Page 166 of Vows of a Mobster

“You always thought you were so much better,”he spat at her.“Senator’s princess daughter. That’s what the whole school called you.”

“Please, Kyle,”she begged. All Brianna’s focus was on Emma’s little body screaming off the top of her lungs. Her cheeks were red, evidence of a fever.“I’ll give you anything. Please, just give her to me.”

She was so focused on Kyle, she missed the other guy sneaking up to her.

My body tensed watching him hit my wife right across her face, shoving her onto the floor.

Daphne’s scream echoed throughout the warehouse. Marissa pulled the trigger on the gun and shot the fucking guy on the shoulder. I’d have to remember to commend my young cousin. He stumbled backwards. But so did Marissa. She lost her grip of the gun and it fell onto the ground, skidding over the floor.

Kyle threw Emma onto the floor like she was a piece of garbage and went after the gun. I had to control the rage. If he wasn’t dead already, he would be now.

Brianna scrambled off the floor, trying to get the weapon. It was smart on her part because a junkie with a gun was more dangerous than a criminal.

“Daphne, get Emma,”she shouted the command as she ran towards the gun and managed to get it before Kyle.

She pointed the gun at Kyle.

“Don’t move,”she ordered him.

Her hands were firm, unwavering, all her focus pointed to this lousy excuse of a man who happened to be father to her daughter. She made me proud at that moment.

“You don’t have the guts to shoot me,”he spat at her. “The prima ballerina who was going to be the next super star. Yeah, you won’t shoot me.”

“Daphne, you have her?”she asked, never moving her gaze from the target.

“Yes.”

Kyle kept advancing towards her, while the bald man was bleeding on the warehouse floor. But he wouldn’t die. Not from the shoulder wound.

“Stop right there, Kyle.”She kept her cool. Her dad would have been proud, both of them.

“That brat has to go with him,”he shouted at her, desperation on his face.“Otherwise, they’ll come for me. I will take her.”

“You’ll never touch her again. In fact, don’t even look at her.”

Brianna’s body shook in my arms. She covered her mouth, but I heard a low whimper in her throat. I pressed her tighter to me.

I watched as Kyle threw himself towards her and Brianna shot him, taking Kyle’s life.

There was an expression of confusion on his face and then he slumped onto the floor.

“Oh my God,”Brianna whispered on the screen. She was calm when she had the gun pointed at him and pulled the trigger, but now that realization sat in that she took a life, she shook. Her eyes stared at the young man’s body tumble onto the floor, blood pooling around him.

She took a step towards Kyle but Marissa’s voice stopped her.

“Stay where you are, Brie.”It was like watching a stranger on the screen, some really bad movie. Her face was smeared with tears, terror and fear written all over it. Emma screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Oh my God.”The whisper was spoken in fear.“I-I killed him.”Marissa came up to her and took the gun out of her hands.“Oh my God, Marissa. I killed him,”hysterics were all over her face and her voice.

“It was either him or us, Brie,”she justified, as Daphne and Emma cried together in the background.

“Oh my God, I killed a man,”I heard the disbelief in her voice. “My mother is going to kill me!”

“She’s a bitch and kicked you out,”she shook her.“If she wouldn’t have, you would have never called him and you would have had enough money for the treatments.”

“I killed a man,”she repeated hysterically, staring at the dead body on the ground.

“He was a junkie and was going to sell Emma,”Marissa shook her again.“Get yourself together, Brie.”Marissa had taken her face between her hands. “Stop looking at him. Focus so we can get out of this alive. For Emma.”