She Thought She Could Hide the Gunshot Wound From the Mafia Boss—Until He Reached for Her Arm

The smell of gasoline hit them before they reached the stable courtyard.

The rain had softened into a thick, suffocating Atlantic mist that hung between the stone buildings like a shroud. Down in the east block, a tongue of orange fire was already licking the eaves of the hayloft.

Inside, the horses were screaming.

It was a sound Rowan knew all too well—a high-pitched, hysterical wail of thirty trapped animals smelling smoke, kicking against the wooden doors of their stalls until their hooves bled.

"He’s burning the block to draw us out," Declan said, his eyes turning to black ice.

"Midnight Reel is right under that loft," Rowan said, already breaking into a run across the wet gravel, ignoring the agony tearing through her shoulder.

"Rowan, wait!"

She didn't listen. She kicked open the side door of the east barn just as a burst of flames rolled across the timber rafters overhead. Thick, choking black smoke poured down from the ceiling.

Through the haze, she saw him.

The third hitman was standing outside Midnight Reel’s stall, holding an incendiary flare, preparing to toss it into the dry straw to consume the entire wing.

"Hey!" Rowan screamed through the smoke.

The man spun, drawing a suppressed Makarov pistol from his tactical vest.

Rowan brought up her Glock, but before she could align the sights, a blinding wave of dizziness caught her; the smoke hit her damaged lungs, and her knees buckled on the slick straw. Her shot went wild, embedding itself in the oak doorframe.

The hitman stepped forward, a vicious sneer on his soot-streaked face. He leveled his barrel directly between her eyes.

"Goodbye, little bird," he muttered.

Suddenly, the timber partition behind him exploded.

Midnight Reel—maddened by the smoke, the smell of blood, and the memory of the fire that had scarred him months before—did not cower. He struck.

His massive black head hammered through the weakened top door, his iron-plated teeth clamping onto the hitman’s shoulder with the force of a hydraulic press.

The man shrieked as the 1,200-pound stallion lifted him half off the floor, shaking him like a rag doll, before throwing him violently backward into the center walkway.

The hitman landed hard, his pistol skittering across the concrete.

Before he could push himself up, Declan was there.

Declan’s boot came down on the man's throat, crushing his windpipe with an audible crunch. He didn't waste a bullet. He knelt, took the man by the chin, and wrenched his neck sharply to the left.

A sharp snap echoed over the crackle of the flames.

The hitman went limp.

"The extinguishers!" Rowan shouted, coughing violently, dragging herself to the wall where the high-pressure foam canisters hung. "Declan, the roof is going!"

Declan didn't look at the fire. He looked at Rowan, sitting in the straw, her face covered in soot, clutching her bloody shoulder, yet pointing him toward the animals before herself.