Page 3 of Beautiful Sinner

Dante and I duck behind his car and fire back. He motions for the driver to take off. If Viktor’s men get their hands on those guns, we’ll be out millions of dollars.

And then Viktor will just have access to more machine guns he can use against us.

I manage to land a hit to one of the men, right between his eyes, killing him instantly. I feel no guilt in this moment. Not when I’m trying to save my life.

But if I’m asked to kill an innocent, I know I cannot.

Another grenade is thrown near the van and it explodes, tipping the van dangerously to the side. I watch in horror as the van falls over, making it impossible to get back up.

“Shit,” Dante mutters.

We keep firing at Viktor’s men but they keep getting closer and closer to the guns. The only good thing is that they’ll have to stop shooting at us to get their hands on those guns which will give us the opportunity to kill them.

I don’t even notice the man coming up behind us until Dante cries out and stumbles forward. His shoulder is bleeding.

I spin around and kill the man who shot him. I keep my gun and eyes trained for anyone else who thinks they can sneak up on us.

“I can’t use my arm,” Dante grunts.

“We need to get out of here. There are too many of them. We can’t fight them all.”

“But if we leave, then we lose all of those guns.”

“I know.” I grab Dante’s good arm. “But if we don’t leave, then we’re dead. That man could have shot you in the head.” I duck down as a bullet whizzes by my own head. “You could be dead right now. We have to leave. We have to.”

I can see the pain in Dante’s eyes, knowing we’ll be out so much money. But money is not worth our lives.

With a sigh, Dante nods at the car door. “Get in. You drive.”

I get in the front while Dante gets in the back. With one last pained look at the van and all of our guns inside, I drive away. In my rearview mirror, I see the driver get shot in the head by Viktor’s men. Poor guy. He didn’t deserve it. He was just doing his job.

Dante is quiet in the backseat. Normally, he’d be cussing Viktor out but the quietness coming from him is more eerie. There’s a numbness to him that tells me he’s tired of all the fighting. He’s trying to start a family with Nadia and doesn’t want this war with Viktor any longer.

There has to be a way to make peace with Viktor. It’s the only way to end this, since killing him is not an option.

We have to do something about this sooner or later before we all die.

“You want to do what?” Dante asks as his private doctor stitches up his shoulder.

“I want to talk to Viktor. See if there’s any way to end this war.”

“You’re going to get yourself killed.” He hisses. “Careful, Doc.”

Stevenson, Dante’s private doctor, mumbles his apology.

“What else can we do?” I ask, pacing around Stevenson’s homemade hospital room inside his nice brownstone. “We can’t keep this up, Dante. You know it. He will keep stealing from us and we will keep losing money. More of our men will die.”

“So we kill Viktor.”

“Who’s protected behind countless guards. He knows that we’re after him. He’ll never be alone again out in public. There is no killing him. We have to try and talk to him.”

“But he doesn’t like you,” Dante reminds me.

It’s all because I killed Sergei Belov. Him and Viktor were sort of friends and Viktor has never forgiven me for it. Truthfully, I think it’s more because of Viktor’s pride. He hates that an Italian managed to kill a high ranking Bratva member.

“I know. But who should we send instead? Finn? Viktor does not want to see Finn and he’ll only make it worse. Erik? Ok. But Viktor feels personally wronged by Erik.”

“Send Aiden,” he suggests, moving his arm around when the doctor finishes his work.