Page 30 of Twisted Trust (Mafia Lords of Sin #10)

MAEVE

M etal screams and screeches, fire claws its way up into the sky, people scream and yell.

I’m fixed to the spot watching in horror as the car we’re supposed to get into launches skyward in a tornado of fire.

The doors fly open at awkward angles and shards of glass rain down around us like the force of the explosion has knocked the stars right out of the sky.

Then the force of the blast hits me and I’m knocked clean off my feet.

I fly backward with barely a sound and crash down onto the tarmac with Levi’s hand still clutched in mine.

The back of my head cracks off the ground causing a strange lightheadedness, and silence cloaks me for a few brief seconds.

We’re supposed to go home.

I’m supposed to go back to Scott.

We’re supposed to go… home.

Noise rushes back to my ears the instant Levi’s worried face appears over mine. He cups my cheek and while his lips are moving, I can barely make out what he’s saying over the sound of my blood rushing through my ears. His other hand comes to the other side of my face and distantly, I hear my name.

“Levi?” Even his name tastes strange in my mouth. Another explosion rocks the tarmac and suddenly, Levi’s over me with his lips next to my ear.

“Run, Maeve. You’ve got to run!” He hauls me up onto my feet, and I’m so unsteady that I wobble right into Elio’s arms. “Take care of her!” he barks at Elio, brandishing his gun.

Take care of me?

I’m leaving?

The moment Elio tries to drag me away, awareness snaps back with the force of a rubber band.

“Levi! No! I’m not leaving you!” I lunge for his arm and make contact with his wrist, drawing him back to me. Around us, gunshots pop like firecrackers and another explosion destroys the last car in the lineup. It’s carnage and the thought of leaving Levi alone here makes me ill.

“Maeve! It’s not safe for you here!”

“It’s not safe for you! Come with me!”

“Maeve!” He yells my name so deeply that my heart stops briefly.

His hand grabs the side of my neck and he pulls me close for a sudden, abrupt kiss.

“I need to make sure you can get to safety, now go!” The kiss breaks and he shoves me away, breaking my heart in the process. “Go, Maeve!” he bellows at me. “Now!”

I have no choice. Elio’s dragging me away before I can react, and dodging the hail of gunfire that comes my way becomes my priority.

Beneath the sounds of gunshots are the screech of tires and the slam of cars.

Through unwelcome tears I glimpse cars that don’t look like the ones Levi knows.

Fire rains down around us as car debris caught in the wind slowly comes to rest.

“Come!” Elio barks. “This way!” He drags me along and my legs have a will of their own, following him while my mind struggles to catch up with what’s happening.

The back of my head throbs tightly in time to my pounding heart and my stomach twists as if I’ve been punched. Elio drags me behind him suddenly then fires a few shots into the dark clouds of smoke, then he pushes me through a glass door where my foot catches on the mat and I trip to the ground.

“Elio?”

“It’s alright,” Elio pants, slamming the door closed behind us. He helps me up with one hand and back on unsteady legs, I freeze as we come face to face with three men armed with assault rifles.

“Elio,” I gasp as he’s still facing me with his back to them. My blood runs cold as Elio lifts his head and looks at me instead.

“Don’t worry, Maeve. Trust Levi. He knows what he’s?—”

“No, look!” I screech, pointing past him. “Look!”

Elio turns and the three men raise their rifles.

The world stops spinning.

I have so much I still have left to do. So much of Scott’s life I haven’t seen yet. I want to take him to his first concert and explore his first convention with him. I want to see him stumble onto the dating scene and fight through exams while changing his major three times in a row.

I haven’t done anything yet.

“Please,” I gasp, raising one trembling hand to my mouth. “Please, you can’t!”

Before either of the men move, before I even have time to blink, three rapid gunshots fire off next to me.

I slam my hands over my ears with a scream and watch, horrified, as all three of those men drop dead like rocks.

Their eerie, motionless faces fixate on me as if we’re all frozen in the same time bubble and if I stare hard enough, I’ll be able to decipher their last thoughts.

“Maeve?”

