His to Break

Chapter 2 Fire and Blood

(Allison)

The explosion swallowed everything. One moment, my father was standing in front of me with terror in his eyes. The next, the floor vanished beneath my feet and the casino became a storm of fire, glass, and screaming. The force threw me backward, my shoulder slamming into the edge of a roulette table before I crashed onto the marble. Pain tore through my side, sharp enough to steal my breath, and for several seconds, I could not hear anything except a high, piercing ring that filled my skull. I tried to move, but my body refused to obey.

Smoke rolled across the ceiling in thick black waves as sprinklers burst overhead, raining cold water over shattered crystal and burning carpet. The elegant gold lights flickered wildly, turning the casino into a broken nightmare. Someone landed beside me—a woman in a silver dress staring upward with empty eyes, blood running from her temple. I screamed and dragged myself away from her.

“Dad!” I shouted, though my voice sounded distant, swallowed by the ringing in my ears.

People crawled across the floor, slipping in water and blood. A man staggered past me with half his shirt burned away, calling for someone named Elena. Near the lounge, a waiter pressed both hands over a wound in his stomach while another employee begged him to stay awake. The jazz music had stopped, but the slot machines continued chiming, their cheerful electronic melodies playing beneath the screams, bright and obscene.

“Dad!” I shouted again as I pushed myself upright, bracing one hand against the roulette table. My knees shook beneath me, and every breath scraped against my ribs, but I forced myself to stand. The explosion had torn apart the east side of the casino. Flames climbed the walls where the private gaming rooms had been, and part of the ceiling had collapsed, blocking the service corridor my father had wanted me to use.

He had known. The thought struck me with sickening clarity. My father had known something was coming.

A second blast thundered from the front entrance. The revolving doors exploded inward, glass flying across the gaming floor as guests dropped and covered their heads. Then the gunfire began. At first, I thought it was more debris cracking in the heat, but then a security guard jerked backward, red blooming across his white shirt. Another guard pulled his weapon, but a burst of bullets cut him down before he could fire.

Men in black tactical gear poured through the shattered entrance, moving with purpose, their rifles raised, their faces hidden behind masks. This was not an accident. This was an attack.

“Everyone down!” one of the gunmen shouted.

A terrified guest lifted his hands. “Please, take the money,” he begged.

The gunman shot him. The man folded onto the carpet, and screams erupted again.

I dropped behind the roulette table, pressing both hands over my mouth to keep from crying out. My heart slammed against my ribs so violently it hurt. The attackers spread across the room, some firing at security, others kicking through doors and overturning tables as if searching for something—or someone.

“Where is Romano?” a man shouted near the entrance.

My blood turned cold.

Another voice answered from deeper in the casino. “Find the girl too. The boss wants her alive.”

The girl. Me.

I lowered myself closer to the floor as my father’s warning echoed through my head. Go home. I should have listened.

“Allison!”

I lifted my head. My father stood near the collapsed staircase, blood running from a cut above his eyebrow. Two of his guards flanked him, firing toward the entrance. Relief hit me so hard my vision blurred.

“Dad!” I screamed.

His gaze found me, and for one second, everything in his expression broke open. Then he pointed toward the service hall behind me.

“Run!” my father shouted.

“I’m not leaving you!” I yelled.

“Go, Allison!” he ordered.

A bullet struck the marble column beside his head, spraying chips of stone across his suit. One of his guards returned fire.

“Move, Mr. Romano!” the guard shouted.

My father did not move. He kept staring at me. “Find Marco!” he shouted. “Do exactly what he says!”

“No!” I screamed.

My father’s face hardened. “That is an order!” he yelled.

I had heard that tone directed at employees, politicians, and men who owed him money. He had never used it on me. Another burst of gunfire forced him behind the broken staircase.

I started toward him anyway, but a strong arm caught me around the waist and pulled me backward. I fought wildly.

“Let me go!” I screamed.

“Stop fighting me!” Marco shouted.

I twisted around and saw his face, blood running from a deep cut along his cheek, ash covering his black suit. “Marco,” I gasped.

“We have to move,” he said.

“My father is over there.”

“I know.”

“Then help him!”

“My orders are to get you out.”

