Wrong (A Bad Boy Romance)(130)

After a few long moments, he stands. “Well. I guess I’ll let you clean up while I talk to my daughter.”

I glance at Jess. If she’s okay with that then I am, too. She gives me a nod. I’ll have to trust her at her word. Hoping I’m making the right decision, I head for the shower.

#

With the sweat off me and my post-fight suit on me, I feel less like Spada’s trying to make me feel inferior when I meet him back outside the locker room. Jess is with him, and she looks more relaxed. I wonder what they talked about. Whatever it was, it doesn’t seem to have upset her, so I let it go. Instead I just slide up beside her and take her hand, squeezing it. I’m rewarded with her smile.

We head out of the stadium. As we’re heading down the long flight of stairs, Jessica moves closer to me and I kiss her hair as I tuck her under my arm. The sun outside is bright, the sky is clear, and I finally feel like we’re ready to get started on our new beginning.

I’m smiling as we hit the last step and move onto the sidewalk. I lean over to whisper something to Jess.

And Carmine Romano steps out from behind a delivery truck parked near the entrance, points a gun right at my head, and fires.

My first instinct is to protect Jess. I push her aside, seeing her stumble into the grass out of the corner of my eye. Is she hit? I don’t see any blood. I don’t feel anything either, so surely the bullet hasn’t ripped through me, even though it was basically point-blank range. Am I just not feeling it? I’ve heard that there’s a delayed pain reaction sometimes in situations like this. Or could Carmine have just missed, even at this close distance?

Apparently he has. But I shift backward anyway, clutching at my shoulder as if the bullet caught me there. As I’d hoped, Romano takes a step toward me. He’s got a 9mm in his hand, and as I lurch back, he levels it right at me. Behind me I hear Spada shouting, demanding to know if Jess is okay, ordering Romano to put the gun down. Romano doesn’t put the gun down. He lines it up and prepares to pull the trigger again.

Right then I throw myself at him. He’s not expecting it—as far as he knew, I just took a bullet and shouldn’t be able to jump him. But that’s exactly what I do. I hit his gun arm, and the gun flies out of his hand. I don’t know where it lands, and I don’t care. All I care about is that it doesn’t go off.

“What the fuck, Romano?” I shout at him, and he’s shouting right back at me, “You piece of shit, she’s mine! How dare you take what’s mine?”

I can hear Spada yelling, Jessica screaming, but I can’t make out what anyone is saying. More shouts are coming from the wide concrete stairs behind us, and in the distance I hear sirens.

All I can think is that this asshole’s bullet damn near hit Jessica. My wife, who’s carrying my child. It doesn’t matter that he aimed the gun at me. The bullet missed me, and it easily could have hit Jess. Torn through her body, killed her or the baby or both.

I grab Romano by his collar and shake him. I’m so angry I can barely see. “You motherfucking son of a bitch!” I’m spitting in Romano’s face. His fist lashes out and strikes the side of my face, where I’ve already got stitches from the fight. It hurts like shit, but that’s nothing compared to the sheer fury tearing through me. “You could have killed her!”

“Better if I had!” he spits back. “Better if she was dead than letting you touch her.”

“Fuck you, Romano. Fuck. You.” I hit him again. I feel his nose break, shatter, under my fist, and he falls backward. There’s a dead-sounding thump as his head hits the stairs, and then everything around me falls silent.

I take a step forward, ready to grab him again if he gets up, but he doesn’t get up. He just lies there, a pool of blood spreading across the concrete under his head. His eyes are open. Blood starts to run from his nose, the corner of his mouth.

“Cain.” It’s Jess, behind me, and her hands slide around my arm. Her voice is so quiet, but it’s steady, careful. “It’s over.”

I turn to her, hardly able to believe she’s okay. My brain spins around what just happened, how close I came to losing her forever. I grab her and pull her to me, cradling her against my chest. “Jess, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Really, I’m fine.” I clutch her closer and then ease back, afraid I might be hurting her. My hand curls over the curve of her stomach. She laughs softly. “She’s fine, too. We’re both fine.”

“She?” I ask, and she just shrugs, a little sheepish.

“You…” She stops, gathers herself, and I realize she’s on the verge of tears, too. “You saved me, Cain.” She strokes my stomach, my chest, as if reassuring herself that I’m all in one piece. “I thought he shot you.”