Two Hitmen: A Double Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Lawless Book 1) (104 page)

Agostini seized her head, but still she shoved him away and took him deeper, sucking him dry until he was still.

A buzzer sounded.

From behind, he heard either Calhoun or Callaghan run across the floor to the buzzing intercom. There couldn’t have been a worse moment in his life than when the most divine angel had just finished swallowing his load.

He wanted to protect her and to save her from embarrassment, to scoop her up and hold her and tell her how wonderful she was and, more than anything, he wanted to feel her flesh against his, him against hers.

Half an hour, twenty minutes even, to fold her in his arms and feel the love. So what the fuck did Mikey want, he wondered with a scowl.

“Boss, you need to see this right away.” It was Calhoun by the intercom. Agostini lifted Princess gently to her feet, shielding her body with his own. Her bare breasts and the wet sparkle in her eyes made him yearn for at least the time to tell her something. Something important.

But there was no time. He couldn’t bear to leave her without a kiss, and yet, soft, sweet and lovely as it was, breaking it off left him feeling worse than if his lips hadn’t tasted hers and he hadn’t sniffed the delicious cocktail of their scents mingled in her mouth.

He settled her in the shadows, on the couch. Over by the intercom, Calhoun stood, looking at the video monitors.

In the foyer, behind the big reception desk, Mikey had his hands raised, palms out. In front of the desk were four of Yvgeny’s goons, with Yvgeny behind them. The goons all had machine pistols drawn.

Calhoun said, “Mikey must have just pressed the button to give us the heads up.”
 

Dino and Callaghan were already with him, arming up. Dino passed out clips.

Agostini called out sharply, “Princess, come down with me.” Callaghan looked him hard in the eyes. “We can’t leave her alone up here, Callaghan. If they find their way up, there’s nowhere for her to go.”

She was there by the time the elevator doors opened. With everybody in the car, Agostini pushed the buttons for the second floor and the garage.
 

He told Calhoun and Callaghan, “Get out on the second floor. Wait one and a half minutes and then head down the main stairs for the lobby. I’ll arrive there at the same time.”

At the second floor, Callaghan said, “Be cool. See you in ninety seconds.” He and Calhoun were checking the clips in their Colts as the elevator doors closed behind them.

Agostini, Princess, and Dino rode the elevator to the garage.
 

Agostini took Princess by the arm and told Dino, “Wait one minute and take the elevator up to the lobby. I’ll be coming in the front door right then.” Dino took a grip of his arm and gave a firm nod.

The black SUV was right by the steps to the platform by the elevator. Handing her the keys to the SUV, Agostini told Princess. “There’s a gun in the glovebox. Sit in the driver’s seat and turn the engine on. You see anything, anything at all, you get the hell out of there.”

Her frown made him stop and say, “It’s your choice whether you use the gun or not. I recommend you do. It’s a Sig Sauer automatic. Very reliable, very accurate, controlled recoil, and remember, no safety. When you touch the trigger, anything in front of it will break and fall over.”

He kissed her hard and ran for the ramp. He took out his nine millimeter, checked the chamber, and racked the slide before he was out in daylight. Staying crouched, keeping the gun low, he ran around the corner of the building.

Agostini knew there were enough low walls, planters, and shrubbery to keep him out of view until he could reach the door. He passed the matte black Hummer at the curb.
 

He looked through the foliage toward the lobby and caught a quick glimpse inside. The five Russians were in the reception area. Mikey was still behind the desk, hands raised, shaking his head slowly.

Mikey had been a Navy SEAL, and Agostini knew that he kept a Magnum under the desk. With the Russians brandishing weapons, he must not have had a chance to break it out. That, or maybe he figured his odds weren’t great against four guns, maybe five.

Agostini slipped his automatic into the back of his waistband, stood, and approached the opening door at a relaxed walking pace. The Russians were in front of the reception desk, with the stairway to their right and the elevators farther ahead. Yvgeny was still behind the group of four goons, so nearer to Agostini as he entered.

“Yvgeny,” he said breezily, “how have you been all this time? Must be almost half an hour I haven’t seen you.”

“Pierce. The stupid man here told us you weren’t at home.”

