Karen Rose - Die for Me

He yanked up and she was lifted almost off her knees. Then she heard a noise from upstairs. A creak. Simon’s body jerked. He’d heard it, too.

Vito. Sophie spat the blood from her mouth, filled her lungs with air and screamed.

“Shut up,” Simon gritted.

Sophie wanted to sing. But she screamed again. Screamed Vito’s name.

“You stupid bitch. You’re going to die.” Simon raised his arm, bearing his weight on her legs with his good foot.

Good foot. Abruptly Sophie rocked right, then left with all her might sending her shoulder into Simon’s artificial leg. He swayed for a split second, then toppled. The sword clattered from his hand as he tried to break his fall. She rolled to one side, barely avoiding becoming his crash pad. But his hand was still in her hair and she couldn’t get away. The door at the top of the stairs opened and footsteps thundered.

“Police! Don’t move!”

Vito. “I’m down here,” Sophie screamed.

Simon came up on his good knee, then reared back, pulling her into him. Making her a human shield. “Go back,” he called. “Go back or I kill her.”

The footsteps continued until Sophie saw Vito’s feet, then his legs. Then his face, dark with controlled fury. “Are you hurt, Sophie?”

“No.”

“Don’t come another step,” Simon warned. “Or I swear I’ll break her fucking neck.”

Vito was still on the stairs, his gun trained on Simon. “Don’t touch her, Vartanian,” Vito said, his voice low and ominous. “I will shoot your head right off your shoulders.”

“And risk killing her? I don’t think so. I think you’re going to go back up those stairs and call off your dogs. Then we’re going to walk away, me and your pretty girl.”

Sophie was breathing hard, one of Simon’s hands twined in her hair, his other arm crossed over her throat. There was no way Simon could have planned this better, no way he could have found a deeper vulnerability, capable of stopping Vito in his tracks.

“Kill him, Vito,” she said. “Kill him now or he’ll just kill again. I couldn’t live with that.”

“Your girl has a death wish, Ciccotelli. Come closer and I’ll make her wish come true. Let me walk away and she lives.”

“No, Simon.” It was a soft drawl, calm and steady. “You won’t. I won’t let you.”

Sophie felt the sudden tense of Simon’s body at Daniel’s voice and she jerked to one side, but he came with her and they crashed to the floor. He flattened her against the concrete floor, his weight knocking the breath from her lungs. He jerked back to his knees, dragging her with him. She swung her bound hands but hit only air. He twisted her hair harder and tears stung her eyes.

She swung her hands, scrabbling for any hold, any way to put enough distance between them so that Vito could get a shot. She toppled again, but this time her hands touched metal. Simon’s shiny sword. Sophie kneeled over it, fisted her hands around the hilt, twisted her body so the blade skimmed her side.

And jabbed backward with all her might. The sword met flesh and kept going, plunging deep. With a startled gasp, Simon fell backward, dragging her with him. She let go of the hilt and rolled to her knees, bowed forward, twisted painfully, his hand still gripping her scalp. For a moment all she could hear was her own labored breathing, then footsteps thundered down the stairs.

Simon lay on his back, his own sword plunged into his gut, the blade leaning at an awkward angle away from his body. His white shirt was rapidly becoming red. His mouth was open and he gasped for air. Still his eyes burned with hate and rage and he lunged upward, his free hand going for her throat.

“Don’t move a muscle,” Vito said. “Because I really want to shoot you.”

Breathing hard, Sophie straightened as much as she could, her eyes still on Simon’s. “Go ahead and scream, Simon.”

“You bitch,” Simon spat. His eyes narrowed and once again he lunged, and too late Sophie saw him jerk his wrist outward, bringing the slim blade he’d hidden in his sleeve into his hand. She heard the shots at the same time she felt a searing pain in her side.

The hand in her hair sagged, dragging her so that she knelt at Simon’s side, her neck twisted at an unnatural angle. She could see up, but not down. From the corner of her eye she saw Vito step back and holster his gun.

What sounded like an army thundered across the floor upstairs and down the stairs.

“Scene is secure,” Vito said loudly, but his voice shook. “Call an ambulance.”

Sophie could smell the acrid odor of gunpowder and the iron scent of blood. A wave of nausea hurled up from her stomach. “Get his hand out of my hair,” she gritted out. Then she sagged against Daniel as he worked Simon’s big hand out from under her braid. Carefully he laid her down on her back and she clenched her eyes against the sharp pain in her side.

“ Merde, ” she muttered. “Goddamn, this hurts.”

“Chick?” It was Nick’s voice from the stairs. “What happened?”

Vito scrambled to her side. “Call another ambulance, Nick. Sophie’s hit.” Using the blade, he cut the gown into strips and pushed them against her, stemming the flow.

“It’s not deep,” he said. “It’s not deep.”

She grimaced. “Still hurts like hell. Tell me he’s dead.”

“Yeah,” Vito said. “He’s dead.”

Sophie looked over to where Simon lay, less then three feet between them, sightlessly staring at the ceiling. He had two more wounds, one in his head and the other in his chest. She was grimly satisfied to see the sword still stuck in his gut.

“I guess Katherine will figure out which one of us killed him,” she said.

“You can’t feel guilty, Sophie,” Vito murmured. “You had no choice.”

Sophie scoffed. “Guilty? I hope it was my sword that killed the fucker. Although whoever got the headshot is probably taking home the grand prize.”

“That would have been me,” Vito said.

“Good,” Sophie said. She looked up at Daniel who had grabbed the skinny blade and was sawing through the rope that bound her hands. “Sorry.”

“For what?” Daniel asked. “That he’s dead or that I don’t get the grand prize?”

She studied him through narrowed eyes. “Whichever answer is the right one.”

Daniel laughed softly. “I think we did the world a service today. So, Sophie, other than the knife wound, are you hurt anywhere else?”

“Maybe my tongue.” She stuck it out and both men flinched.

Daniel gently took her chin, angling her face toward the light. “My God, girl, you nearly bit it clear through. You might need stitches there, too.”

“But I didn’t scream,” she said with satisfaction. “Not until I heard you upstairs.”

Daniel smiled grimly. “Good for you, Sophie.” He took one of her hands and started rubbing her wrist where the rope had chafed.

Vito took her other hand, and his were shaking now. “My God. Sophie.”

“I’m all right, Vito.”

“She’s all right,” Daniel repeated and Vito’s eyes snapped up to glare at Daniel.

“What the hell kind of negotiation was that?” he ground out in fury. “‘ No, you won’t walk away. I won’t let you.’ What the fuck kind of negotiation was that?”

“Vito,” Sophie murmured.

“You wouldn’t have let him leave,” Daniel said. “You know that. Simon hated to be told what to do, by anyone. I could only hope he’d get mad and Sophie could use it to her advantage.” He smiled down at her. “You did good, kid.”

“Thank you.”

“I need to tell Suze.” Daniel stood up. “I’m sorry, Vito. I didn’t mean to scare you.”