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I was numb to the world, scrambling to keep my fractured heart intact, because I knew my uncle. The men I loved really were in trouble, and I would need every skill I had to keep myself from falling apart before I could save them.
I wouldn’t be able to check on the men I loved if I died in this house.
“Where the fuck is Enzo?” I yelled in the face of one of the men who was bleeding out. His head lolled to the side, his eyes unseeing. Warm blood coated my fingers as I dug them into one of the bullet wounds. His pained cry was music to my ears.
“The warehouse. He’s at the warehouse by the docks.”
A gunshot echoed as I placed another bullet in his brain before stepping over his body. I shot off a text to my cleaner, instructing them to come secure Dominick’s body, forcing myself to operate as if my men were fine.
CHAPTER 41
NIKO
AN HOUR-ISH EARLIER
I didn’t know why I’d been surprised that Scar had access to a cleaning crew, and a damn good one at that. The lounge off the dining room was already beginning to look back to normal. In a few hours, no one would guess we’d just offed a member of the Circle in there.
The vibrations of my cell phone drew my attention away from where the guys were scrubbing blood off the floorboards. “They aren’t done yet. It’s only been maybe twenty minutes, Caleb,” I said, rolling my eyes that he was already calling.
“Scar’s at Dominick’s.”
Every muscle in my body tensed with those words. What the fuck did he mean she was at Dominick’s, and why was his tone laced with worry and pride? Out of the three of us, Caleb was the one who never doubted her abilities, so the tremor of concern had me on edge as I stormed out of the room. I didn’t even fucking know where I was going, but I wanted to already be moving toward there.
“What the fuck happened?” I asked, practically running toward my car, ready to run every red light in the city to get to her. Fuck, I’d plow through people and cars if I had to. The muggy night air wrapped around me like it was attempting to smother me. My heart was already threatening to send me into an early grave with how quickly it beat.
“Gunner called her. Ryan was taken by Mario, so he and some guy named Dex are raiding the club to get her back. The straitlaced agent is going rogue for his woman.” Respect and understanding were evident in Caleb’s voice. The agent just gained some points in our book. “Sergio is still nowhere to be found, and I doubt Mario is going to survive this showdown. I know if I were in Gunner’s shoes, I wouldn’t let the slimy fucker live.”
“That’s fucking great, but what does that shit have to do with our woman being in the home of the man who abused her?” I spit out. Fuck, I wanted to shoot something or someone.
Caleb’s voice remained steady, helping to keep me grounded in reality instead of flying off into a murderous rage. “News of that shit on the West Coast is going to move fast…”
Understanding bloomed in my mind, but the reality didn’t make me any less tense. “It’s going to cause us problems over here if Dominick hears about Mario being offed. He’d want to know if Maxim had any part of it,” I said.
Our plan had been to frame the mafia for Maxim’s death since there’d need to be a fall guy for when the Circle came looking for their man. We’d hoped that they’d then reach out to Cain or us to take Dominick out.
Two birds, one stone. Get in the Circle’s good graces so we could keep an eye on the fuckers and kill off Dominick and Enzo. But now…
“What does this do to our plan?” I asked, hopping into the front seat.
“I don’t know exactly.” Caleb paused. His uncertainty had my gut clenching and my knuckles whitening against the leather steering wheel. We didn’t like to run into shit half-cocked, and this felt an awful lot like doing that.
“We just dropped Scar off. She’s going in to face her uncle. There was no other way to make it work so quickly. I told her to do whatever the fuck she needed to do to come out safe. Fuck the plan if she had to,” he said.
I nodded in agreement before realizing he wouldn’t be able to see it. “Yeah, I agree. We’ll figure the rest of the shit out, even if we have to execute every motherfucker who stands in our way with our bare hands. She needs to be safe,” I growled out.
“I told her I loved her, Niko.”
My brows hit my hairline. His voice was soft and vulnerable, reminding me of what he sounded like when we were teenagers. What happened to Jessica had hardened him, all of us really, but Caleb turned callous toward the idea of love and relationships.
Scar had stormed in and fucked that all up for him.
Kenji and I knew he loved her. We could see it in the way he acted around her, but I hadn’t been sure he knew he did.
“She has to be okay. She has to come out of there okay.” Panic was starting to seep into his words.
“Caleb,” I barked, starting the engine. “Tell me where the fuck to go and what’s next. We have to do our part, or her risking her ass is going to be for nothing.”
He’d pulled me out of my own thoughts enough times that I knew we needed something to focus on. Something to do.