“I don’t care about your orders,” I snapped.

Marco grabbed both my shoulders and forced me to look at him. “Your father stayed because those men are here for you,” he said.

The words knocked the fight from me. “What?”

“We do not have time for this.”

“What do they want with me?” I asked.

“I do not know.”

“You’re lying.”

Marco’s jaw tightened. “Probably.”

Before I could demand more, bullets tore through the roulette table. Marco threw me to the floor and covered me with his body as wood exploded above us.

“Stay down,” he ordered.

“I can’t breathe,” I gasped.

“You’re breathing enough to complain.”

Even terrified, I almost laughed. Marco lifted his head, drew his pistol, and fired twice over the table. A gunman cried out and dropped.

“Can you run?” Marco asked.

“I think so.”

“That was not convincing.”

“My shoulder hurts.”

“Your legs?”

“They work.”

“Good. When I say move, we go to the kitchen.”

“The east corridor is blocked.”

“I know another route.”

Of course he did. Marco had been my father’s head of security for nearly fifteen years. He knew the casino better than anyone, possibly even me. He grabbed my hand.

“Now,” he said.

We ran. Smoke burned my eyes and throat, and water made the marble slick beneath my heels. I kicked them off and kept moving barefoot, stepping over broken glass and abandoned chips scattered like colorful bones. Marco stayed half a step ahead, firing whenever someone appeared through the smoke.

We reached the bar just as a gunman rounded the corner. Marco shoved me down as the gunman fired, bottles exploding behind us and filling the air with whiskey and glass. Marco fired once, and the attacker collapsed across the bar.

I stared at the body. “Do not look,” Marco said.

“He’s dead.”

“Yes.”

“You killed him.”

“Yes.”

His voice held no apology. Marco pulled me upright. “Keep moving,” he ordered.

We slipped behind the bar and through a service door leading toward the kitchens. Employees huddled in the corridor, crying and clutching one another. A young waitress grabbed Marco’s sleeve.

“Please,” she begged. “You have to help us.”

Marco’s face tightened. “The loading dock exit is through the kitchen,” he told her. “Stay low and follow the wall.”

“What about the gunmen?” she asked.

“Do not stop for anyone.”

The waitress nodded and led the others away. I looked at Marco. “You knew this could happen.”

“I knew something could happen.”

“That is not the same thing.”

“It is tonight.”

We entered the kitchen. Pots boiled unattended, food burned on open flames, and the room smelled of smoke, garlic, and gas. Marco stopped so abruptly I almost crashed into him.

Three men stood near the loading dock door. They were not wearing masks. One of them smiled when he saw me.

“There she is,” he said.

Marco raised his gun, but the men fired first. He shoved me behind a steel prep table as bullets ripped through the kitchen. Marco staggered. For one terrible second, he remained standing, then blood spread across the front of his shirt.

“Marco!” I screamed.

He fired back, striking one attacker in the chest while the other two ducked behind the counters. Marco dropped to one knee. I crawled toward him.

“No,” he said.

“You’re bleeding.”

“Stay behind the table.”

“I can help you.”

“You can survive.”

His voice weakened. I pressed my hands over the wound in his chest, hot blood flooding between my fingers.

“Do not do this,” I begged. “Please.”

Marco looked at me, and for the first time, he did not look like my father’s bodyguard. He looked like the man who had taught me to ride a bike, the man who had carried me inside after I fell asleep in the car.

“I’m sorry, kid,” he whispered.

“For what?”

“For not getting you out.”

A gunman stepped from behind the counter and aimed at us. Marco tried to lift his weapon, but his arm failed. The gunman smiled.

Then a single shot cracked through the kitchen. The bullet struck him between the eyes, and he dropped instantly. The second attacker spun toward the doorway. Another shot, another body fell.

Silence rushed into the room. Footsteps approached through the smoke—slow, measured, unhurried. A man in a black suit stepped over the bodies. His gray eyes found mine, and for the first time that night, the killers looked afraid.

He was tall, broad-shouldered, and untouched by panic. Blood marked one cuff, but his breathing remained steady. He looked at Marco, then at my hands pressed over the wound. Something shifted across his face before he raised his gun and spoke.

“Move away from him.”