Mafia Kings: Massimo: Dark Mafia Romance Series #3

After a couple more hours of incredible sex – and having to be more inventive to work around how sore Lucia was – we got dressed just enough to be civilized and had lunch.

Only problem was, there wasn’t any firewood left over to start a fire and warm it up.

We ate our food cold right out of the can, but I told her I would go chop some more wood for the evening.

“Enough to fuck in front of the fireplace?” she asked playfully.

“I better chop a lot of wood, then,” I said as I kissed her.

“You better,” she said with a grin, then pushed me away. “I’m going to go take a shower.”

“I thought you hated the cold water.”

“I do,” she said in a low, husky voice, “but I’ve got to get all your cum off me.”

“Mmmm,” I growled as I kissed her again.

She laughed and pushed me away again. “Go chop wood.”

“…alright,” I muttered.

As she walked towards the bathroom, she playfully glanced over her shoulder with a big grin – and lifted the hem of her t-shirt so I could see her delicious ass.

“Hey!” I barked, like You better not get me going again!

She just laughed and went into the bathroom.

I grinned and put on my boots.

Then I grabbed my Glock, the ax, the hatchet, and the canvas wood carrier and headed outside.

Despite it being around one in the afternoon, there was still a lingering chill in the air – but I knew that swinging an ax would quickly warm me up. No need for a flannel shirt.

I heard the sound of the shower starting in the house – followed by Lucia shouting, “Mother FUCKER – ”

And I laughed.

Poor girl…

I was glad I hadn’t told her a new place might have hot water, or she might have taken me up on it.

I hummed contentedly as I found a suitable piece of wood and started chopping.

As I swung the ax, the Glock uncomfortably rubbed my lower back where I had it in my jeans. So I took the pistol from my waistband and put it on a nearby log.

Then I swung the ax again.

THOCK.

THOCK.

THOCK –

The first piece of wood split in two.

I set up half of it on a nearby stump.

THOCK.

THOCK.

THOCK –

The wood block split into two again.

I threw one half onto the ground so I could chop the remaining piece into eighths.

I stepped to the side –

Just as a distant crack echoed through the forest –

And the piece of wood blasted off the top of the stump and flew to the ground.

I stared at where the log had just been –

And I realized in horror what had just happened.

Someone had shot at me.

From the distance of the rifle report, probably hundreds of feet away.

Sniper.

By sheer luck, I’d moved just in time.

I started towards the log where my gun was sitting, 15 feet away –

But the sniper got there first.

Crack!

The surface of the wood next to the Glock exploded in a burst of splinters.

SHIT –

I dove to the ground and took cover behind several huge cross-sections of the tree. They formed a protective barrier between me and the shooter.

My heart thudded in my chest and my mind raced at a million miles a second.

You fucking idiot – you should have left hours ago!

Now you’ve endangered Lucia –

NO, I shouted inwardly. STOP. Slow down.

It was no use beating myself up.

I had to get out of this situation – and to do that, I had to think.

What did I know about what had just happened?

The first shot had been low. If the sniper had wanted to kill me, he would have aimed for the center of my torso.

Either the sniper was a bad shot – or he’d been trying to wound me, not kill me.

That had to be it. A leg shot would incapacitate but probably not kill me. And it would make sure I couldn’t run.

So he didn’t want me dead –

He wanted to take me alive.

However, the second gunshot had happened so quickly after the first that it was hard to believe it was the same gunman.

Probably because it wasn’t.

There were single-bolt sniper rifles, where you had to eject the spent shell casing and load a new round by pushing a lever –

And there were semi-automatic sniper rifles, where the gun did the loading for you every time you pulled the trigger.

Semi-automatics were great for speed but usually encouraged the shooter to rush. And when a sniper rushed, he missed. Load faster, shoot faster, don’t take your time, miss the target.

In order for him to fire the first shot, then adjust the gun to take the second shot, and be that accurate, all within three seconds – he either had god-like abilities or the luck of the devil.

So there were at least two guys. In fact, there were probably multiple teams combing the woods. This was just the one that had stumbled across me.

Shit…

They’d probably radioed the other teams, which meant more were coming.

I had to get to Lucia and get the fuck out of here.

I needed my pistol. If I could fire at them as I ran, I might get to the house in one piece.

I angled my ax above me, trying to use the metal ax head to scrape my gun off the stump –

CRACK!

There was a metallic krck! and a shower of sparks –

And my Glock landed on the ground in front of me.

Unfortunately, the trigger guard and trigger were fucked all to hell – a twisted mass of metal. The sniper had placed his shot in order to ruin the gun.

FUCK he was good.

Not only that, but the shot had been louder – which meant the gunman was closer.

They were coming towards me.

I had to get to the house now.

I started crawling on my belly across the ground –

But when I peeked out from behind the log closest to the house, there was another CRACK –

And dirt exploded in a shower a few feet away.

SHIT.

That had been a warning shot.

Try it again and we’ll kill you.

They knew I would try to get to Lucia – so one of those sniper rifles was undoubtedly aimed at the back door of the house.

In the second it took me to open the door, they would have me dead to rights.

I couldn’t go for the house without risking getting shot.

I was pinned down here behind the giant cross-sections of oak tree.

