Page 106 of The Pawn

I stay low and I watch from below the couch, my heart pounding against my chest, my arm throbbing with the pain of the bullet. I watch his footsteps near and reach for the weapon with my bad arm, pushing through the pain because if I don’t, I’m dead. If I die, she will die too.

I reach it just as he is one more step from the couch and I fire low.

He’s knocked off his feet, dropping to the floor. His face comes into view at the same time as his gun. But I’m ready for him and I shoot my bullet through his eyes which don’t close. They remain as they are, open, soulless in life, soulless in death. I push up to take in the other two soldiers. One calls out to his dead buddy. As soon as he turns, I shoot a bullet into his face sending the back of his head crashing against the window, splattering his brains across the wall. I get to my feet, do the same with the other soldier.

Battle rages outside of the house. No more soldiers in here, though. No one left.

My arm throbs. The bullet is lodged inside. I feel it. But it’s not a killing shot. I look at the stairs. She’s up there. She’s up there with Malek or Enzo or both and there’s only one way up, so I take it. I keep close to the wall, trying to see what’s ahead, what I’m walking into. I see a body, one ofmy men. I recognize his face. More bodies. These I don’t know. One more step and I should see her. I should see her.

My heart races. I ready my weapon and prepare for what I might find. Allegra was a target up there. Easier to hit than miss. I have to be ready. But how can you be ready to see the woman you love dead? How can you ever be prepared for that horror?

I lunge up the last steps to take cover behind a short pillar. Bullets from an automatic rifle shoot at me, but miss and I press my back into the bricks of the half-pillar. I look back over my shoulder, relieved when I see she’s not up there. The rope is hanging, but she’s not there. And she’s not on the ground.

“Allegra!” I call out.

Nothing.

“Allegra! Are you here?”

“It’s a trap!” Her voice is clear and she’s alive and the relief I feel makes me suck in a breath, makes my back slump against the wall in relief.

She’s alive.

She’s alive.

“Let her go, Enzo!” I call out because it’s going to be Enzo. I know it. I fucking know it. “Let her fucking go. This is between you and me. It has always been between you and me.” I move, coming out from behind the pillar.

A bullet flies, but I don’t stop. I stand.

“You’re not a coward, Enzo.” I turn to the sandbags. That’s where they are. “Fight me. Fight me fair, cousin. Fight me fair and win your place.”

“Drop your weapons,” Enzo calls out. “Fucking drop them, or my next bullet is for her.”

“Don’t do it!” Allegra calls out.

“I’m putting them down. Don’t fucking hurt her.” I pull the strap of the automatic rifle off and set it at my feet, then do the same with my Glock. I push them away.

Only then does Enzo emerge. Enzo, my cousin, my friend, a man I trusted. A man I defended.

And in front him, pressed to his body, is Allegra. His human shield.

I look her over, see how her wrists are still bound, how one arm is bent at an unnatural angle. See the pain on her face as her chest trembles with her breaths. Her body is bruised, cut. Her face, too. A line carved down one cheek.

Blood is splattered across her stomach, but that’s not hers at least. I meet her eyes. They’re wet as she looks back at me and to see her like this, to see her hurt like this. In pain like this. Broken like this. It makes my heart twist. It makes my gut burn. It makes my hands turn into fists.

I shift my gaze to Enzo’s. “Let her go.”

He walks out around the sandbags, half carrying her when she won’t move.

“Put your hands up,” he says.

I grit my teeth, but when he points the barrel of his weapon at Allegra’s throat, I do it. I raise my arms over my head.

“Let her go, Enzo.” I take a step toward them. “Your fight is with me.”

Enzo’s eyes narrow. “Stop moving. Stay where you are”

I don’t. “Why? Why did you do it? I don’t fucking understand.”