Leave Me (Touch of Death Book 2) Read online

  Leave Me

  Touch of Death #2

  LP Lovell

  Contents

  1. Sasha

  2. Adelina

  3. Sasha

  4. Adelina

  5. Sasha

  6. Adelina

  7. Sasha

  8. Sasha

  9. Sasha

  10. Adelina

  11. Sasha

  12. Adelina

  13. Sasha

  14. Adelina

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  1

  Sasha

  My legs buckle, and I drop to one knee, sinking into the carpet-like lawn. She shot me.

  “Adelina!” I call after her, but she keeps going, breaking into a jog and disappearing into the darkness. A sinking feeling takes root in my gut.

  She left. Shot me and left. Just like that. She didn’t even look back. I attempt to stand, and pain fires up the length of my leg, rendering the muscles useless. Breath hisses through my teeth, and blood seeps around my fingers as I clutch my thigh.

  The security light cuts out, and I’m left there, alone in the darkness. I need to move, but betrayal is a wound that cuts deeper than I ever imagined, plaguing me until everything blurs into this messy fog that I can’t see through.

  The sound of rapid gunfire pops on the other side of the house, and it snaps me out of my temporary paralysis. My family needs my help. Gritting my teeth, I brace myself to push through the pain and get the hell up. Movement in my periphery stops me, and I freeze, my very breath pausing in my lungs. A figure moves around the side of the house, their form a brief black smudge against the light of the window as they cross the patio doors. I can tell it’s an Elite just by the way he moves. As soon as I budge, the security light will reveal my presence. I wait until he’s near the next window, where the tiniest bit of light touches him. One, two, three. I grab my gun and light explodes across the lawns, blinding me for a moment, but I don’t need to see. I marked his position before I even touched my weapon. I pull the trigger twice. The shots pierce the night as quickly as the light shattered the darkness.

  The black spots clear from my vision just as the body hits the ground. They’ve made it around the back, which means Nero’s men aren’t managing to hold them off. On a growl, I shove to my feet. My leg wobbles under my weight, and searing fire shoots through my thigh like someone is digging a hot poker into my leg, but pain is only in the mind, and adrenaline works wonders.

  I’m ready to start shooting when suddenly the gunfire from the front of the house stops. I tilt my head to the side, waiting to hear more. Nothing. Silence. Somebody won, but who? Panic creeps over me, and I limp forward, hobbling toward the back door. I clutch the gun in my hand, ready for anything. As I step onto the pool deck, the security light doesn’t come on, and it makes me pause. My muscles bunch, primed for an attack. The back door hangs open, and the lights under the water in the pool cast just enough of a glow for me to make out the unmistakable dark stain on the wooden floor in the hallway.

  Blood.

  I take several deep breaths, slowing my heart rate and pulling my mind into a place of absolute focus. As the pounding in my chest subsides, the faint sound of footsteps takes its place. Then again. Uneven, stumbling. They get closer, and I press my back to the wall beside the door. Closer, closer, and then someone crosses the threshold. My gun is at his temple the second his feet touch the patio.

  “Shit. Please don’t kill me.”

  I lower the gun, my muscles instantly relaxing.

  Tommy turns to face me, his eyes wide and his face even whiter than usual in the blue-tinted light. “Ah, fuck.” He presses his hand to his chest and closes his eyes as panting breaths slip past his lips. “You scared the shit outta me.” His hair is matted and crusted with blood on the left side of his head. “Have you seen Adelina?” he asks.

  “She’s gone,” I say the words through gritted teeth, hating them.

  “What? You let her go?”

  My hand is around his throat in a heartbeat, and my gun rammed under his chin. “I didn’t let her go!”

  He holds up his hands. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry,” he wheezes.

  I release him with a shove, and he stumbles away, coughing. “Where are Una and Nero?”

  He hikes a thumb back inside the house. “Cleaning up.”

  “Is everyone okay?”

