Page 96 of Chris

Chris took in the darkening sky as the town car crawled through a busy section of the city. His driver, one of the Lòpez grunts, kept quiet throughout the drive. The man in the passenger seat, only there for decoration because he did nothing else, also remained silent throughout the drive.

Not that Chris cared.

He had other things on his mind.

A few miles from the airport, the two men in the front conversed back and forth in Spanish. It still left Chris out of the conversation, mostly. He had picked up a few words and phrases since his time here, and some language was close to Italian—or rather, close enough he made do.

“Happy … gone,” he caught from one.

“It is who Jorge is,” he understood better from the other.

Chris almost chuckled, understanding they were talking about him, and that Jorge wanted to see him go. He was fine with that, too, but he would be a hell of a lot better once he took Valeria and Maria from the man’s clutches.

Soon, he told himself.

It would happen soon.

“What time is the flight again?”

The quick switch to English had Chris looking forward to meet the driver’s stare in the rear-view mirror. A brow raised in question to his silence, but Chris said, “Five-twenty.”

“Ah, we’re making good time, then.”

Chris checked his Rolex, saying as he tilted his head down, “Looks like it.”

“What the fuck—Juan!”

He didn’t get the chance to find out what the other man in the passenger seat shouted about because the impact of something hitting their car sent Chris flying across the back of the vehicle. He hadn’t buckled in. A mistake. His head cracked against the glass of the rear passenger window, but that was the least of his worries.

Tires screeched and crunched.

Metal crashed.

One man cursed, another yelled.

Chris’s ears rang as he flipped over in the backseat again, unable to stop his body from rolling all the way to the other side of the car. This time, his shoulder snapped hard against the plastic of the door, an ache spreading.

He didn’t focus on the pain.

Not when adrenaline coursed through his system, making him hyper aware of the bits of debris flying all around his head, and the force of the rolling car sending him flying to the roof on his back. Holy shit.

He should have buckled up.

The car came to a stop, but on its top. Chris rolled over to his knees, the pressure in his ears making the men’s voices from the front sound like they mumbled under water. His hands scraped against the shards of glass that had littered the roof of the car, but he barely even felt the sting when it cut his palms.

“Fuck,” he mumbled, still trying to figure out what happened.

What had happened?

That hit he took to the head made his vision cloudy, and his mind slow. Too slow. He lifted his head, nausea filling him as his hearing came back with an almost painful clarity. Outside of the car, an alarm sounded.

Their vehicle?

Maybe.

The alarm didn’t concern him.

The three men coming for the car did.

Shit.

The men said nothing, and the fools in the front of their overturned vehicle didn’t even have time to react before they had leaned in the car with guns aimed. Guns with silencers already attached.

Pop.

Pop.

Two shots.

Two men dead.

The three men didn’t even speak together as they worked. This had been planned, obviously, and they understood what they had to do. Simple as that.

Chris blinked, seeing the blood that sprayed against the side of the windshield that hadn’t broken into little pieces like the rest. The rusty tang of the blood filled the car, and gunpowder, freshly fired, mixed with it. He’d smelled that before. It still made his stomach roll into knots all the same.

The third man, the one who hadn’t fired his gun, kneeled to stare in the back seat where Chris remained on all fours, trying to figure out his next move. Any other time, and he would have already been dead.

“April showers bring May flowers,” the man murmured, his English decent, but his accent still thick, and clear. Chris heard the words, and understood what they meant, but his shock still hadn’t died yet. “Tell the Lòpez family the Garcías aren’t going anywhere, Canadian, and because of their deal with you, the war is on.”