Page 37 of The Mafia Assassin’s Redemption (Mafia Obsession #2)

TWENTY-NINE

torin

Harry’s sobs hurt my soul as she screams and grabs the gun from my hand.

It happens in seconds, and the fear and anger I’m wrestling with turns back into protection mode.

She’s got a fucking death wish.

I grab at her arm, pulling her back and rolling over her, taking out my second gun from the waistband of my pants. “I’m alive, Dirty Harry. Are you okay?”

Choked sobs erupt from her mouth. I shove her down to the floor and hold her close while I peer around the sofa to aim at Shiv.

I don’t usually carry two guns, but something made me grab an extra today. Maybe the fact we might have been going into battle. And I’m sure fucking glad I did.

My heart’s pounding almost as loud as my blood, and a tremor threatens to race through me. Something that’s a death knell to a fucking assassin.

Not because it’s Shiv. I’m not sure how I feel about her, but it’s far from love or like.

Because Harry’s vulnerable .

Fucking Harry.

My reason for living, for breathing, and every other fucking thing.

Bad enough Shiv wanted to hurt Declan. That’s a bullet, right there.

But my Harry?

If I had my way, I’d torture her until she begged me to put a bullet between her eyes. And then I’d torture her some more.

I might be inclined to rip her heart out and then shred it in front of her as she died.

If she’d have just come to me and let me know…

But the thing is, I think Shiv’s always been a little crazy, a little unhinged. It’s what made her so exciting to the teenage version of me. I adored the razor’s edge life we flirted with and dipped into.

If she’d come to me after I’d mourned her, I’d have told her it was over. If she’d done it before… fair enough, I could see our relationship limping on for maybe another year, but we wouldn’t be together after that.

And playing the ‘if’ game gets a man nowhere. It also gets Siobhan a front-row seat into crazy land.

I put a free hand over Harry’s mouth, hovering over her as I look up. Then I risk a head dip when I hear nothing at all but breathing, like Shiv’s winded from her position. It tells me she hasn’t moved. “Are you okay?”

“Alive,” Harry whispers.

I let out a relieved breath. I know she’s alive, but her terse whisper of the word tells me so much more. I can speak Harry. And anger is good. It pumps her blood and keeps her alert.

Shiv… Fuck. Siobhan’s never been the stealth type. But she’s not to be underestimated. She’s smart, fast, and an excellent sh ot.

I’m better, but not when she’s so close to losing it and her target’s Harry.

I’ve never been so scared. I could have pulled that trigger and taken her out a hundred times. I didn’t because… what if I mistimed the shot? What if Harry did what Harry did and moved?

What if Shiv pulled that trigger first?

So for the first time since I remember with a gun in my hand, the intent was to not shoot until I had Harry out of the way. Until Harry was safe, and if Shiv got me first, then she’d have killed Harry.

Then it wouldn’t matter if my brothers stormed the place and killed Shiv. Harry would be gone.

Kill me. Never Harry.

And all the things I said, trying to be soothing, understanding, it still sticks to my skin. I’m not that. Not for Shiv. Not after she’s done all this damage, tried to hurt my brother, tried to kill Harry.

I should have seen it coming. Somehow.

Why the fuck was I waving a photo of her around and asking about Donal? Christ, if anyone could come back from the dead, it would be her.

Even fucking Anthony commented on the picture and how pretty the woman was. He wasn’t entirely with it, but hindsight shows what I missed. He meant Shiv and Joan were the same. He knew.

I listen. Something moves.

“Shiv?” I cock the gun, readying myself as I lift my hand from Harry.

“Stay,” I mouth at Harry who glares at me with all the hate she must be able to muster.

She mouths back, “Fuck you.”

And even in this waking horror, it makes me want to smile. It’s pure Harry, that essence that impressed me at ten and made me fall for her now.

Her floorboards are scuffed but cared for. And I’ve ripped her from her life twice now. Admittedly, the first time it was because that life was in literal flames, and this time, it’s because I saddled her with a hit to her name.

I stare down at the floor because it’s more calming than looking at Harry.

I can’t let the floor down.

I can’t get it killed.

The calmness still doesn’t completely come.

Just the conviction that Shiv’s never seeing the light of another day.

“Shiv?”

She doesn’t answer.