  He nods, and I stalk past him into the house. The pain in my leg intensifies as the adrenaline dissipates. By the time I find Una in the kitchen, I can barely walk. Her hair is falling out of a messy braid, and blood spray coats the exposed skin of her chest and face.

  One of Nero’s men sits on a stool at the breakfast bar. Una’s tying off a tourniquet around the top of his arm. Her gaze swings toward me before her eyes drop to the white tile floor, where bloody footsteps now follow me from the doorway.

  “Where’s Adelina?” she asks.

  “Gone.”

  “Figures.” She nods. “They just stopped shooting suddenly. They must have gotten what they came for.” Her head jerks toward two more guys, both sitting on the floor with their backs propped against the glass French doors. “She shot them to get out.” Both men clutch wadded up, blood-stained kitchen towels to their left thighs.

  Anger has me struggling for words, so I simply nod in acknowledgment. Una turns back to the guy she was dealing with. “The doctor is on his way.” She slaps him on the back and straightens, walking over to me. “You, come with me.”

  I turn and follow her. “What do you need?”

  She walks down the hall, stopping to grab a blanket out of a storage closet before she goes into the living room. The blanket is tossed on the couch before she steps back and places her hands on her hips.

  “Pants off,” she commands.

  I lift a brow and begin stripping my weapons, laying them all on a side table. I do as Una says but wince as I struggle to step first out of my boots and then my clothes.

  “Lie down.”

  I comply, and she takes a seat on the edge of the couch to inspect the bullet wound. Her hand slides beneath my thigh. “No exit.” Great. This’ll be fun. “You want to wait for the doctor?”

  “No, just do it.”

  She shrugs one shoulder and pushes to her feet. “You put far too much trust in me,” she says before leaving the room.

  Una has no formal medical training, but she’s stitched up more bullet holes than I care to remember. The scars aren’t pretty, but I care little for appearances.

  A few minutes later, she’s back with supplies. The pain has intensified, and I’m struggling to block it out now that all the adrenaline has left my bloodstream. I drop my head back against the couch cushions and try to focus on anything other than what Una’s about to do to my thigh.

  Spots of light scatter over the ceiling as they pass through the chandelier’s crystal droplets. And the fire crackles a few feet away, the only sound in the room except my ragged panting.

  Una takes a seat and places her hand on my thigh. I flinch involuntarily.

  “Hold still,” she mumbles as her fingers dig into my skin.

  A breath hisses through my clenched teeth as excruciating pain tears through the shredded muscle. Blood gurgles up through the hole as though my body is physically trying to purge the agony along with the foreign metal. Una changes position, perching on the edge of the sofa and turning her body at an angle to block my view. The subtle smell of burned gunpowder drifts off her black shirt, blending with the overwhelming metallic scent of blood that’s filled the room. She presses my leg again and then reaches over to the side table to pluck from a little metal tray what looks like a pair of giant tweezers.


  I try not to tense, but I’ve had enough bullets removed from my body without anaesthetic to know how much this will hurt. The more rigid I become, the more intense the agony will be. I could wait for the doctor, but I need to get back on my feet now.

  I close my eyes in an attempt to center myself and block out the pain. The second I do, my mind drifts, and the last half an hour plays through like a bad movie. I’m sorry. Those words—so simple and meaningless on Adelina’s lips before she pulled the trigger. She had no intention of killing me; I know that, but I protected her, fought for her, trusted her. I thought she trusted me, that we understood one another. It seems I was wrong. Her betrayal stings, though I know, it’s hypocritical of me. My jaw aches from tension, and I inhale a ragged breath in an attempt to grasp my usual distanced calm, but it’s nowhere to be found. In its place is festering anger, wild and untamed. Completely irrational. I’m torn from my thoughts by the blinding, stabbing pain of Una trying to extract Adelina’s little parting gift. My teeth grind together so hard that I’m sure I’ll crack one.

