Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad by Scarlett Rossi
Chapter 108 -

Весса.

Once upon a time, I would have considered myself to be absolutely blessed and extraordinary for the life I was fortunate to live. I didn't have to worry about the things that other people did. I grew up safe and away from the evils of the world. Yet, somehow that evil had managed to replace me.

Screams of terror escaped my throat as the sounds of gunfire, shattering glass, and chaos erupted around me. I wasn't sure if I was coming or going, but when I felt a tug at the confinements at my wrist I saw hope.

Looking down, I saw Tally struggling with a knife to free me. Her panicked eyes widened as she ducked her head and flinched from the violence that consumed us.

"We have to get out of here," she said to me, trying to make her voice loud enough for me to hear but quiet enough that no one else could understand. Not that it helped.

As soon as my hands were free, I reached down, freeing my ankles, but before I could stand, a firm grip on my hair had me yanked back. A cry of pain escaped my lips as I was yanked up to my feet. The eyes of a devilish man in a black ball cap caught my gaze with a sneer on his face.

"Let her go!" Tally screamed as she jumped to her feet only to be hit from the side and knocked back to the floor.

"Please stop!" I begged them.

As my eyes went to James, I saw the panic in slow motion. He jumped to his feet, running straight for the man who had his hand on me, his body connecting, but only in time for gunfire to ricochet through the air, and a scream once again left my lips.

If there was ever a time in my life to wish for a god to protect us, it was now.

"James!" I bellowed, tears running down my face as I looked at James lying on the ground, blood seeping from between his fingers as he held them to the wound at his stomach. He had been shot, but he wasn't giving up.

The man who had hold of me laid upon the ground. His body moved slowly as he grappled for his gun. However, before he could turn to finish off the job he'd started, the loud sound of a gun firing ricocheted through the air, and he slumped to the floor.

"I heard there was a party." The voice was familiar, and as I turned towards the open doorway, I saw Allegra standing there. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and her blue eyes were fierce as she held a rather large gun in her hands.

"You little bitch!" Sergei yelled at her. "He was my best man!"

Jumping up, I tried to make my way towards her, but a warm arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me back with a sadistic laugh. I struggled hard against the body, but as soon as I felt the cold barrel of a gun pointed against my head, I knew my fight was gone.

"Let her go," Allegra growled at him through gritted teeth.

How was it that I had gotten into this situation?

How was it that I had foolishly allowed myself to get captured?

I should never have come here. I should never have come to see Tally, but then again, if I hadn't, there was no telling what would have happened or if they would have gotten to me in the end anyway.

"This could have been prevented had you just given me what I wanted, James." Sergei glared down at James, who was slowly getting to his knees, blood still soaking through his shirt as it ran down his leg. "Let her go, Sergie. It is me that you want, not her."

He was trying to save me, and I could see it in his eyes that he was scared for me, but there was nothing that could be done right now. Nothing could save us, and I wasn't sure what had possessed Allegra to come in here, guns blazing, on her own, but she was going to get herself killed if she continued.

"You're correct, it was you that I wanted, but she is just as valuable, carrying your child. I could kill you right now, and your child would become an heir, whether male or female. It would be a child that I could raise, and she's young enough to breed me more."

The sound of his proposition made bile fill my throat. The urge to release the contents of everything I had had to eat that day became strong, but instead, I pushed it down and held myself together. "Let me go." My struggle seemed to amuse him. Grasping my throat with his hand that had been on my waist, he leaned in, inhaling the scent of my hair with a groan. "So much fire."

"You're f*cking disgusting," I replied through tears trying to be strong but unable to keep my composure as I thought about the baby growing inside of me. A baby that would be the future of the Valentino family. "Enough with your games, Sergei," Allegra snapped, drawing his attention from me. I didn't understand how Allegra was here, and how she had guns, and how she knew exactly what to do. None of it made sense at all. "Kill that stupid bitch," Sergei snapped with irritation to the men still standing nearby.