“Well, as you can see…” Passing in the doorway, he raised his arms. “…I’m not. Or, I wasn’t. I’m here now, though. Not very nice of your friends to arrive with weapons out like that. Can’t you do something about them?”

Yvgeny shrugged and said, “We’re very cautious where we come from,
tovarich
.” The goons turned to face Agostini. One of them was about to step out in front of Yvgeny, but Yvgeny put an arm out to stop him. “No, Mikhial. You don’t have to worry. Mr. Agostini is not afraid of me, so he isn’t going to do anything stupid.”

Yvgeny took a step toward him. “You aren’t going to do anything stupid, are you, Pierce Agostini?”

“I wonder how often people set out to do stupid things, Yvgeny.”

“Stupid people, Pierce. Whatever they do is going to be stupid, isn’t it?”

Then Yvgeny strode straight at Agostini and grabbed him by the hair. Yanked it straight up. “Stupid things like this.” He heard the four goons rack their guns. He thought about pulling his Beretta but, while Yvgeny’s left arm was up, he decided it would be quicker to jam his right fist in a fast hook, hard into Yvgeny’s liver.

He hadn’t anticipated how hard Yvgeny would keep a grip on his hair. As the Russian folded and twisted, Agostini’s scalp seared in pain. He saw the goons lift their weapons, but Yvgeny was in the way.

Quiet as a breeze, Calhoun and Callaghan were down the stairs, both with a gun in each hand. They got the barrels pointed at the four goons while Yvgeny writhed with his head down, still gripping Pierce’s hair.

Agostini reached back for his gun, but Yvgeny swung upward with a massive blade. Agostini spun to avoid it, and the pain in his scalp was like a fire. He heard the tearing of his hair and Yvgeny’s face was wild as he brought the blade back.

The elevator dinged and the door started to open. Instantly, all four Russian goons ducked down and started to shoot. Mikey came up with his pistol and got off a shot. The biggest of the goons caught it on his shoulder.

Dino stepped out of the elevator, standing tall, two guns blazing. The Russians scurried for the door, firing backwards or over their shoulders.

Calhoun and Dino ran after them. Callaghan came for Yvgeny, but he couldn’t shoot with Agostini so near. Agostini caught Yvgeny’s arm when he swung the blade again, enough for him to lose his grip and drop the weapon, and Yvgeny ran for the door.

Pierce, Callaghan, Calhoun, and Dino stood in the doorway, guns pointed, and watched the four henchmen pile hastily into the Hummer. At least two of them were injured. The big one that Mikey had hit was bleeding badly.

The doors slammed and they skidded away.
 

“You see where Yvgeny went?” Calhoun asked. All three shook their heads. Agostini looked back and saw Mikey holding his arm, and he had blood on his shirt. Agostini ran over to him, but he smiled and held up a hand. “It hurts some, but it’s nothing serious.”

Agostini heard a slump and he turned to see Dino, collapsed on the ground.

Princess sat behind the wheel feeling useless. Here she was with a car and a gun, and nothing at all to do. With no idea at all what was going on, she at least wanted to drive around to the front of the lobby.

Repeatedly, she deliberated whether to take the gun out of the glovebox. Agostini’s warning of “no safety” had made her apprehensive, though. Sounded like she could easily fire it without meaning to.

It had been several minutes since Agostini ran up the ramp and back around to the reception desk. She couldn’t stand waiting any longer. First, though, it was vital to decide whether she would be safer to have the gun in the glovebox or on the seat beside her.
 

Remembering how powerless she felt when Yvgeny held her, Princess decided she would be safer with the gun out where she could reach it. After she clipped the safety belt on and started the engine, she leaned over and struggled with the catch on the glovebox.

Inside the box was dark, and she strained with the safety belt to reach it. She fumbled around almost blindly for the gun. Instinctively, she stopped, thinking,
No safety. You could fool around finding it and shoot yourself.
Then she felt something smooth with a jagged metal part at the side of the box and realized the gun was in a holster, clipped into the box. As she pulled on the holster there was a snag.

Her heart jumped as she felt it jar. But nothing happened. Princess took a breath. Her fingers felt the little button strap across the top of the holster holding the gun in place. The gun was black and heavy.

As she hefted herself back upright, she saw Yvgeny pointing a gun through the window of the passenger door. Princess dropped the gun on the seat and reached for the lever to put the car in drive. The window exploded.

