Toxic: A Dark Romance

I watch Gracin jerk with the force of the bullet and then fall to the floor, lifeless.

Everything stops.

My breathing.

My heartbeat.

My world . . .

Everything.

Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. Just hold on for a few more minutes.

“You son of a bitch,” I grind out through clenched teeth as my gun trains on Danny. The single brain cell between his ears must tell him to be scared because his face drains of all color.

“You’re a feisty one, aren’t you, cara mia?” Sal croons.

I can’t tell from my vantage point if the blood coming from Gracin’s body is from a fatal shot or just a flesh wound, but I don’t dare take my eyes off Danny for fear that I may be next.

“What do you want?”

Sal crosses the room as Danny and his friends keep their guns trained on me. “What do I want?” he says as he takes out a decanter of whiskey and pours himself a healthy measure. “I have what I want. The King is dead, or he will be soon. He died knowing his woman was in my hands, her fate to be determined by me. He died knowing how I felt when he murdered my son. Children are everything to me, to my family. King’s employers knew that. He was supposed to be off limits.” Spit flies from his mouth. “King should have known better.”

“If he didn’t know it then, he knows it now, you asshole,” I shout.

“Spare me the theatrics,” Sal says with the wave of a hand.

Danny takes a step closer. “I’ll take care of her for you, boss.”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” I say to him, spit flying. Danny’s agitated expression is too animated. Too nervous just under the surface. “Wait. You didn’t tell him, did you?”

Sal takes another drink and sets the glass down on the bar. “Tell me what?”

“She’s fuckin’ crazy, boss,” Danny interrupts. “Delusional. She’d have to be to be a whore for King. Who can sleep with a psycho like that without medication?”

Sal stops him with a raised hand. To me, he says, “Tell me what?”

I lift my chin. “I was eight weeks pregnant with King’s baby when your guys picked me up.” I look at Danny with all the loathing and hate I can muster. “I wasn’t pregnant anymore when they were through with me.”

My words fall like stones to the bottom of a lake, the ripples shifting and affecting everything in their wake. Danny’s head drops, and he turns to Sal with his hands held up in defense.

“I didn’t know,” he says miserably.

Sal’s rage billows across his face, turning it a florid red. “You fucking idiot,” he says. “If you weren’t family, I’d put a bullet in your head myself. We don’t murder children.”

“Let me save you the trouble,” Gracin rasps from the floor, making all eyes in the room swing to him just as a second shot thunders through the air around us.

A red circle blooms right over Danny’s left eye, his legs fold under his dead weight, and he falls to the floor, landing with a thud. The next two shots take down the thugs on either side of Danny before I’ve even processed the first.

Sal bellows in fury, and like I had all those months ago, I react instinctually to protect the one man I can’t seem to live without. The gun fires with the barest of pressure on the trigger, and Sal flies backward and lands with a crash on the couch.

After a few seconds of stunned silence while we both process what the fuck just happened, Gracin looks up at me. “I got hurt again.”

I surprise us both by flying at him and punching him in the jaw. “What the fuck were you thinking you psychotic, suicidal asshole? Did you think you were being heroic jumping in front of a bullet? Did you think I’d be grateful watching you die right in front of my eyes?”

He drops back down to the ground and covers his face with his uninjured arm. “If you’re going to yell, can you do it a bit more quietly? My head is pounding like a son of a bitch. I think I nose dived into the tile.”

“You better be glad you’re hurt. If you weren’t, I would rip your balls off with my bare hands.”

“I think I’ve been a bad influence on you,” he says, smiling even though he’s nearly ghost white beneath his tan. “You’re far more violent now than you were when we first met.”

“I wonder why?”

Before we do anything else, I inspect the wound on his shoulder. Thankful it isn’t life threatening, I tear a strip off my shirt and wrap it around his upper arm, taking pleasure in his pained grunts as I do.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” I say when I finish and the bloom of fear and anger passes. “I thought you were going to die.”

“There was a time when you would have been happy about that.”

I let the comment pass because the numbness of adrenaline that had been pushing me all day fades into shock. I came far, far too close to losing him.

He tips up my chin. “Hey. You didn’t. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Ignoring the bodies on the floor around us, I crouch down to help lift him into a sitting position. When he’s able, I heft his weight up and help shoulder him to the door.

Instead of going down that rabbit hole of a conversation, I change the subject. “What are we going to do about this mess?” Are there going to be more mob bosses and henchmen after us in the morning?”

Gracin blows out a breath as we limp our way back to the vehicles. I don’t need to hold him. He injured his arm, not his legs, but I can’t quite seem to make myself let him go. I need to hold him to keep myself from shaking.

“They probably won’t ever stop. I don’t exactly make friends in my line of work.”

“Good to know. Are we going to take my car or yours?” I ask as we reach them.

He looks at me with an expression that’s a mixture of exasperation and confusion. “That’s all you have to say about it?”

“We’ll deal with it tomorrow,” I say simply. “Now which car?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t care. I’ll have some of my guys get the other when they come back for cleanup.”

“You have guys who do—never mind,” I say, waving my arms. “I don’t want to know.”