Page 68 of Beautiful Sinner

“I only wanted to attack Connor. I never wanted to attack your wedding. It was all Dante’s idea. I couldn’t stop him. I made sure he wouldn’t kill you.”

“How dare you talk to my sister like this,” Viktor growls, holding me close to him. “Like you know her. You don’t know her.”

My brain is telling me to go with Viktor. He will be heartbroken if I leave and he’ll want to kill Matteo even more.

But my heart is telling me to go with Matteo. I want the chance to be with him and this might be the only chance I get.

“Julia,” Matteo says. “We can go now.”

I hear gunshots coming from inside the church. “Are they killing everyone?”

“No. Not the women. I made sure of it.”

“Julia,” Viktor snaps, grabbing my arm. “Let’s go. Now.” He starts to tug me away and all I can see is my chance with Matteo growing smaller and smaller.

That’s when Connor comes running around the side of the church, bleeding. He skids to a stop when he sees us. Dante is running after Connor and doesn’t hesitate to start shooting at him.

Shooting at us.

Connor dives to the side while Viktor wraps his arms around Inessa.

That’s when Matteo reaches me. “I can get you to safety. Come on.”

I want to believe him more than anything but this will only cause my brother to go on a vengeance. Unless Dante kills Viktor right now.

But Matteo isn’t giving me the choice. He throws me over his shoulder and runs in the opposite direction of all the shooting.

“Julia!” Viktor cries out.

“Matteo, let me go.” I pound on his back.

“I can’t. I’m sorry. I’m doing this for you. For us.” He keeps running and my family keeps getting smaller and smaller.

Viktor turns to Dante and starts shooting at him, landing a solid hit to his shoulder and sending him stumbling back. Connor flips onto his back and joins Viktor in shooting at Dante.

Dante turns and runs back into the church.

Viktor immediately runs in my direction but Matteo gets me into a car and before I can get out, starts driving away until Viktor completely disappears from my view.

It’s quiet between us for a long time as we each catch our breath.

The confusion and rage and happiness all rolls around inside of me.

I turn to Matteo and slap his arm. “What was all of that?”

“Why are you hitting me?”

“Because I’m angry! My brother could have died and you were the one who told Dante about my wedding. I told you that in confidence.”

“What was I supposed to do? Stand back and let you marry that asshole? It was a good idea to go in there and kill Connor. We knew exactly where he’d be.”

“But it also put my entire family in danger! It put me in danger.”

“I know.” He grips the steering wheel tight. “And it’s not something I wanted to happen. I told Dante that we should just kill Connor but he wanted the chance to kill Viktor too. I couldn’t stop him. Trust me, I tried. I had to tell Dante about us. About how I feel for you. It’s the only reason you’re not dead right now. He was ready to kill you if you got in the way.”

“But you didn’t want me dead?”

“Of course not! Fuck, Julia. You mean everything to me. Of course I didn’t want you to die. Everything just got out of hand, trust me. If we could have attacked Connor someplace youweren’t going to be, that would have been perfect. But this is just how things turned out.”