Like he can hear my inner thoughts, he mutters, “I’m going as fast as I can—”
“But you’re too fucking late,” I mumble when the flash of headlights beams through a window above my head. “Trey is here.”
“Fuck!” Rocco curses down the line while India drags a table into place for her Russian roulette game.
“I’m almost there,” Smith promises as his fingers tap wildly on the keyboard of his multiple laptops. “Just a few more minutes.”
“We don’t have fucking minutes.” When India’s eyes snap to mine, I nudge my head to the room K and Eight are kept in. “Get them in here now.”
I whisper in K’s ear that everything will be okay while leading her into the room. She doesn’t acknowledge me. With how quiet she is, it is as if she hasn’t even sensed our presence. No whimpers escape her lips when I loosely tie her to the chair. She doesn’t scream for help. She remains perfectly still, the tiny flutters in her baby bump the only indication she’s alive.
As a shadow casts over the stairwell, I conceal myself in the dark nook in the far corner of the room. I’m tempted to end it all now, to take India down before she can harm another family, but no matter how many times my brain screams at me to curl my finger around the trigger, I can’t. If I kill India for my own selfish reasons, I’ll be trapped in hell for eternity. But maybe, just maybe, if I free the women who have been held captive for almost a decade, my good deed could excuse all the bad things I’ve done. My patience, my trust, and my wish to be with Demi again are all riding on that pardon. If I give that up, I will havenothingto root for, so for that reason, and that reason alone, I will follow India’s plan until Smith tells me otherwise.
It only takes half a second for the videos India acquired specifically for him to rip Trey’s heart out of his chest. While rambling incessantly, he fires at the televisions pushing him to the brink of insanity before he swivels on his feet to face the direction sniffling is coming from. K must have sensed his presence. She’s no longer the zombie she was only minutes ago. Her chin is held high, and her chest is rising and falling in rhythm with Trey’s.
I’m not sure if the gun India is butting against her ribs is responsible for that or Trey’s roar. “What the fuck is your issue! Did daddy spoil his little princess too much she’d rather run his legacy into the ground than see it thrive?”
I miss what India replies. I’m too stunned by Rocco’s announcement that there’s a sniper dot on the back of my head. “Stay real fucking still, Ox. He’s coming to you. He’ll land at your six in five, four, three, two, o—”
The ‘o’ of one only just leaves his mouth when I ram my gun into the sniper’s groin, spin around, snatch his rifle out of his hands like Dimitri did Rocco years ago, then smash my fist into his nose. When he stumbles back with a groan, I silence him with my boot. Since my headspace is a little better now than it was when Demi was locked in a room with her uncle, I only imprint my boot into his face once.
There’s only one person I want to kill today.
This man isn’t her.
“Fuck,” I breathe out slowly when a bead-like device rolls from his ear. “He’s wired.”
“Could he be India’s outside guy?” Rocco asks.
Even though he can’t see me, I shrug before bobbing down to gather up the listening device. When I push it to my ear, shockwaves rocket through me. I recognize the voice on the end of the wire. It’s Agent Machini.
“No one is to make a move until I say so. If you move before ordered, I’ll expect your badge on my desk first thing tomorrow morning. Target is to be brought in alive. I repeat, India is to be brought in alive.” She’s either psychic or I breathe funny because I barely push out a shocked breath when her grumbly tone is replaced with a soft, pleading voice. “Maddox… is that you?” She must take my silence as a yes. “I need you to listen to me, okay? Your meeting with India is a setup. She knows who was behind the messages. Dimitri’s crew is one of the loose ends she wants to tie. I need you to leave now. Seek shelter in the tree lines. I’ll be there in a matter of minutes.”
“I can’t. It’s too late.”
Not just for India, but for me as well.
“It isn’t too late, Maddox. It’s never too late.” She can say that because she doesn’t know one of her colleagues is lying unconscious at my feet. Furthermore, I’m too deep in the dark to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I’m too tired to search for it. “If you go through with this, you will start a mafia war. This is part of India’s plan for world domination. She’s pitting the Petrettis against the Popo—” Her words are silenced by thedoofof a bullet zipping through a silencer.
“Agent Machini…”
Nothing but gargled breaths sound out of my earpiece.
She’s either running or choking on her own blood.
“Macy!”
When nothing but sickening silence sounds out of the earpiece, I take my frustration out on the wall next to me. I get in two solid punches before Smith backs up her claims something is amiss. “The man lying unconscious at your feet is Special Agent Wraith Felix. He’s been in the Bureau a little over four years. He’s clearly rogue. I don’t know any agents with 200K in an offshore account.” After a handful more keystrokes, he advises. “His parents are Czech citizens. They live in the town the Dvoráks once ruled.”
“Fuck!” I curse out while pacing back and forth. It’s the only way I can think lately—by stomping out my frustration.
After a couple of seconds of contemplation, I ask, “How will this start a war?”
Rocco clicks the pieces of the puzzle together faster than Smith and me. “If India makes it appear that you and Trey took each other out, the Petrettis and the Popovs are required to intervene. The Popovs will retaliate on behalf of Trey, the Petrettis for you.”
“But I’m not a Petretti.”
“Empirically, you’re not,” Smith agrees. “But metaphorically, you are. Demi could change her name and her looks, but she would remain a Petretti no matter what, as would any child she birthed. Your baby may not have survived, Ox, but the rules we are governed by still acknowledge it. That child made you a Petretti.”