"Please don't hurt them!" I cried out in panic. "I'll go with you. Just don't hurt them."

"No!" Tally and James screamed at the same time.

"Sergei, just take me. Please let her go. I'll give you whatever you want. I'll sign the company over if that's going to make you happy. Just please." James was pleading for my safety and the safety of our child broke my heart. My feelings conflicted for him. I loved him, but not like I used to, and even then, I wasn't sure if what I had for him was love. We had barely known each other, and I cared for Neal.

I was a complete f*cking mess, and through all of the mess, I had put myself in a situation that I should never have been in.

"Do you actually think that I'm stupid, James? Do you think that you can offer me your company now? I know for a fact that you signed everything over to somebody else."

I didn't understand what Sergei was talking about, but whatever it was, the shock on James's face registered quite clearly. It was obvious that there was no way that James would be able to talk him out of this situation. Instead, we were all standing still in a very hostile situation.

During the chaos, I hadn't noticed how Katrine had slipped away. I was so caught up in everything going on that my attention had been on helping Tally and trying not to die. So the moment that I saw Katrine trying to sneak up behind Allegra, I lost it.

"Look out!" I screamed just as another shot rang out, and Katrine's body dropped to the floor. Sergei screamed next to me as he watched his daughter die. I wasn't sure how it happened, because I knew it wasn't Allegra. "Now, you're all going to die," Sergei growled as he yanked me hard, causing me to cry out just as another figure came behind Allegra.

"Neal?" I whimpered as his eyes met mine, and anger filled them. He was pissed, and he had every right to be mad at me. I had defied him, I had not bothered to follow the simplest of tasks he had given me. Yet, as I looked past his anger, I noticed the same thing about him as I had Allegra.

"Let her go now, and I will spare your life, Sergei," Neal snapped as he stepped closer to us. There was something different about him that I hadn't noticed before. Something more dangerous. "You two look very familiar," Sergei muttered. "Do I know you?"

The moment that his guard was taken down, a blur distracted me, causing me to fall to the floor as Sergei went toppling over the gun firing and the sound of James screaming.

It was Tally, she had saved my life, and in the process... her body lay on the floor blood seeping from her chest as she coughed.

Yet, she wasn't the only one dead. Sergei laid dead next to her with a bullet wound to his face and was almost unrecognizable. Neal had taken that shot, and as my eyes filled with tears, I crawled over to Tally. "Oh, no no no... please, no." I whimpered as I placed my hands on her chest in an attempt to stop the bleeding. "Tally, hold on, you're going to be okay."

James screamed for someone to call help, and at the moment he did, men in uniforms came through the broken doors. Men who were there to help us.

"Becca-" Tally gasped as she raised her hand to touch the side of my face. "It's going to be okay."

"You're right. It will be okay." I smiled at her. "Help is coming... you're going to be okay."

"I'm not going to make it," she gasped as she started to cough, blood seeping from her mouth.

"You are going to make it. You have a little boy upstairs who needs his mommy."

A small smile crested her lips as she shook her head slowly. "No, he is going to need you. I'm sorry for everything that I did, Becca. I hope I hope this makes us even."

I couldn't believe what she was saying. I couldn't believe that she was so easily giving up on life when she had so much life to live. "Of course, I forgive you. I can't do this without you, Tally."

She smiled at me for a moment before she seemed to slip. The last breath of her body left her as I cried out. I wasn't sure what was happening as time seemed to stand still, but arms pulled me away, and slowly I was removed from the home. The view of James hovering over his dead daughter would be forever imprinted into my memory.

Ambulances and police swarmed the area. Emergency responders were shouting directions and asking Neal and Allegra what was going on. I was deaf to most of it, though. Unable to focus, unable to process what had happened. None of this should have happened.

Yet, it did, and because it did, lives were lost, and families were torn apart.

I didn't understand why it was that all this pain and sorrow came to the people I loved, but knowing that the problem was gone and that Sergei couldn't hurt anyone else made me feel slightly better.

Even if my friend was gone... I would replace a way to fulfill my promise.