  “Nearly done.” Una grunts, digging the instrument even farther into my leg, while bile rises in my throat, and my vision dots, threatening to blackout. “Got it!” she announces, victoriously holding up the bloodied bit of shrapnel. Finally, the pain retreats to a general ache, and my muscles relax. Stepping away, she drops the mangled bullet onto a small metal tray with a clink and strides across the room.

  Adelina could have at least gotten a clean shot and gone straight through. I drop my head back against the sofa cushions once more and close my eyes as a wave of exhaustion washes over me.

  Una flushes the bullet hole before pouring something else on it. It stings, but truthfully, the pain has all just blended into one endless ache now. Opening my eyes, I glance down and watch her delicate movements. She finally stitches up the wound, and by the time she finishes, the blanket beneath me is soaked, the snowy white now tainted a bright crimson. It seems apt.

  Red.

  Everything is red right now, tinged by rage and confusion that has me in its clutches. I have to get a handle on this volatile sensation. My usual, rational self is compromised, and it’s concerning, to say the least. I force all thoughts of Adelina from my mind and inhale deep breaths.

  When Una’s done, she pours liquid over the wound again, and I hiss as what feels like acid bubbles on my flesh. As soon as she’s done with the bandaging, I sit up.

  “Sasha?” She stares at me with hesitation in her gaze, and I spare her a glance. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine.”

  Una tilts her to the side, those violet eyes probing, digging beneath the surface easily. White-blond hair falls over her shoulder, and I find myself staring at the patches of crimson that streak the strands. “You’re angry.”

  “She shot me.”

  “You’re never angry. It’s not the first time you’ve taken a bullet.”

  No, but the last time I was shot by someone I trusted, it was Una. I was fifteen years old, and she was ordered to do it. “I’m fine.” I lie, and she cocks a brow, her lips slanting into a smirk.

  “Is it because she got the better of you?”

  “No.”

  Her eyes narrow. “Did she say anything, or did she just shoot you and leave?”

  “She said sorry. Before she shot me.” I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying so hard to see it from Adelina’s point of view. “I think…she believes that she is being selfless.”

  “Well, that bullet I just pulled out of your leg suggests otherwise.”

  I drop my hand and duck my head. “I would have stopped her. In her head, perhaps it was her only choice.”

  Una sucks in a drawn-out breath. “She’s not worth your anger, Sasha. She’s just a girl you were contracted to protect. You don’t owe her anything.”

  I meet her hard gaze. “You and I both know that’s not true.”

  Una sucks in a deep breath. “She doesn’t know that, though.”

  “It doesn’t change the fact,” I argue.

  “Adelina knows what Enrique wants with her. She still went to him, so let her go.”

  My spine stiffens, and I find myself jumping to Adelina’s defense for reasons I can’t explain to myself. “She never wanted to go to him. She did it to save us all.”

  “We don’t need saving,” Una spits.

  “I know that!” My frustration forms a vice around my throat. “Enrique didn’t bring the Elite here for us; he did it to scare her. Perhaps he knows her better than we thought.” That notion irritates me. I don’t want him to know a single thing about her. With a grunt, I push to my feet, ignoring the pain that shoots up my thigh as soon as I bear weight. If I keep talking about this, I’m afraid Una will see my weakness for Adelina all too clearly.

  Past the heavy curtains, I can see the pristine lawns beyond the window. It’s still dark, but the security lights dance over the outlines of fallen corpses. Sprinklers methodically arc over the lawns, the droplets of water catching in the light like glitter. My eyes skirt the boundary, scoping the shadows beyond the light where an enemy may lie in wait. Nero’s men are moving the bodies, one by one, loading them into the backs of several SUV’s. It’s silent.