Another scrape. Movement. A sound of breath. Shit, maybe I did shoot her. Is she hurt?

“Shiv. It’s you and me. We’ll talk. Anything you want. Harry?—”

There’s a sob, and Harry’s sofa explodes with a shower of feathers.

And Harry makes a sound this time. I glare down. “Quiet,” I mouth.

I have to fucking glare because that tremor’s still there, waiting, and I’m still fucking terrified for Harry.

I focus on the floorboards, then look up. “We can talk.”

“You love her.”

I make myself stare at Harry’s stricken face, the fury at the edges. “I don’t do love.”

“She doesn’t deserve you,” Siobhan says, her voice gritty and raspy.

Shiv’s right about that. Then she lets out a small cry of pain. Fuck, maybe I shot her.

“I’m coming out. So get ready.”

I start moving to the side of the sofa, away from Harry, and this time I make noise. Another cushion explodes.

And then Harry, fucking Harry leaps up and points my gun at Siobhan, which makes me move fast, my gun on Shiv, too.

“Drop the gun, Shiv,” I say.

She grips her gun tighter and she’s bleeding from where I clipped her am. But Shiv can deal with a lot.

I have a decision. Blink of an eye fast. Move. To Harry. Away. I choose to draw Shiv’s attention away.

It’s a risky move. But anything is. So I bait it. I stare at Shiv and offer her the shit-eating grin I own, this time aimed at her, and she makes a low sound, following me with her gun and gaze.

“Careful now, Harry, you’re dealing with a silly, crazed creature. She hasn’t changed much.”

Shiv screams at me and shoots, narrowly missing. But I see the trajectory, moving myself just enough to not get shot. I want her confused. I want?—

“Try and shoot Torin again, and this time I’ll kill you for real,” Harry says.

My guts go tight like my chest and my throat. I can barely stop the tremor. Fuck.

“Don’t listen to her. Stay with me, Shiv, and maybe I’ll change my mind.”

She turns to me as Harry says, sounding horribly like me, “That’ll earn you a bullet.”

For some reason Siobhan doesn’t laugh like I think she will. Color drips from her face. “Kill me and I’ll haunt you. You won’t be able to bear it. Worse, he’ll stop loving you.”

“I think,” Harry says, “I’ll deal with your haunting. He haunted me for years and I survived. You’re nothing like that monster. ”

“And she doesn’t want my love, Shiv. She hates me.”

“You don’t love me.” Harry flicks a flare at me.

I flick one right back as I widen the gap between us even more. “And you don’t love me. You hate me?—”

Shiv suddenly moves, pulling her trigger. I’m so terrified she’ll go for Harry that as she pulls, I leap toward Harry and the bullet nearly hits.

But in that moment, time slows. Harry’s lined her shot up, pulled the trigger, and she hits Shiv.

It’s a good shot, only slightly off. I land almost on top of Harry, knocking her down, and as I go with her, I can see what Harry can’t.

She’s killed her. I grab Harry, pull her to her feet, and drag her to the door. I snatch Shiv’s gun and shove them all in the bag by the door. Harry yanks her door shut as I tug her down the stairs, calling the cleaners as I go. We pass her neighbors, and I tune them and the noise out.

When we hit the street, I start to look for Liam and the car, dreading what I’ll find, but I see him in a small crowd, an ice pack pressed to his head. I then spy Mikey. And beyond him, outside one of our SUVs, Callahan paces, smoking hard. He stops and looks up.

There’s relief and thunder, mixed into one expression.

I shove Harry into the back seat of the SUV, but Cal grabs me. “Took you long enough to clear the shot for Dec.”

I frown. I was distracted, but that distracted? I would have… seen… wouldn’t I? Shit. I try and play it back, but all I can see is Siobhan, a monster, and my girl, in danger of being eaten.

All I can see when I try to remember again is Harry pulling the trigger and having to walk with the weight of Shiv’s soul on her if I’d let her see the aftermath. But…

Christ. Harry is a distraction.

I shake my head. “He didn’t?—”

“He did. Seamus told him to make sure it was utterly clear or you’d jump in, and he should let you take the shot if you could.

But Harry pulled her trigger at the same time he did.

She missed, but he got her. She’s clean.

Harry’s clean.” Then Cal takes my face and pulls me in close. “You’re fucking trembling.”

