Hunter - Blaire Drake Page 0,102

down, with my entire existence in the balance...

I needed Hunter.

Not to save me. Never to save me.

I needed him to be next to me. To be there, to watch, even as everything crumbled, everything fell apart, everything went up in flames. All three things were realistic and viable. I hoped they didn't happen, but I knew with the clenching of my heart, that if they did, despite the unimaginable pain he'd caused and unforgivable lie he'd told me, he'd be by my side.

That was all I'd ever asked of him. It was all I'd ever wanted, all I'd ever needed.

Just... him.

Right there. With me. Always.

His silver eyes slid over his shoulder and locked onto mine. Death flared in their depths—a terrifyingly dark layer of shadow, and a chill vibrated at the top of my spine, but it didn't go anywhere. It simply say there, sending lightning bolts of adrenaline through my veins in a sensation that could only be described as preparation for what was to come.

If such a thing were possible. I didn't believe it would be. I didn't understand how I could ever be prepared for what was about to happen.

I was right to believe that.

A bullet whizzed past the doorway as Hunter pulled it open. He'd inhaled sharply as he had, and that was when I knew he didn't trust Angelo.

Honestly, I hadn't trusted him until that point either. Who knew what side any of these people were really on?

For all I knew, the bullet I just saw fly past the door was for my father. Or it was for me.

One of us. One of the sides.

I wondered if half the men in this house, in this family, knew they'd be devoting their lives to a lying piece of shit, and if they did, if it bothered them at all.

It probably wouldn't. From what I remembered of life in the mafia, they were all lying pieces of shit themselves.

“Ready?” Hunter asked me, his voice tight. “Stay close to me.”

“You got it, Cacciatore,” I whispered back to him.

He reached behind me and, wrapping his arm around my waist, slammed me into his back. I grasped his shirt tightly as he opened the door once more and we stepped into the foray. He kept me against the wall as best he could as we navigated the halls. His head jerked side to side quicker than I thought possible.

He was hyperaware of everything that was happening around us. Completely tuned in to every single shift in the air, every noise. I held on to him tightly as we moved through the halls. A door frame scraped against my back, and I winced, causing him to stop.

He slammed me around the corner. The wind was knocked from my lungs as my back hit the wall, and he held me tighter, stretching his arm forward. His shoulder almost rammed into my face as the gun kicked back with his shot.

I squeezed my eyes shut for half a second before the reality of where I was and what I was doing hit me hard. I couldn't close my eyes—if I did that, I was welcoming death with open arms.

We weren't destined to be that good of friends yet.

I snapped them open and looked around. It was a fluke, I was sure, but I looked left. Down the hallway, I stared down the barrel of a gun.

Instinct reared its head.

So I twisted.

And I shot.

My bullet whipped through the air, spinning like hell, and sliced through the stomach of the guy pointing the gun at me.

He fell to the ground, as if he were a controlled demolition.

My ears rang as the shot ricocheted through my consciousness. The finality of the man's body hitting the ground shook through me, but I bit back the hit of it and let Hunter lead me through the house with my face buried between his shoulder blades.

I've just killed a man.

I couldn't think like that.

It wouldn't end well. For anyone. I didn't want to think like that.

I was shoved into a room, and the door swiftly slammed behind me. Hunter darted out of the way of it seconds before a bullet tore through the wood, and he grabbed me. He shoved me down to the floor and to the side. I almost hit my head on the corner of the desk he'd pushed me toward, dropping my gun, but I avoided the corner of the table just in time.

I scrambled for the gun and peered around the side of the