Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 115400 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115400 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
I feel his intense gaze on me as I tear open the box, but something seems off and my hands freeze. This box isn’t packed like a normal order you’d receive from any online store, and it’s taken me until now to realize there isn’t even an address label on the front.
My brows furrow, and I open the box with caution, waiting for something horrible to jump out at me, only as I peer inside, I find nothing more than a crumpled piece of paper that looks as though it’s been torn from a notebook.
Reaching in, I pull out the paper and straighten it out before glancing over the words.
SMILE, BITCH!
“What the fuck?” I mutter, grabbing the box again and checking over it to make sure I didn’t miss an address label. “Is this supposed to be for me?”
Killian plucks the paper from my hand before quickly scanning over it, his whole body stiffening in the process. Barely a moment has passed before he turns and begins scanning the property line, way in the distance. “What are you looking—”
Movement far in the bushes catches my attention and before I even get a chance to finish my sentence, Killian grabs me and throws me to the ground. “DOWN!” he roars just as a loud BANG echoes through the distance and something shatters the floor-to-ceiling glass window.
My heart leaps right out of my chest as a panicked squeal tears out of me. “What the fuck?” I screech as Killian moves like lightning to return fire, but it happened so damn fast I can’t even recall the moment he reached for a gun.
“Get her out of here,” he roars. “Safe room.”
Killian’s men pour into the room, each of them quickly falling into position as Krista scrambles around the kitchen counter, gripping my wrists and pulling me toward her. “What’s happening?” I yell over the sound of the gunfire.
“Don’t know,” she yells back. “But my guess is some kind of hired hit.”
The fuck?
“Come on, we have to get out of here.”
She pulls me harder, and my gaze shoots up to search for Killian, desperation pounding through my veins, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Bullets whiz past me, plunging into the wall behind my head, and I quickly realize that had Killian not thrown me down, it’d be my blood and brain matter splattered around the wall, not an array of missed bullets.
My heart pounds faster than it ever has before, and when I don’t move fast enough, one of Killian’s men physically yanks me to my feet and clutches my arm in a death grip, shoving me along. Krista scrambles to her feet, and before I know it, I’m inside Krista’s pantry being shoved through a wall into some kind of safe room.
“What’s happening?” I rush out, whipping around to face the guy, but before I can even fully make out his features, a heavy metal door slams closed between us, plunging the room into a heavy silence.
“Hey,” Krista says, clutching my arm and turning me to face her. “It’s okay, we’ll be safe in here until the threat is neutralized. Killian won’t let anything happen to us.”
“Holy fucking shit,” I breathe, immediately beginning to pace the room, before actually taking a second to glance around and realizing this room could double as a livable bomb shelter. There’s a small bed, an attached bathroom, and a shelf filled with food, water, and weapons. “What the hell is this place?”
“It’s my safe room,” Krista says. “There are a handful of safe rooms scattered throughout the property. You’d be surprised just how often they’re used.”
My hands shake, and I continue pacing. “This is insanity. There’s a literal gunman outside.”
“Killian will have him taken care of in a matter of seconds,” she tells me before striding across the small safe room to a screen. She pulls a remote off the little shelf the screen rests on and turns it on, and I watch as she flicks through different camera feeds.
The front gate. The front door. The pool area. The maze. The kitchen. Then finally, the back portion of the property behind the pool, right where I’d seen the shooter hidden within the bushes.
Killian’s men are everywhere, guns at the ready as they race toward the threat, bullets trading back and forth. Killian leads his men like a warrior, and I’m completely mesmerized—and honestly, a little turned on.
He’s incredible. He didn’t even flinch before throwing himself into battle. His strength and courage are like nothing I’ve ever witnessed, and it occurs to me that perhaps he is the way he is for a reason. He’s not going around killing people for sport, he’s defending the very family he vowed to protect, even if it means putting his life on the line. If his enemies saw the DeLorenzo family as weak, they would be picked off one by one, and that’s not something Killian would ever allow.