Page 76 of The Mafia Enforcer's Temptation

My heart pounds so hard, my ribs ache with each thump. Eyes wild, I look around the dimly lit place, trying to find the shooter.

But I can’t see anyone. It’s too dark, too impossible to find anyone in the ominous shadows.

A slight movement near Seamus’s left side catches my eye, and I aim, pulling the trigger. The shot goes wide. The gun’s more of a hand cannon than a reliable weapon, and the kickback hits my shoulder hard. The shadow shoots at me and I drop down before crawling to Seamus.

“Fuck.” He grabs me, pulling me behind the broken, upturned tables that the dead man used to keep his gear.

And there’s a lot here. Jars and bottles, wires, all kinds of explosives. I stare at it all, shock bleeding into realization.

I know who the dead man is. I know the setup.

Seamus has dragged me into a literal death trap.

I need to get out. I need him to get out. I fumble with the gun as I paw at him, but he snatches the weapon from me, flips me to the ground, and pins me down. “Let me?—”

“Shut up.”

I choke on my next breath and whip my head around. My blood ices in my veins when my eyes slam into the sightless, vacant stare of Anton, someone I vaguely know.

Or rather knew.

I glance at Seamus, who’s checking the clip in his gun before slamming it back into place. “How many?”

“How many what?” I struggle to sit up, but he pushes a knee into my stomach to keep me down on the floor. I can hear some New York traffic outside, but it seems a world away. And there are a whole lot of things close by that can kill us. I’m not even counting whoever it is with a gun. “There’s someone else here. Someones, maybe. Seamus?—”

“How many friends, Ava?”

My jaw drops. “They’re not my anything.”

His gaze flickers to me and he lifts an eyebrow. I look away, eyes falling on the case of money.

“Don’t even think about it,” he mutters, then adds, “Fine, don’t tell me.”

Fury beats hard inside. I don’t know whoever it is, whoever they are. I followed Seamus from my apartment. I used the alarm code I memorized to escape the brownstone, and then I went to my place because I just had a feeling. Turns out my instincts were right.

I gulp down another breath.

Footsteps run light across the floor, like very big rats, and the weird, empty echo makes it hard to identify which direction they’re coming from. We’re sitting ducks. Protected on three sides and in our own funeral pyre.

“I swear I don’t know who’s here,” I whisper. “I met Anton once, but?—”

“With your Paddy?”

The fury burns hotter. “He wasn’t my anything!” What am I saying? “This isn’t the time. I?—”

“Shot him.”

“No, you fool,” I say right as he moves to squeeze off a shot. Someone screams and a barrage of shots are aimed back at us.

Seamus dives on top of me. “You shot at me.”

“They shot at you.” I try to keep my mind on the situation and not him on me; all that heat and hard male flesh, the scent of him taking over the smell of death, and I want to cling, bury my face. I don’t do a thing. “Do you see where we are?”

He glances to the left and right. “Well, sweet thing, I can definitely see we’re fucking stuck in some shithole building.”

“You don’t need to be sarcastic,” I snarl.

He shoves his face right near mine. “Oh yes, I do, because otherwise I might kill you.” He starts digging through Anton’s things. “But we’re gonna talk, right after we get out of here.”