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“Where does it hurt, compañero?”
“Legs,” Darren rasped.
Romero got out of the car and I scooted after him, both of us pausing at the sight of Aaron pointing a gun at the three figures that stood in the intersection.
Recognizing the one in the middle turned my blood to ice.
Todd stood only twenty feet away, looking smug as hell, and painfully alive. The two men on either side of him were unfamiliar, but further back was a pretty girl around my age. She had dark hair, and her stunning crystalline blue eyes narrowed…on me.
Eli, Rafael, and Kieran were out of their vehicle too, Kieran checking on Darren while the other two held scary-looking guns.
The strange, out-of-place girl turned her attention from me to one of the men near me, though I couldn’t be certain who.
“Alright, punk,” Romero said, just loud enough so Todd and his cronies could hear. “You’re old enough for me to put a bullet in your brain without feeling bad.”
My brow furrowed. He remembered Todd?
My ex-bully ignored him, spearing me with his cruel smile. “I heard your pops paid you a visit, skank,” he called. Romero’s teeth audibly ground together beside me. Before I could sprint across and launch my fist through Todd’s face, however, he continued. “It took a bit of digging to find his body, but now the entire Northwest has been alerted to your crime. I even submitted a tip that you’d returned home.”
As if on cue, sirens wailed in the distance.
My wildly drumming heart lurched to a stop. I was a murderer. And I was about to get caught.
“But if you somehow manage to evade the police in every state you run to, just know that Morgan’s men have deferred to me. And we’re coming for you too.” His grin stretched wide, adding to his maniacal expression. He looked behind him at the girl who was once again glaring daggers at me, and gestured her forward.
She tentatively stepped closer, but not where he wanted her, because he looped an arm over her shoulders and pulled her against his chest.
Eli made some strange growl near me, but I looked back to the girl with a mixture of unease and confusion. She obviously didn’t like Todd, but she was here with him, so what was she to him?
Todd pressed his nose into her hair, breathing her in, and she squirmed, trying to get away. Suddenly, I wanted to help her. “There’s just something about Jade that’s familiar. Wouldn’t you say so, Julietta?”
“What the fuck are you on about?” I asked, trying to get his sleezy hands off the poor girl.
He gripped her around the neck, his other hand moving over her hip, lower to where I knew she didn’t want him touching her.
Eli lifted his gun and took a step forward when suddenly, Todd’s guards—who had been statues—whipped out their own wicked-looking weapons to aim for Romero and me. More men congregated in the shadows near the buildings to my right, and straight ahead. Something told me they were to the left of us and behind as well.
I sucked in a sharp breath.
Then the girl—Jade—brought her heel down on Todd’s foot, earning a grunt of pain before she spun out of his hold.
I couldn’t help but smirk at that.
Todd laughed, looking at the brunette girl—whose eyes were wild and bright—with pride. “Ah, that’s it. There’s that spitfire.” He cut his gaze to me. “Feeling anything yet, Juliette?”
I wanted to roll my eyes at his juvenile attempt to rile me by messing up my name, but the more confusing part was that Todd was expecting me to recognize this girl for some reason.
The sirens grew louder. My pulse picked up even more, making me feel like my heart would explode if it kept this up.
“Rafael, get Julietta out of here. Get out of state as fast as you can,” Romero ordered.
I whirled to face him. “Not happening. I’m seeing this through.”
Romero’s hard gaze met mine. “I can’t protect you from the law, Julietta. There’s only so much I can pay to make disappear; an entire police force isn’t one of them.”
Swallowing hard, I nodded. “We’ll fight it. But this ends now.”
Todd snorted. “How sweet. But you’ll all be dead before those pigs find a way through the maze of barricades we set up. Except Julietta. I want her to spend the rest of her life trying to outrun her sins.”
