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Speaking of…
I scanned the intersection. The flashing red and blue lights down the road behind us made my gut clench, but then I found who I was looking for, and relief flowed through me.
Romero was taking on two beefy dudes. His movements were fluid, a hypnotizing dance of death. I couldn’t look away. He managed to knock the first man to his knees, wrapping the strap of his gun around the man’s thick neck, twisting it so tight it looked like his head might pop off. The other guy sported a darkening eye, a split lip, and a nasty gash across his middle that soaked his ripped T-shirt. He didn’t see the trap Romero set, barreling for him, a gun raised above his head like a club.
At the last moment, Romero jerked back, letting the weapon bludgeon the comrade. It knocked out the purple-faced guy. He crumbled to the ground and Romero spun, driving his elbow into the other’s back, then head. The gun whipped back for Romero’s face, but he dodged left.
Before I could witness whatever the final maneuver was, a hot, sweaty body pressed against my back. The cool kiss of steel at my throat made me reel, then a burst of pain against my temple sent me sideways.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
JULIETTA
I awoke to cool air buffeting my face, my breasts, my legs. Ugh, I fell asleep with the fan on, I thought grumpily. Groaning, I tried to turn away, and felt the bite of thin plastic against my wrists. Everything swayed and my head throbbed.
The memories of the car accident and fight in the middle of an intersection poured through my mind like a movie on fast-forward. My eyes snapped open and I had to bite back my scream.
First off, I was naked.
Secondly, I was taped to a chair, suspended by a thick black cord. The city carried on a hundred feet below, oblivious to my predicament.
Lastly, as the seat I was secured to slowly spun, I saw that I was not alone. A curtain of dark brown hair covered the face of a girl I knew all too well. I could tell that she was stripped of her clothes as well, and suddenly my rage flared hot, scorching my very marrow.
“Arie,” I croaked. Clearing my throat, I tried again. “Arie!”
I rotated around to face the building we hung from, spying the open balcony door. It was hard to make out the details, but little by little, I pieced it together.
We were at Romero’s main office building.
I swallowed hard. “Hello?” I called. “What the fuck is going on?”
A man materialized from the shadows within the office. He was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t recall a name. Bald, and built like Mister Clean, wearing black fatigues. I counted half a dozen knife holsters and two visible pistols.
Military?
The way he cocked his shiny head to the side, observing Arie and me without a concern, made me think he was the one that…took our clothes off and hung us here.
“Who the hell are you?” I asked.
The man chuckled. “I’m not surprised you don’t remember me.” His accent was thick. Spanish, I thought. “My name is Castiel. I worked for Romero up until he figured out it was me that sold his information to Morgan Germaine.” His smile was a brutal slash of white.
“Huh,” I said, nodding casually. “That was a bad move.”
Castiel narrowed his eyes, but I continued to spin around, giving him my back. My skin tingled, the instinct to never give an enemy my back making me want to burst out of the zip ties. “I admit that most of my plan has backfired. He survived both times he was shot at, somehow. Then there’s the fact that he managed to bury the evidence of you two fucking.”
He came back into view, looking even more sadistic than before.
“The barely legal pussy he would have thrown his entire empire into the fire for.”
I scoffed. “Seriously, why is my love life the hot topic these days? Get a life. Yeah, the age gap is big, but hasn’t the world evolved to a point where we can love anyone we want to? It’s not like we planned this.” Sure, I was rambling. Part of me hoped that Romero would show up.
Beside me, Arie roused, groaning in pain. I switched my attention to her. “Hey, Arie, you okay, girl?”
My friend’s chair was turned away from me, but I knew the moment I heard her inhale a sharp breath that she was conscious.
“Arie, I’m here. It’s going to be okay,” I said, hoping I sounded braver than I felt. Getting the zip ties off wouldn’t be a problem, and neither would shedding the tape. But swinging the chair back to the ledge without falling to my death would be a little tricky.
Worse still, Arie had begun to sob. “Oh god, why am I here?”
