AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Reaching the door, Dante thrusts it open, and we move as one. The room momentarily oblivious to our presence, allows us to spread out, surrounding the bloodthirsty crowd before they realize it.
It’s one of Romano’s men who spots us first. His beady eyes widen as his gaze swivels around the room. “What the—”
I fire.
The bullet hits him right between the eyes, and he goes down hard, but the element of surprise is gone. The woman kneeling between his legs screams bloody murder, a fine spray of blood covering her face and naked torso.
Dogs bark. Men shout, and more women scream, a continuous backdrop behind the staccato beat of the gunshots ringing out.
I scan the crowd, searching for him. Where the fuck is Romano?
A flash of steel on my left catches my eye, and I turn, firing into the chest of another of Romano’s capo.
He gets off a shot before he goes down, but it flies wide, missing me by a good inch. It spikes up my adrenaline nonetheless, sending a rush through my veins.
“Cutting it a little close there, fratello?” Dante jokes as he appears on my left.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I joke back. Yet, there’s a grim truth in my words. Caught up in the fray taking down sick, twisted assholes? I’m not sure there’s a warm-blooded man who wouldn’t get off on this shit.
Salvatore is going for body shots, taking down the fleeing dogfight enthusiasts with bullets to the kneecaps, shoulders, or balls. He’s not out to kill; his intent is to leave a brutal and lifelong reminder of the consequences of their cruelty.
Orlando stands at the door, filtering the innocent from the guilty. He lets only the women out while viciously kicking back the men to face Salvatore’s judgment.
It’s over quickly—two minutes, maybe three.
Two women huddle in the far right corner of the room, holding onto each other.
“Out,” I bark, nodding toward the door we’d come in through.
They nod and scurry to their feet, hustling around the dead capos that now pepper the floor. There are seven of them—three Mexicans and four Italians, none of whom is Pascal Romano.
I approach the cage in the center of the room. The dogs inside are quiet now, licking their wounds and eyeing us warily as weary survivors of human cruelty. Salvatore oversees the remaining men, a grim collector herding them towards the cage for a poetic twist of fate.
Dante comes to stand next to me and states the obvious. “I feel like something’s missing from this picture.”
“Where the fuck is he?” My tone is calm and cool, but inside, my blood is boiling.
“Rat?” Dante whispers.
I shake my head. “There’s no way Romano would have sacrificed his best men and shiny new Mexican alliance just to keep us distracted. He didn’t see us coming.”
“Perhaps we arrived at the party too early,” Dante suggests.
I take a mental step back and survey the scenario. “What the hell could have made Romano late for his hosting of the first high-stakes dog fight at the Agua?”
The question hangs in the air, unanswered, until realization dawns on me in my father’s words.
“Pascal is not the sort of man to wait for retaliation. He will throw the first punch, which will likely be unexpected and below the belt.”
“Fuck,” A wave of dread washes over me, my pulse skyrocketing. “I’ve been too damn blind,” I admit, anger at my oversight boiling over.
That’s it. He’s identified my weakness. Watching me, he’s seen the pattern of my visits to her. He waited for the moment I wasn’t there and struck.
Without another word, I sprint toward the door, “Dante, with me. Now!”
He must see the panic in my eyes because he doesn’t hesitate to follow. I rush up the stairs, through the pulsating techno-shit, and out the rear exit door to the street. Dante’s footsteps pound against the pavement behind me, thudding in time with my racing heartbeat.
Reaching my Lambo, I snatch my phone from my pocket and toss it to Dante. “Look for FB —Fredo Batti under contacts. Tell him I need his special clean-up here ASAP and to get Salvatore and Orlando away from those men.”
