Page 47 of Enforcer
Once the smoke clears, Marco and I move forward to assess the damage. All the men are down, and only one is breathing.
“Get the doc. Keep him alive.”
Marco nods. “I’ll handle it.”
“Let me know when he’s conscious.”
I make my way back to the car, growing worried about Alyssa with all the gunfire. I find her drawn into herself, hands pressed firmly to her ears, tears sliding down her face as her body quakes in fear.
I crouch. “Fuck, tesoro. Come here.”
Sliding to the ground, I tug her into my lap, holding her tightly.
She drops her gun as she lets me hold her. “You’re alright,” she says.
“I’m alright.”
She presses her face into my neck, her tears sinking into my skin as a reminder of how different her world is from mine.
Even though I want her more than anything, the truth is staring me right in the face in the form of her fear.
This life already killed one woman I loved; how can I pull another one in if that could be the outcome again?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ALYSSA
Made men stand around me in the cold warehouse; Brynne holds me even though I’m thoroughly checked out after tonight’s events.
“He’s going to live, though?” Slate asks the surgeon, who just came out from behind sheeting, covered in blood. Beyond the transparent curtains of plastic, machines whir and beep, giving the false sense we’re at a hospital.
“He will. I’d give him a few days before you try to prod at him. I don’t want him to code before you get anything out of him,” the surgeon replies, removing his cap and sighing.
We’ve been here for hours, waiting for the outcome as men cleaned up the fight scene outside.
I don’t look over at Dante. He must think me a fool. The way I’d pulled the gun out that Brynne had given me and then shrank into myself when the shots rang out.
It was so loud.
Gunshots in real life don't sound like they do on television, and I could have gone the rest of my life not knowing the difference.
“You alright?” Brynne asks for the millionth time. I can tell by the look in her eyes what she’s thinking. She’s thinking she dragged me here and that I’m not cut out for this world.
“I’m good. It was just a lot, and Dante just ran into the bullets... It was overwhelming,” I tell her.
She nods. “Completely understand.”
“I hid,” I admit to her as she walks me toward the door where a couple of couches are lined up, likely for the men who work long hours here, torturing, and whatever else they do.
“I think that’s normal, babe,” Brynne says, dropping beside me on the couch.
“Not for you. You ran to save Slate on that island, gunned down men to protect him.”
She sighs and turns toward me, grabbing my hands and squeezing them in hers. “Lyss, you don’t have to be me, though. I often do things the reckless way.”
“I wholeheartedly agree,” Slate says, coming up to us with a confident jaunt, his hands in his pockets. He’s wholly unaffected by tonight, and it’s further evidence that eventually, I would become desensitized to this world, too.
I don’t know if I want that.