  I’ve always found a certain peace in the silence that follows violence, as though the world were collectively holding its breath, paying respect to the fallen. There was a time when I would have felt that respect for the dead Elite that now scatter the Hamptons grass. Even as our enemies, I’ve always given them that because I was once one of them. I know what they’ve suffered to become as they are. All that sacrifice and training, just…wasted. From one soldier to another, I could always appreciate the simple act of one man dying while the other was left standing. It’s an honorable death.

  Now though, I feel nothing but resentment toward the dead men and women. The Elite once stood for something—honor, and above all, professionalism. They are supposed to be impartial, without prejudice, and certainly without personal vendettas. They should be exactly as their name suggests—the elite, the best. We once stood as gods amongst men because we were better, more disciplined, and without human frailties and failures. And yet, here they are, dying for Enrique Bianchi, for something as trivial as a grudge. The Elite were always expensive, but they could not be bought. Now… There’s something unsavory about them selling out to a man like Bianchi.

  “How many were there?” I ask Una.

  “I’m not sure. Twenty. Maybe more. Most are dead. The rest left with Bianchi.”

  It doesn’t make sense. Enrique brought enough Elite to give us a fight but not enough to tip the odds in his favor. Given that we received warning, Nero had most of his men here. Though the house would appear as a rich man’s holiday home, it is, in fact, more akin to a fortress. Bianchi would have known this is the Italian mafia’s New York seat and that it would be well defended. He was never going to win. So, why?

  I refuse to believe that he knows Adelina that well. He can’t possibly have known she would give herself up, or that she would be able to get away from us even if she chose to. I think he was testing us, seeing how far we would go to protect her. And truthfully, if she had let me, I never would have stopped. I would have stood between her and him until the very end. I was willing to sacrifice all…for a girl who repaid me with nothing more than a bullet.

  I picture her on a plane, flying to her homeland. I imagine him watching her, touching her, claiming her. My fists tighten, and my knuckles crack violently. The urge to end him is visceral, a beast on my shoulder, sinking its claws deep into my flesh. It whispers of heinous acts and violence with an absolute lack of restraint or mercy. I’ve never felt so close to the edge of control, and I’ve never wanted to kill a man for any other reason than the simple fact I was ordered to do so. Until now. I criticize the Elite for no longer being impartial, and yet, I’m drifting into the same territory.

  “What now?” I ask Una, trying to focus on the situation in front of me.

  That
violent lust in her eyes is all too familiar, and like a predator with the metallic twang of blood on her tongue, she will now pursue them relentlessly. “You know what.”

  I do know.

  The Elite.

  Enrique Bianchi.

  This was a very personal affront, and Una is no longer the cold soldier she was trained to be. Her emotions are like an exposed nerve, and none more so than her rage, especially when someone attacks a house with her child in residence. “The question is, what are you going to do?” she asks.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  She tilts her head to the side, seeing more than I’d like. “Yes, you do.” She’s right, I do.

  Despite my rage and confusion—and the bullet she left in my leg—I can’t just let Adelina hand herself over like some sacrificial lamb. She thinks she’s doing the right thing, that she knows what she’s getting herself into, but she doesn’t. I’ve worked with men like Bianchi my whole life, and I know he’ll break her. That selfless innocence will be crushed until she’s cracked and scarred just like the rest of us. The thought of it has my blood pounding in my ears and my fists balling once more. Not her. She’s the first truly good person I’ve ever met, and I can’t stand to see that purity snuffed out. Despite her upbringing, Adelina is naïve to the darkness in this world, and I need her to remain that way. She’s a refuge from the ugly violence that taints me so absolutely.

  I should think about my next move, plan it to perfection the same way I always do, but it seems the little mafia princess pushes me to rash actions more than I would like to admit to anyone but myself. My entire body is restless, aching to do something and act. I feel like a slave to my emotions. I’m out of my depth. Give me an enemy, and I’ll fight them, but how do I fight myself? I can’t.

  “I’m going after her.”

  Enrique Bianchi will not have Adelina. I will protect her, even if it’s from herself.

  2