot him.
I run up behind him and smack my gun to the side of his head.
But he doesn’t go down.
Instead, he spins back around and punches me right in the fucking eye. Shit, that’s going to leave a bruise. I punch back and soon, we find ourselves in a fistfight. There’s something so intimate and personal about a fistfight. I love getting close enough to see the fear in the other person’s eyes as I hurt them.
Except, with this man, there is no fear in his eyes. Only glee. It’s a lot like me. I fucking hate him.
He lands a kick to my leg and it buckles, sending me towards the floor. He lands a good punch to the side of my head. Dizziness takes over.
“Stay down,” he says. “I have plans for you.”
I raise my gun. “I will shoot you. I don’t fucking care if you’re the only one who knows where Aria is. I will kill you.”
He raises his arms out wide. “Then shoot.”
If I shoot him in the stomach or chest, it’s for sure going to kill him. But I want this man to feel a little bit of pain so I aim my gun towards his shin and I fire.
The scream that leaves him as his leg buckles is so fucking satisfying. This fucker thought he could come into my home and steal my girl? No.
He limps away to his car and drives away. That’s fine. I want him alive so I can get answers.
But I know I can’t do this alone. I’m going to be need resources for finding Aria.
That means I need to go back to Viktor empty handed and ask for his help. Fuck me. This is the worst fucking day of my life.
Viktor’s guards let me up to the front door – sans gun of course – and Viktor motions me inside after he opens the front door. I haven’t stepped foot back into his house since he tried to kill me about a month ago, when our partnership ended.
“Well?” he asks. “Is Dante or Erik dead?”
“Not yet but I’m working on it.”
“Then why are you here?”
I sigh. “Aria has been kidnapped. By another hitman.”
Viktor blinks then… “What?!” His voice echoes through the cavernous entranceway. “You lost her? You fucking lost her.”
“And I need to get her back.”
“I told you to let her go but instead you fucking married her. It’s all everyone is talking about.”
“How did you find out? Only Dante, Matteo, and my brother were there when I married her.”
“Because I have contacts everywhere, Finn. One of them overheard Matteo talking about it. You married her? Are you insane?”
I tamp down my annoyance and focus on the issue at hand: finding Aria. “This is good. If we have her, we have control over Dante and you know it.”
“I don’t approve of torturing girls to get what I want. I would have found another way to hurt Dante that didn’t involvehurting Aria. And now you say she’s been kidnapped by someone else?”
“Yes. Some psychopathic fucker. I don’t know his name. I’ve never seen him before until he showed up at one of my houses today and tried to kill me.”
“Did you kill him?”
“I tried but I need him alive to find Aria. I don’t know where she is.”
“We need to get her back. If Dante finds out you lost her, he won’t hesitate to come attack either of us. The only thing that was keeping him at bay was the fact that you had Aria. He wouldn’t want to risk hurting her.”