She couldn’t see, but she had a hold of the lever. As soon as it moved, she took her foot off the brake and jammed it on the gas. The car lurched backwards. Tiny fragments of glass were all over the inside of the car. There was a milky, jagged hole where the passenger window had been.

Yvgeny grinned, hanging halfway in through the window, heaving to climb in the rest of the way. Princess hit the brake and he was violently jolted.

“Little sugar mouse,” he said, “I’m coming to get you.”

She flicked the lever to drive and stamped on the gas pedal. His eyes bulged at the force of acceleration, but he kept on grinning. And climbing in.

She swerved left around a ninety-degree turn to another line of cars. Yvgeny got a grip on the dash. Now only his legs were outside. She sped up and made another hard left. Princess didn’t think her driving skills were up to this.

All the time, between watching him and looking where she was going, her right hand flapped for the gun and she didn’t find it.

“Ooh.” Yvgeny made a theatrical noise as he got himself all the way into the car. In the corner of her eye, she saw the gun. It was all the way down in the passenger footwell.

“Ah, little sugar mouse.” He crawled over to be next to her. He took hold of her throat and her eyes bulged in panic. Then his hand slid down her neck to her chest.

“I feel your little sugar mousey heart pound behind your sweet sugar tits.”

He squeezed her breast, then slid his hand down, slipping it between her legs. Princess pressed as hard into the seat as she could to try and wriggle away from his spidery, probing fingers. She shoved down on the gas pedal and pushed it all the way down.

When the car hit the wall, everything seemed to happen in slo-mo, but not like a movie. First, the nose of the car pitched down hard. The seatbelt cut into her and Yvgeny sailed backwards like an astronaut in space toward the windshield as it went white and bent inward.

Her face and her whole body were swamped in white, and a powerful blast of silky fabric pinned her head, her shoulders, and her body deep into the seat.

Another fast-billowing cloud of fabric blew Yvgeny back, over the seatback, into the rear of the car. As the car continued to tip forwards, Princess realized that if she survived, she would be completely trapped in her seat. And if Yvgeny survived, he wouldn’t.

The insides of her chest and stomach leaped forward into the airbag as the car began to bounce back away from the wall and the rear angled back to the ground. Amid the clatter as her hearing started to return, she heard the gun rattle around uselessly in the footwell.

Her hips, her spine, and her shoulders jarred as the back of the car hit the concrete ground. The vehicle squealed and scraped, then it lurched as it bounced back in the air and Princess tried to brace herself for it to land again. There was almost nothing she could do and the last jolt was almost as bad as the one before.

The car skidded backwards and crunched into something. Another vehicle, obviously, as the manic whoop of an alarm started from behind. When everything stopped moving and Princess was fixed to the seat, she couldn’t tell whether she was hurt or injured or not, and she couldn’t move to look.

She tried to listen through the noise of the dumb alarm screaming, strained to hear where Yvgeny was. If he was breathing. Or moving. She was able to move her head under the pressure of the airbag, and her arms.

With her hand, she hunted for the clasp to undo her seatbelt. A hand grabbed hers. “That was bold, little sugar mouse.” The hand moved up her arm. “Bold and brave.” His chuckle terrified her. “Completely stupid, but very brave.”

There was a bang and the back window exploded. Yvgeny’s hand was gone.

Footsteps, running toward the car. The driver’s door sprang open.

“Princess!” she heard Pierce shout. “Are you okay?” The airbag made a shushing noise and deflated. Pierce had a knife in his hand and a gun in his belt at the front of his pants. Her whole body surged at him.

The seatbelt held her back and she felt like she was bruised all along the line of it. His smile was enough to melt her. He reached across and unsnapped the belt, not taking his eyes off hers.

“Yvgeny,” she panted. Her windpipe was sore and it was hard to speak. “He’s in the back.”

Pierce closed his eyes as he shook his head. “I saw him behind you and I fired at him at him.”

She gasped. “Is he…?”

“Yup. He’s gone.” He was indicating the back of the car. She didn’t want to look. Then she saw what he meant. The far door was open.

She sighed when she saw the weariness in his face. He slipped his hand under her and lifted her out. She kept her arm on his shoulder as he turned and put her on the concrete.