You should have listened...

He had to get away! Only three more blocks! His boys should be waiting there with the back-up car. All he had to do was to get there.
Tossing several strands of long, sweat-soaked black hair out of his eyes, he stumbled on. His side throbbed and burned, the pain spreading down into his leg. He gritted his teeth and pressed his hand harder over the bleeding gunshot-wound.
Just this alley, and he was almost free. Something clanked and bounced away, as he staggered on. Only three more blocks! He could make it, he just knew it! He spared a tiny thought of gratitude for his hired muscle, shooting it out with the FBI back in the warehouse by the river. They would keep the feds off him long enough to -
„You should have listened to me."
Giuliano jerked around, putting his back to the brick wall. He threw out one hand to steady himself, leaving smears of blood on the brick. A new wave of pain almost brought him to his knees. The edges of the bricks scraped against his back as he used the wall to hold him up. Dizzyness grayed out his vision for a moment. He shook his head lightly to clear it, which only made him dizzier. He was losing too much blood.
"I tried to warn you, but you just wouldn't listen."
Damn! Why now? Why here? Giuliano pressed his right hand against his side. It didn't really help. His silk dress shirt was soaked through, the blood hot under his palm. He'd made it this far. Why did his luck have to run out now? For a moment, he closed his eyes, letting the pain in his side and in his heart wash over him.
The scuff of leather soles on concrete alerted him that he was no longer alone. He opened his eyes and his heart constricted even tighter. Right in front of him, looking as handsome and delicious as ever, stood Lars.
But instead of his mechanic's overall he was wearing tight designer jeans, a white T-shirt that hugged his toned torso, and elegant beige leather shoes. A far cry from the supposedly naïve car mechanic that Giuliano had taken into his home and into his heart. But even more jarring was the black shoulder holster and the sleek automatic that Lars pointed unwaveringly at Giuliano.
Understanding dawned. And with it, hate and anger.
"You betrayed me," Giuliano hissed. He looked up, locking eyes with the man who was suddenly his enemy. Lars' clear, hazel eyes were half shuttered, his expression one of regret. For a moment, Giuliano even thought to see pain in them.
Suddenly, a lot of little things that Giuliano had ignored before, made a horrible kind of sense.  "How could you betray me, after all I did for you?" He hitched himself a bit higher against the wall, wincing as his dress shirt pulled at the still bleeding wound.
"I'm sorry…," Lars answered softly. "It's my job. I tried to warn you. Why didn't you listen?" Lars's heavy black automatic never wavered from where it was pointed straight at Giuliano's heart.
"So. You belong to those FBI dogs? I never would have thought you'd stoop that low."
"No." Lars shook his head in denial, opening his left hand. Something gold and blue glinted there. A badge, but not one that Giuliano was familiar with. "No. I am an agent of Interpol."
"Interpol?" Giuliano's blue eyes widened in surprise. What did Interpol have to do with…? Oh, the ivory smuggling. Yes, he remembered Lars warning him off that venture.
"Yes. We've been investigating you for a long time. It's…" Lars hesitated, his gaze flickering to the side, as if in embarrassment. "We needed to get close to you. This," and he waved vaguely at Giuliano and himself, "was the only way."
"So you lied your way into my home. Wormed your way into my heart. Gave me your body and lulled me with your words of love. Traditore!" He spat on the floor between them, wincing when the slight movement pulled against his wound. He could feel even more blood seep through his fingers. If he didn't finish this soon, he would faint from blood-loss. Wouldn't that be ironic? Giuliano Ferrara, heir to an old and powerful Mafia family, bleeding out on the floor of a dirty alley, because his lover had betrayed him? Had all the makings of a soap opera. Giuliano chuckled darkly.
"So now what? You're going to arrest me? Have them lock me away forever? Maybe even get me a death sentence? Will you watch, when they fry me?" Every word was a blow aimed at Lars.
"Don't…" Lars' eyelids fluttered as if Giuliano had struck him physically. "Don't be like that, Giulio…"
"Stop! You don't deserve to call me that anymore! That was for the man who loved me, not the man who betrayed me!"
"I… I'm sorry, Giulio – Giuliano. I had no choice." For a moment, Lars closed his eyes, trying to push down the pain threatening to break his heart. Yes, he had betrayed the man that he loved. But there had really been no choice. He was Interpol. It was what he was. More than just a job, it was his vocation. Even if this vocation threatened to tear the only person he'd ever loved as deeply as Giuliano, from him.
The scrape of shoes on concrete pulled him out of his musing. Immediately, he raised his gun again and pointed it at the Italian.
"There's always a choice," Giuliano said, straightening up slowly. "You just made the wrong one."
"I'm sorry. I have to take you in. You know that." Lars shoved his badge into his back pocket, pulling out a set of plastic binders. "Turn around, hands on your head."
"Or what? You're going to shoot me?" Giuliano said, mockingly.
"I already did." Lars admitted.
"What?"
"I was the one that shot you," Lars said, his voice trembling with suppressed pain. "I wanted you out of the action right away. To make sure nothing happened to you."
"And you thought shooting me was the only way to do that?" Giuliano's voice cracked slightly with disbelief. Not only had Lars betrayed him, he'd had the audacity to shoot him!
"I don't think you would have responded to a polite request." Anger and frustration seeped into Lars' voice. "Dammit! Don't make this any harder! Let me take you in. You need a doctor. They'll make sure you get one. Please…." Lars reached out to Giuliano. His gun never wavered, but the hand with the plastic ties trembled slightly.  
"You're too trusting, you know," Giuliano said, his voice very quiet.
"What…?
The sound of the shot wasn't very loud, but in the closeness of the alley it sounded like a small explosion. A small spot of red appeared on Lars' chest, rapidly spreading across the front of his white T-Shirt.
Lars grunted, then looked down at his chest. Then he looked up again at Giuliano, disbelief and surprise in his eyes. Fingers opened and the gun dropped to the ground, bouncing once. Slowly, Lars folded. There was no other way to describe it. First to his knees and then, not even holding out a hand to slow him down, his upper body. He landed on a pile of old newspapers that immediately began to turn red.
Giuliano watched Lars fall. He tried to tell himself that the pain in his chest was only the bullet wound, but he knew better.
"Sir, we have to leave! The FBI isn't far behind!" A large man, dressed impeccably in a black suit and tie, holding a automatic down by his side, stepped out of the shadows behind the fallen Interpol agent.
"Luigi! You came just at the right moment!" Giuliano pushed away from the wall. He crouched down painfully next to Lars. "Pity I couldn't pull the trigger myself. This is better than you deserve, Traditore! A quick death. Had I known earlier, I would have made you suffer a long, long time."
"Giul…" Lars breathed, struggling to hold on long enough to let the man he loved know just how much. And how much he was sorry that it had to come to this. But the words refused to come and his outstretched hand only twitched. Heat was leeching out of him, making him shiver.
Giuliano saw. But he refused to acknowledge Lars' efforts. Instead, he hardened his own heart, thrusting away all memories of love and sex and making himself see only the traitor.
"Farewell, Traditore," he whispered, relishing the pain and remorse on Lars' face like it was the finest Montepulciano. If only he wasn't in danger of bleeding out. He would have loved to watch the light fade from Lars' eyes. Instead, Giuliano reached out to Luigi with one blood-stained hand. The big man helped his boss to stand. Looking down one last time at his dying lover, Giuliano smiled. Then he turned and limped away, leaning on his henchman.
Behind him, on the cold alley floor, Lars' eyes began to close.