Elio’s words barely breach the pressure I’ve placed over my ears as I continue to stare into the empty, blank eyes of the closest gunman.

“Maeve!” Elio’s warm hand closes around my forearm and he pulls me around to face him. His weapon is gripped firmly in his other hand. “Maeve, it’s okay. I need you to sit down, okay? Sit, that’s my dear.”

I sink down onto one of the blue plastic chairs that are identical to all the others in a row within this waiting room while Elio stands next to me.

He digs his phone out of his pocket and almost immediately starts barking orders down it in code.

I make out the basics. He’s calling reinforcements, but that barely reassures me knowing Levi is out there with what remains of the small security team Elio brought with him.

I can’t take my eyes off the closest body.

Those dark eyes seem to sink into his skull and his skin turns pale except for his lips and the single bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. That remains blood red and leaking crimson onto the shadowed tiled floor.

Suddenly, something explodes again outside and I whirl around in my chair, clutching the hard plastic back as I stare out the window, searching for Levi.

Columns of black and orange smoke pour into the sky with flames chasing after them like hands desperate to recapture what was lost. Bodies are scattered across the tarmac and in the middle of it all is Levi.

He’s on the ground getting the shit kicked out of him.

“LEVI!”

My heart leaps into my throat and I’m moving before I’m thinking.

Snatching up one of the fallen assault rifles that I barely know how to use, I shove past Elio and ignore his cries as I sprint back out the door and into the carnage.

The heat from the fires is overwhelming and I’m coughing within a few steps toward Levi.

A foot collides with his jaw, one hits his stomach, someone else drags him up by the collar and punches him right back down again.

I can’t leave him here.

I can’t lose him.

“Levi!” I scream. My feet slip and slide across the tarmac as I race toward him, stumbling over corpses and twisted pieces of metal strewn across the ground. Levi turns to look at me as blood pours from a head wound and his eyes widen a fraction as his four assailants turn toward me.

As they turn, I force myself to stop running and raise the assault rifle which puts them all immediately on edge. “Leave him alone! Back the fuck up! Back up!”

“Or what?” snarls one of the attackers.

My heart pounds. My vision swims. I taste blood on the back of my tongue and the throbbing in the back of my skull is growing into a scream, but as soon as one of those bastards moves, it’s like everything suddenly becomes sharper and I pull the trigger.

Only… nothing happens.

My rifle doesn’t fire.

I pull it again and again but nothing happens other than the eerie, cold laughter from one of the men. He lifts his handgun, the grip bloody from being used as a tool to beat Levi, and points it right back at me.

When he pulls the trigger, the gun definitely fires but where I expect an overwhelming amount of pain as I’m falling to the ground, it takes me half a second to realize I’m not falling because I got shot. I’m falling because I was pushed.

Landing on the ground with a grunt, the rifle slips from my hands and I roll to see Elio standing where I once was with blood spreading out across his white shirt like a bullseye. He pushed me out of the way.

“Dad!” Levi’s cracked yell cuts through me like barbed wire.

“Elio!” I scramble upward as Elio sinks down to his knees, then I’m on him with both my hands pressing hard against the wound. “Oh my God, oh my God! What did you do! What did you do?”

He wheezes under me and collapses back. Warm, sticky blood seeps between my fingers no matter how hard I press down on the wound. The world around me falls away to nothing as Elio stares up at me with hooded eyes and blood stains my hands.

“M–Maeve?—”

“No,” I gasp as tears flood my eyes. “Don’t you dare, don’t you dare say anything! Not a word! Don’t you dare! You’re gonna be okay, oh my God, you’re going to be fine, I promise! I promise, Elio, please!”

Panic locks like a vise around my heart and I can’t breathe. A trembling takes over my body, matching each sluggish pulse of blood against my palms. It’s hot and wet and I want to throw up.

“T–Take care… of L–Levi for me.”

“What?” I blink and my tears splash down onto the backs of my stained hands, mingling with the blood. “Don’t say anything, you’re going to be fine.”

“P–Please, Maeve. Please…”

“Elio?”

No response.

“Elio!”