My only option was to crawl backwards, keeping the logs between me and the shooters.

The barn was about ten feet directly behind me.

If I could just get inside…

Ax in hand, I crawled on my belly towards the barn.

I reached the outside wall. The wooden planks were dry-rotted and crumbling near the ground, and I was able to use the ax to bash a big enough hole for me to crawl through.

Unfortunately, the noise let them know exactly where I was.

Once inside the barn, I crawled behind an empty feed bin before I stood up.

They would come for me. That much was certain. But would they split up? One go for Lucia while the other came for me?

Would they both go for Lucia and take her hostage?

Or would they both come after me to get rid of the biggest threat first?

I had no idea. All I knew was that I had to be ready for them.

I glanced at the front of the barn.

The door had long ago rotted and fallen off its hinges, so the doorway was open – about 12 feet wide and 10 feet tall.

I couldn’t just stand next to the doorway and wait for them, though. That would be the first thing they checked.

I could hide in the loft at the rear of the barn – but then I would have to wait for them to come find me. Bad idea.

…what if I could hide up in the rafters?

There were half a dozen wooden columns sunk into the concrete floor. They reached up into the rafters and held up the entire barn.

Joists – big wooden beams running parallel to the ground – connected all the columns about ten feet up.

I held my ax high overhead and swung it into the wooden column nearest the doorway. The blade sunk into the wood with a solid thock and stayed there.

Then I climbed onto one of the feed bins, jumped, and grabbed onto a joist with my hands.

I prayed it would support my weight as I pulled myself up on top of it.

It held.

Then I crept like a tightrope walker across the joist – praying some more as the wood groaned beneath me – until I reached the wooden column closest to the door.

I wiggled the ax head out of the wood, held it up like a baseball bat –

And waited.

I listened carefully.

The shower wasn’t running in the house anymore.

Had Lucia heard the gunshots? She must have.

I hoped she would run out the front door of the house and hide somewhere in the forest.

I watched the doorway of the barn like a hawk as cold sweat beaded on my forehead and dripped down my face.

A minute passed.

All I could hear was the rustle of the wind in the trees.

And then…

Amidst the dappled sunshine coming in through the doorway…

A shadow blocked out the light.

Someone was standing in front of the barn.

I gripped the ax handle tighter as the barrel of a pistol appeared in the doorway.

A pistol made sense. A rifle was good for long distances, but a pistol was better up close. Easier to aim and fire quickly.

A few seconds later, the gunman crept through the doorway.

He wore a tan hunting jacket. A black rifle hung on a strap across his back.

He swept the pistol back and forth, looking for me in the barn’s shadows.

Unfortunately for him, he didn’t look up.

I stepped off the joist and plummeted down.

He heard the creak of the wood and looked up, but didn’t raise the gun in time –

THOCK!

The ax split his skull right down the center like a ripe watermelon.

He didn’t even have time to scream.

A split second later, my feet hit the concrete floor. Electric bolts of pain shot through my legs as I bent my knees and tried to absorb the impact.

Didn’t help much. I still came crashing down on my hands and knees, agony flaring throughout my body.

At least I was in better shape than the guy with an ax buried in his head.

He crumpled to the floor at the same time as me, his arm flung out, the pistol still in his hand as blood gushed out of his head.

I scrambled over and tried to pull the pistol out of his hand, but the trigger guard caught on his finger –

“STOP!” a man’s voice yelled.

I dove backwards into the shadows, weaponless, and rolled behind the feed bin.

Footsteps clomped on the concrete…

And a shadow appeared in the sunlight on the floor next to the feed bin.

“Fuckin’ hell…” the man muttered, probably as he saw what I’d done to his buddy.

Then he shouted, “Come out!”

I stayed where I was.

“Come out, you piece of shit, or I’ll shoot your balls off when I find you!”

I didn’t move.

“Or maybe I’ll fuck the girl in front of you and make you watch,” he leered.

My blood boiled – but I knew he was baiting me.

I stayed motionless.

I heard two slow footsteps on the concrete…

Then a burst of fast ones as he rushed me.

I tried to scramble around the corner of the feed bin –

“AH!” he yelled in warning.

Shit.

I looked up to see a man in camouflage standing ten feet away, his pistol pointed at my face.

“If they weren’t paying triple for you alive, you’d be a fuckin’ dead man right now,” he snarled. “Get up.”

I slowly got to my feet.

My mind raced, trying to figure out how I could get to him before he killed me –

But I couldn’t think of a single scenario where I didn’t wind up dead.

“Hands in the air,” he ordered.

I raised them above my head.

The camouflaged man pulled a pair of handcuffs out of his jacket while he kept his gun on me. “You’re going to put these on, and you’re going to do it without any funny business, or I’m going to shoot you in the gut and make you crawl back to town. Got it?”

I nodded, defeated. “…yes.”

He was just about to toss the cuffs to me underhanded –

When a sound unlike anything I’d ever heard ripped through the air.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

It was a high-pitched scream of fury straight out of hell.

Lucia came striding through the doorway, a gun pointed at the man’s head –Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

The shotgun I’d taught her how to use.

Her eyes looked utterly demented, and her face was a mask of pure hatred.

The camouflaged man looked over in panic. He swung his gun towards her –

Too late.