Page 127 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet

This was the man who had taken murder charges instead of letting my sister go to prison.

He might not have loved me like Cosima, but we had a bond. He had promised to keep me safe.

He was the kind of man who would die before breaking his oath.

I knew in my bones he would come for me himself.

I listened over the harsh sound of the breath from my nose as the struggle continued upstairs. There was a crash of glass,pop-pops, and thuds overlaid by shouting in both English and Italian. It was impossible to tell who was beating who.

Then the door popped open at the top of the stairs only for a body to tumble backward, the man hitting each tread with a sickeningthunk.

I craned my neck to see if I recognized the body and nearly cried when I didn’t.

Kelly and another man were next, running down the stairs to sink into a crouch at the base of them, their guns trained at the top.

We waited.

Upstairs, the struggle went on, but no one seemed close to the stairs.

Then there was a long, low creak like wood peeling from plaster. Kelly and his man looked over to the wall with the one small boarded-up window.

“Fuck,” Kelly yelled as the plywood was torn off and the glass shattered.

The man beside him fell to the ground, a bullet hole through his face.

A scream tore through me, muffled by the tape as I watched the life drain from him, blood pooling heavily along the floor toward where I stood.

Kelly fired off a round at the window, then cursed as more gunfire came from the top of the stairs.

My father, the weasel, continued to hide quietly.

“I’ll warn you once,” a voice said from the top of the stairs. It was cold, low as fog rolling down the treads. “You touch another hair on her goddamn head, I’ll rip you apart with my bare hands and then hand-feed the pieces of you to the neighborhood dogs.”

A sob bubbled up my throat and caught there with nowhere to go.

Dante.

I closed my eyes, trying to breathe through the relief.

I needed to focus.

Seamus was still lying in wait, and Kelly was still vigilant.

“I’d like to see you try,” the Irishman called on a breathless, yip-like laugh. “You’re big, but I’m fast.”

Someone fired through the window again, drawing Kelly’s attention there. Dante took advantage by basically jumping down the short flight of stairs. His body angled through the air, hands extended.

Kelly tried to turn at the last moment to shoot him, but Dante was too close already.

They collided, the force throwing them both back into the wall.

There was a squeal of tires outside and then more yelling and shooting.

But my mind was fixed on the struggle.

Frankie came midway down the stairs, his guns trained on the tangled bodies, but he couldn’t get a clean shot, and he couldn’t get around them to me.

Finally, Dante went to one knee, one hand on Kelly’s throat, the other reared back to hit him.