Amos Rubio.
In the flesh. In the middle of The Inferno.
The man who hasn’t been seen outside his precious mansion in months is now barking orders to the Cartel in the middle of a populated venue.
This is very, very bad.
I flick off the safety on my gun as I change course toward him. But my line of sight gets disrupted as the bodies around me begin to move again.
Some civilian with a hero complex sees my gun and tries to wrestle me for it. It’s easy to knock him aside, but the momentary distraction costs me. I lose sight of Rubio completely.
I spin around, trying to relocate the place he’d been only a moment earlier, to no avail. My movements become more agitated and desperate until…
Something cold and hard presses into the back of my neck.
“Leon Moretti,” he drawls, overwhelmingly arrogant. “Why am I not surprised that you’re here?”
My entire body tenses as Amos Rubio strolls casually into view. His grip on his gun is lazy as he circles around me.
“Teo Vitale has you doing his dirty work. I’d hoped you’d have more of a backbone, but then again, the Guild has always had a way of chewing people up and spitting them back out again.”
He steps closer, tilting his head. “You chose the wrong side, Moretti. I could have given you so much more than this.”
It’s all just games, trying to buy time or distract me.
“Where is she?” I demand, my voice low and dangerous.
“Who?” he asks, feigning innocence. “Teo’s little spy? Or my precious daughter?”
My stomach hollows out. He knows. He knows about Mia.
Do you think they’re after her?
“It’s my fault, really. I underestimated Teo. Using my darling, naive Carmen like that, luring her out to a place like this in order to what, kidnap her? Torture her for information?” Amos sucks at his teeth.
Wait. Does he think we’re here forCarmen?
“Not really his style. But then I realized,” Amos taps his gun to my chin. “It’s your style, isn’t it? Leon Natali, the man who killed his own mother in cold blood. The man who would send his wife into the field to manipulate a child.”
My mind goes blank. A faint buzzing fills my ears. He can’t know about that. How does he know about that?
It must register on my face because his face splits into a cruel smile. “You were careless, Leon, killing Ivan like that. We were on to your precious Mia before, but you were the one that made us really look. Why else would the don of the Prince’s Guild dispatch Ivan personally?”
He leans in closer. “What was it you said? ‘Tell Amos Rubio this is because you fucked with my family’?”
He’d heard everything. Probably had cameras all over that damn building, and I’d just waltzed in without thinking.
This is all my fault. Mia is in danger because ofme.
I need to get out of this. I need backup. My eyes dart around us. The crowd is beginning to thin. But there are too many men in black surrounding us now, monitoring the conversation.
Teo will be here soon. I just need a bit more time.
“Where is Mia?”
The man chuckles and pulls away. “You know, I don’t think I’m going to tell you that. I want you to panic the way I did when I learned that you’d lured Carmen out here.”
“Carmen came here herself.” Something darts through my peripheral vision, and I do my best to keep staring at the man before me.