My breaths come in labored pants, the waves of sick relief, the tsunami of horrible what-if scenarios thunder down and threaten to destroy me.

Never in my fucking life have I felt like this.

I look at Cal. “She could have died, Cal. Harry. My girl. She could have… Because of me. You need to save her.”

He isn’t listening. His face is grim and deadly.

“If she’d killed that mad, selfish bitch I never fucking liked in the first place, I’d let Harry wear that honor with pride, Tor.

But I’m glad it wasn’t her because you’d end up wearing it.

And I’m glad it wasn’t you because… same reasons.

Plus, now Dec’s feeling he’s made up for buying those weapons like a fucking moron. ”

“From Shiv.” I can’t stop shaking. I can’t get in enough air. “We’re gonna need to clean up the Irish here,” I say. “She’ll have people on us.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says. “How…?”

I know what he’s asking—how did Shiv survive the shit show in Dublin? “Long story.”

A mad one, but long.

But he says, “Not that. How do you feel?”

“Relieved Harry’s okay. Beyond that, not a damned thing. That bitch hurt Dec. Wanted to kill Harry. So, yeah. Not a fucking damned thing.”

I get in the SUV, and I reach for Harry, but she shrinks back and stares out the window, silent. All the way home.

At home, Harry stalks off. I go after her. My heart’s hurting, and it’s not for Shiv.

I get it. I should feel something… sadness, regret for the past, of choices made, what the fuck ever.

But I don’t.

I meant what I said and didn’t say to Cal.

“Harry?” I ask, handing her the bag with her computer in it.

She takes it and then collapses on the bed, a sob shuddering her shoulders. “I thought… I thought she’d killed you. Worse, I started to get… jealous, and she was crazy. Because she was, thinking you loved me.”

“She thought you loved me right back when we know you hate me.” Suddenly, I’m sick of this bullshit game we keep playing. I stalk over to the bed, pull the gun from the bag, and shove it into her hand.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Harry tries to let go, but I don’t let her.

“Giving you the gun.”

She points it at the ground. But her eyes blaze as she looks at me. “You bastard, you fucking… asshole. I thought you were dead.”

“You took off.” And she did. I cling to it, glad for the clean anger.

“I was going to the hospital.” Harry keeps the gun pointed down. “We cut short my other plans. I knew you hadn’t hurt Anthony. I spoke to him just after you left and was on my way when… I went home and… Joan—Siobhan was there.” Then she looks at the gun. “Maybe I should shoot you.”

“Again.”

She doesn’t smile.

“You’re free now, Harry. You should run. If I were you, I’d get as far away from here as I could.”

Reality slams into me, my heart plummeting, then soaring, and finally crashing again. And through my self-made smoke screen, I finally see her. What she really is.

Everything.

Heart. Love. Life.

Fuck me, I still have an actual heart. It’s not charred and black. And it can love.

I thought I’d loved Shiv. I think I carried her photo, not as a memory of a past love, because I hadn’t looked at it when I remembered it was there with anything but cold heaviness for years.

Cold heaviness because it stood as a memoir to my mistake. My error. Trying to save Shiv instead of people who could live, when really, I don’t think I could have saved anyone.

Except for the important one.

The innocent one.

Harry.

And now look at me.

This time my legs buckle, and I stagger.

Look the fuck at me. I’m in love with her.

I walk toward her and lift the gun, still in her hand, placing it against my heart.

“You’re not going to let me go, are you?” she asks, and I hear it wrong, like she’s pleading.

“No, I won’t. I’m too fucking selfish, too fucking obsessed,” I mutter. “Too weak.”

I’m fucking in love with her. Have been probably since I first saw her as an adult. Definitely when I killed that fuck Bernardo for touching her. I wanted to hate her back, too, but I could never, ever quite manage that.

Maybe I should add deluded to my list of sins .

But I won’t add love to it. I won’t. She doesn’t need that fucked-up burden.

“You really should run, like I said. Cal will help you. We both know you won’t ever forgive me.”

“No,” she says, crushing me, “you asked about that once, and I can’t forgive you. Not ever. So take your fucking gun.”

But I stop her from handing it back. “You should kill me, Harry. Shoot me the fuck dead because me dead is the only real long-term freedom you’ll have. Do it. Pull the trigger. I dare you.”