A Love Most Fatal (Morelli Family #1)

43. Vanessa

43

VANESSA

I’m dropped to the ground as soon as it happens, my side hitting the hardwood floor before I roll down the two steps in a way that makes white pain sing through my shoulder. It’s unbelievable, the noise, so loud and raucous that my ears quickly turn to ringing, the exploding of the windows barely audible.

Glass shards fly inward slicing through the air and raining down on us like ice. Cillian follows me to the ground, covering my body with his. With a moment to process, my ears ring with a high-pitched squeal and I think my shoulder might be dislocated, the pain is so acute.

Cillian’s face drips blood onto my gown, flowing from a slice on his cheek where a shard of purple glass sticks from his skin. The Mother Mary window, I realize. It’s been shattered with the rest. Explosives, of some kind.

He plucks it from his cheek without much regard and tosses it to the wood floor.

My ears are still ringing when he yanks me up by my bad arm and leads me to the wooden stairs to the second level. I trip on the steps, but he just tugs me behind him, his punishing grip on my bicep. The pain in my shoulder is excruciating, so I follow as close as I’m able. He’s pulling on it with abandon and I think I’m screaming, but I still can’t hear anything. By the time we get to the second story overlooking the chapel, a team of people have flooded into the building.

I see Willa with blood spattered on her face and her honey-streaked hair pulled into a ponytail, and Sean behind her. They both hold guns. The priest is on the floor, a bullet through his chest, and the ringing in my ear is beginning to subside just in time for Cillian to pull my back flush against his chest. The cold barrel of a gun presses against my temple.

“I will do it,” he shouts over the banister. “I swear that I will.”

A dozen guns are trained on us from below, and Cillian’s hands shake around me.

I see my sister Mary, fury written on her face, one hand gripping her pistol and the other arm still in its sling. Maxim stands just behind her.

And Nate— God , it’s Nate standing there in all black holding a gun like he knows how to use it, and as soon as I see him, I can’t look away. I don’t want him to see this, to see what will happen to me next. Cillian is not a man, but a fury of madness, one desperate to possess me.

“I will kill your precious princess, and you will all have to watch.” His voice is a bellowing in my ear, one I feel reverberating through his chest against my back. He’s going to do it, I’m sure. And if I’m dead then I can’t protect them.

“Stand down,” I say, then louder, through my gasps, “Stand down— please .”

None of them lower their guns, not a single one of them willing to lose this fight.

“Damnit.” Cillian cocks the gun and shoots above my head, destroying any hearing I had in my left ear after the explosions. Plaster from the ceiling rains down somewhere to the right of us. I look between the people I love, all there ready to kill for me, I make eye contact briefly with Willa, pleading with her to convince them.

She shakes her head, just barely.

“You’re surrounded, deartháir ,” Sean says. I hear anguish there. His own brother.

Cillian pulls me so that my whole body shields his own. To kill him, they would have to shoot through me first.

“She will die, then.” Cillian pulls the hammer of his revolver back and I wince but don’t close my eyes. I won’t let the last thing I see be blackness when my family is here.

“Okay! Okay.” Mary lowers her gun first, and one by one, the rest of the family follows suit, Nate last. Cillian begins to inch down the aisle, the gun still against my head and my back against his chest moving us towards a door. He shoulders it open and shoves me inside.