Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 95013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
I was tucked around the corner of a building, and I lifted the sniper rifle over my shoulder and focused on the lens.
Rocco was flanked by men of Cosa Nostra, but there were only five of them, while Darius had an entire army behind him. He was the king who’d cleared the board, had taken all the pawns, knights, and bishops and kicked off his own queen.
I watched Darius in the scope, but he happened to stop right behind one of our guys. “Come on, move.” I kept the gun trained on my target, but I could only get the corner of Darius’s shoulder.
Darius trailed his gaze slowly up and down Rocco’s body. “Must be on a lot of painkillers.”
“Nah, I passed,” Rocco said. “Don’t want to numb anything—especially the high from killing you.”
Darius smirked before he released a laugh. “That’s cute. Unless you’ve got a bomb strapped to your chest and you’re about to kamikaze this shit, I don’t think that’s going to happen. But to be real, I’d respect you for it.” The smile remained.
“Jesus Christ, fucking move!” I knew Rocco couldn’t keep this up for more than a few minutes before Darius got bored, so I shouldered my gun, ran around the building to the other corner, my heart racing and my lungs aching to get there fast enough. I dropped to my knee and grimaced slightly when the cap hit the concrete. I didn’t bother with stealth, so I knew his men had probably noticed me.
I didn’t even take a chance to check. I put the gun back on my shoulder, looked through the scope because I couldn’t afford to miss even when I was relatively close. This wasn’t how I imagined this moment would be. I’d wanted to capture him and torture him until he begged me to end his life. Wanted bloody and violent revenge for my brother . . . but I was prepared to let that go. To live for the future instead of the past. I aimed for his head and squeezed the trigger right when he moved his head, laughing at something Rocco had said or some other thought that had come into his mind.
I didn’t see the outcome because gunfire broke out, and I felt a bullet go straight through my arm. “Fuck.” I dropped the gun and sprinted away, ducking for cover behind a slab of concrete that comprised the nearby flower box.
I knew they were coming for me, so I ripped off a grenade and pulled out the pin before I tossed it overhead. The second the explosion hit my ears, I ran for it. Sprinted around the building and back to where Cosa Nostra had formed their line of defense. Most of them had moved up to help Rocco when the gunfire started.
I’d just rounded the corner when Rocco ran into me and nearly knocked me to the ground. Blood dripped down his face from a head wound, but he didn’t appear to have been shot there.
“You all right—”
“You got him, he’s down.”
“But is he dead?”
“You hit him in the head. He’s gotta be.”
I wanted to see his body, to confirm that nightmare truly was gone from this world.
Rocco read the uncertainty in my eyes because he still knew me so well, despite our three-month estrangement. “When the gunfire ceases, we’ll burn his body.”
I nodded in agreement.
He patted me on the shoulder as the sounds of warfare continued. “Take back the Roman Empire, Constantine.”
Both sides were evenly matched, so all the windows of the restaurants and gelato shops were shattered, and glass littered the cobblestone streets. Bullets marked the Pantheon, adding to the graffiti that had already been painted over the Egyptian stone.
Rocco was already gravely injured without the head wound, so he hung back while I moved in with the others, shooting down the Skull Kings and the others dumb enough to fight me.
Luca arrived from the rear with his men, shooting my enemies in the back while they were distracted by me in the front, littering the ground with the traitors who’d chosen a tyrant over an emperor. The second the battle shifted in my favor, so did the surrenders. They dropped their guns and took a knee—and I walked up and shot them each right in the fucking face.
Luca watched me from where he stood, and after he leveled me with a hard stare, he gave me a nod in approval.
I’d never been the merciful type.
Some fled through the streets, and Luca’s men chased them down. The men whom I knew were close to Darius were hung from the Pantheon to choke until death, swinging from side to side and bumping into others that had been dead for hours.
There were so many bodies, probably hundreds. Blood filled the cracks between the cobblestones, and the Pantheon witnessed another battle at her steps.