bleeding out fast.
The Albanian I’m using as a shield jabbers something in his language. I’m guessing he’s telling them I’m hit by the way Dujar grins.
“We are going to keep you alive,” Dujar tells me. “I am going to take that slut myself. You stupid bitch. You lay a finger on me? How dare you?”
“Shut your fucking mouth!” Dani yells. “Or I’ll shoot you, I swear to God, I will.”
He just smiles. “Have you ever shot anybody before, girl—Ah fuck!”
The sound of the gunshot pounds through my skull. Dani isn’t used to firearms, I guess, because the recoil kicks back so hard it almost sends her flying into the elevator. Her busted ankle doesn’t help, either. The bullet takes Dujar in the knee. He collapses onto his front, and then rolls over, wheezing. Two of his men help him to his feet.
Dani and I finally make it into the elevator, which is good because I feel pretty damn close to passing out. I need to get downstairs and call in my troops, get Dani somewhere safe, and get our injuries seen to. I can figure out what to do about Dujar afterward. Right now, Dani and my baby—they’re what matters. Thinking of my child fills me with renewed strength, and I stand up straighter.
“The code, Dani,” I whisper, as she fiddles with the keypad.
It blinks red, making the buzzing noise for when the code has been typed in incorrectly.
“What the hell?” she says. “It’s four-five-three-nine-six-zero, right?”
“Yes.” The lights in my world are fading to black.
“Then they’ve changed it, they’ve fucked changed it!”
The man who originally dragged Dani into the room—the tall man with sunken cheeks and a Dujar-like comb-over—nods knowingly. “Of course we did,” he says. The Albanians are almost at the elevator entrance now, giving us nowhere to go. “What do you take us for, idiots?”
I have to work hard to stop myself from collapsing against the elevator wall. It’s hard to believe I didn’t feel this bullet when it first hit me, I was so full of adrenaline. But now, the adrenaline is starting to fade, and I feel my blood seeping from me in nasty spurts. I keep my hand firm on the Albanian, though, and my gun pointed ahead of me.
“What now?” Dujar wheezes, propping his hand against the elevator, smiling with bloody teeth from where Dani hit him. “We can do this all day, Angelo.”
“The code,” I say, “or I kill this bastard right here.”
“If you kill him,” Dujar says, “what’s to stop us from killing you?”
Behind me, Dani curses, gun raised alongside mine.
“Looks like we’re in a stalemate, then,” I point out. “Best thing for all involved is for you to give us the code. We can finish this fight another day.”
Dujar shakes his head. “But your voice, friend, it is getting weaker. And the way you’re looking at me—well, I have seen that look many, many times, as I am sure you have. You are losing your life’s blood.”
“Fuck you!”
“Artan,” Dani says from behind me. “You know this is going to be a bloodbath. Is that what you want? Surely what Angelo is saying makes sense? You can always kill each other another day. Think of your mother; think of your sister.”
The man who took Dani hostage—Artan—flinches. I can tell he’s seeing the sense in what she’s saying. “Boss, excuse me, but I do not see a way out of this without more of our countrymen dying.”
“Then let them die!” Dujar explodes, pounding the wall with his fist.
The Albanians exchange looks, clearly concerned with how willing their boss is to risk more Albanian lives.
“Listen to your man, Dujar,” I say, putting some strength into my voice, despite how the blood is trickling down my back, down my pants, down my legs. There’s so much of it. The room is wavering sideways and fading faster and faster. “This doesn’t have to end here.”
“This ends when I say it ends,” Dujar interjects. “That bitch shot me. Do you think she’s going to get away with that?”
“Call her a bitch again,” I tell him tiredly. “Go on. Do it.”
“You wouldn’t dare shoot me with my men standing right here. Not even a De Maggio is that stupid.”
“I don’t know,” I say, eyeing his men, especially Artan. “Perhaps your men are intelligent enough to not want to lose their lives here, but they know that if one of them pulls the trigger, word will get back to Albania. But if the son of Carlo De Maggio kills