Entangled with the Mafia Don novel Chapter 71

Ezra's POV

The roar of the Atlantic hit me like a physical blow, a wall of freezing salt spray and screaming wind that threatened to tear the breath from my lungs. The Ivory Queen was no longer a vessel; it was a dying beast, rolling helplessly in the black swells of the storm. Without the engines to stabilize her, the deck pitched at violent, unpredictable angles, the steel groaning under the pressure of the mountain-sized waves.

I wiped the stinging rain from my eyes, my boots skidding on the wet metal. Thirty yards away, silhouetted against the churning, white-capped chaos of the sea, stood the shadow of my nightmares.

Ivan Sokolov.

He was backed against the rusted perimeter railing at the stern, his chest heaving with the frantic rhythm of a cornered animal. He held Davina with a grip that looked like it would snap her spine. His arm was locked around her throat, hauling her upward until her toes barely brushed the slick deck. In his other hand, the gold-plated Glock—the one I should have shoved down his throat months ago—was jammed into the soft, trembling hollow beneath her ear.

The wind caught her midnight-blue silk gown, whipping it around their legs in a frantic, sapphire blur. She looked like a broken butterfly pinned to a monster.

"Stay back!" Ivan shrieked, his voice cracking and thin against the roar of the gale. "I’ll do it, Ezra! I swear to God, I’ll pull the trigger and we’ll both go over! I’ll take the 'Little Bird' to the bottom of the Atlantic before I let you have her!"

I stopped fifteen feet away, lowering my center of gravity and bracing my legs against a sudden, violent roll of the ship. I didn't lower the Beretta. My world had narrowed to the space between my front sight and the inch of Ivan’s forehead that wasn't obscured by Davina’s wet hair.

"Look at the water, Ivan," I said. I didn't scream. I didn't need to. I let my voice drop into that low, vibrating frequency that cut through the wind like a serrated blade. "It’s black. It’s freezing. And it’s the only grave you’re getting tonight."

"You think you're still the "King" out here?" Ivan laughed, a high-pitched, hysterical sound. He pressed the muzzle harder into Davina’s skin, forcing her head back. "There are no guards here, Ezra! No throne! Just you and me and the girl you’re about to watch die!"

"You're wrong," I countered, stepping forward—one slow, predatory inch at a time. I let the rain drench me, let the cold settle into my bones until I was as numb and lethal as the ocean itself. "I am exactly what I’ve always been. The man who breaks things. And you, Ivan... you’re already broken. You’re just too high on your own fear to feel the pieces falling off."

"Shut up!"

"Remember the club, Ivan? Remember how it felt when I shattered your ribs? That was a warning. This... this is the end of the Sokolov line."

Davina’s eyes met mine through the lashing rain. They were wide, glassy with terror and cold, but there was something else there—a spark of recognition. She wasn't looking at a buyer anymore. She was looking at her monster. Her lips moved, a silent plea lost to the wind, but I saw the word.

Save me.

Suddenly, the Ivory Queen took a massive swell to the port side. The deck pitched at a sickening forty-five-degree angle. Ivan, his balance already compromised by his own shaking hands, skidded toward the railing. For a fraction of a second—a heartbeat’s worth of time—the pressure of his arm on Davina’s throat loosened as he flailed to stay upright.

It was the only window the universe was going to give me.

"Davina! DROP!" I roared.

She didn't hesitate. She went limp, turning her entire weight into a dead anchor. Ivan, caught off-guard, stumbled forward, the muzzle of the Glock drifting away from her temple.

I squeezed the trigger. Two rounds.

The first 9mm slug shattered Ivan’s shoulder, the impact spinning him around like a rag doll. The second caught him in the meat of his thigh. He let out a gurgling, wet scream as he hit the deck, his gold gun sliding across the metal and disappearing into the black abyss of the sea.

I was on him before he could even register the pain. I didn't use the gun again. I wanted to feel the life leave him with my own hands. I grabbed him by the throat, hoisting his broken body up until his back was arched over the rusted railing.

"She wasn't yours to take," I hissed into his ear, the rain washing the blood from his teeth. "She was never yours to touch."

I cupped her face with my hands. My palms were rough, scarred, and still stained with the heat of the violence I’d just unleashed, but I touched her as if she were made of spun glass. I forced her to look at me, to see the truth in the depths of my own haunted eyes.

"Davina," I growled, my voice thick with a desperate, terrifying devotion. "You are the only thing in this world that isn't a lie. You are my soul. You are my home. And if I have to be the monster to keep you safe, then I will burn every heaven and hell to stay by your side."

I didn't wait for her to answer. I pulled her upward, and my mouth crashed onto hers.

It wasn't a gentle kiss. It was a collision. It was a desperate, starving reclamation born of the terror of almost losing her. It tasted of salt, cold rain, and the metallic tang of adrenaline. I kissed her with everything I had—my guilt, my possessiveness, my absolute and total surrender to the woman who had finally accepted the darkness in me.

Davina let out a broken, muffled whimper against my lips, her arms sliding around my neck, pulling me closer until there wasn't a breath of air between us. In the middle of a sinking ship, surrounded by the ghosts of the men I’d killed, I felt a peace that was more frightening than any war.

She was mine. And the world could try to take her, but it would have to go through me first.

The ship lurched again, a violent, bone-deep shudder that nearly threw us both to the deck. I broke the kiss, my forehead resting against hers, our breaths coming in ragged, white plumes in the freezing air.

"I have you," I whispered, the words a sacred vow. "I have you, and I’m never letting go."

I scooped her up into my arms, holding her tight against my chest to share my warmth. I turned toward the bow of the ship, where the searchlights of my interceptor boat were finally slicing through the grey curtain of the storm.

"Hold on to me, Davina," I commanded, my voice returning to the hard, iron-willed tone of the man who was about to lead her out of the wreckage. "We’re going home."

The war wasn't over—Tatiana was still out there—but for the first time in my life, I wasn't just fighting for power. I was fighting for home.