Entangled with the Mafia Don novel Chapter 73

Ezra's POV

The air on the pier tasted like salt and impending death.

I had her. She was in my arms, shivering and broken, but she was mine. I was already calculating the miles to the safe house, the bandages and medications she’d need, the way I would wrap her in silk and never let the sun touch her skin again.

Then, the shadow moved.

Tatiana Sokolova stepped into the harsh, clinical glare of the SUV’s headlights. She looked like a specter of the ruin I had brought upon her house. Her face was the one of a desperate woman, her eyes two hollow burning with psychotic hatred.

"You bastards," she hissed, the silver revolver in her hand steady, glinting like a shark’s tooth.

My blood turned to liquid nitrogen. I didn't think; I reacted. Every instinct I possessed—every ounce of the Mafia Don—surged to the surface. I began to pivot, my body already shielding hers, my hand reaching for the Beretta.

"Get in the car, Davina! NOW!"

I felt her move. But she didn't run for the door.

The world fractured. The sharp crack of the revolver echoed off the water, a sound more final than any gavel. I felt a gust of wind, a blur of midnight silk, and then—the sound of a bullet finding home. Not in me.

"NO!"

Davina hit my chest, not with the weight of a woman, but with the limp, staggering force of a falling star. I caught her, my knees hitting the gravel with a bone-jarring thud.

Behind us, the night erupted. My men didn't wait for an order. A chorus of suppressed gunfire hissed through the rain, a dozen rounds tearing into Tatiana before she could even savor the kill. She was thrown backward, her body a tattered rag in the headlights before she hit the ground, dead before she realized she’d lost.

I didn't even look at her. Tatiana Sokolova was nothing. She was ash.

"Davina?" My voice came out as a strangled, unrecognizable wreck. "Davina, look at me. My loove, look at me!"

I pulled her into my lap, and the horror of it nearly stopped my heart. The front of her gown, that beautiful, sheer midnight silk, was turning black with a hot, rhythmic gush of blood. It was everywhere—soaking into my shirt, slicking my hands, smelling of copper and the end of the world.

She tried to speak, her small hand clawing at my lapel, but as her mouth opened, a thick, dark crimson bubble burst across her lips. The blood wasn't just on her chest; it was in her lungs. She was drowning in front of me.

"No, no, no..." I choked out, a sound of pure, unadulterated agony tearing from my throat. I pressed my palm against the wound, trying to hold the life inside her, but it was like trying to stop a waterfall with a handful of sand. "Don't you dare. Davina! That's an order! Keep your eyes open!"

Her gaze was unfocused, the vibrant blue of her irises turning glassy, reflecting the cold rain. She reached up, her fingers staining my cheek with her warmth, a touch so light it felt like the ghost of a goodbye.

"SOMEONE!" I screamed, the sound echoing off the black water like a wounded animal. "The car! NOW!"

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