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Rafael spoke slowly and firmly. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave the car for you to collect later. Right now we really need it. It’s an emergency.”
I had no idea how much the cabbie understood, but he didn’t want to argue with a man with a gun. Leaving the key in the ignition, he bolted from the driver’s seat, and I dashed around to take his place while Rafael re-holstered his gun.
“Was that totally necessary?” I couldn’t help asking as I yanked the wheel to send the car back into traffic.
“No one’s going to drive us there as fast as we need to go,” Rafael retorted. “You put those daredevil skills to good use. I’m going to see what I can work out with Dámaso and the others.”
He’d already swapped his pistol for his phone. As I wove between the other cars and hit the gas to fly through an intersection just before the light changed, his voice took on an even more authoritative tone than it had with the displaced cabbie.
“It’s me. What’s the exact situation there?”
He paused while Dámaso or one of the other defectors must have answered, and a couple of horns bleated their disapproval at my incredible driving maneuvers. My jaw clenched as I tore through another intersection.
Rafael nodded at whatever he’d been told, something about his unyielding posture beside me taking a little of the edge off my nerves. “That’s nottoomany. Do you think there are more in the building? Okay. You know there’s a back entrance, locked on the outside but useable as an emergency exit.”
He fell silent for another longer stretch and then grimaced. “Fair enough. Listen, we’ll burst in through the main entrance right behind these cabrónes. I want you six to move as close as you can to the upper hallway. Watch for the shooters to get distracted—run for it when you have the chance. Keep firing the whole time so they have to keep cover and can’t take too good an aim at you.”
He made it sound almost easy. Like he’d been giving orders in death-defying situations his whole life.
Well, he probably had. He might have been my main bodyguard, but he’d had to work with other members of my mom’s security force on a regular basis. When it came to my safety, he’d had the ultimate authority over the rest.
“Stay on the line with me until then,” he added. “I’ll let you know when we get there. We’re close now.”
I tore around a corner and roared down the quieter streets of the wealthier neighborhood that held the arena. Somehow I didn’t thinkthiskind of attention was what Emi’s friend had been hoping for when she’d made the deal to let us train there.
Could we possibly get out of this not only without any major injuries, but without making the front-page news yet again too?
The arena building came into view up ahead. I sped into the parking lot, wincing at the sight of a fallen security guard Mom’s people must have picked off. So much for no major injuries. Míerda, this situation got worse by the minute.
I jerked up the parking break, leapt out of the cab—and my breath froze in my lungs.
I could see through the broad glass doors that led into the fancy arena. And on the other side of the glass, cringing together with slim hands held over their heads while two gunmen pointed their semi-automatics at them, were three teenaged girls.
They had equipment bags at their feet—one had skates slung over her shoulder. School must have just gotten out, and these were the local trainees who used the rink, arriving for their own practice.
The men holding them hostage hadn’t glanced over at us yet. Rafael shot me a determined look. “I’ll go around through the back door. I can handle the lock. You keep them distracted, and then we go at them from both sides at once.”
I nodded, my pulse now thundering in my ears. As he took off toward the back of the building, I headed toward the front doors, my fingers closing around the grip of the pistol in my pocket.
One of the men’s heads jerked toward me. He pivoted, raising his gun, and I ducked into the shelter of a car parked just ten feet from the door.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I hollered over the hood. “Those arekids. They don’t have anything to do with me or this fight.”
The guy shoved the door open to glower in my direction. “They’re here. That means they’re targets.”
“You’ve already got plenty of other targets inside. Let the three girls go. There’s no reason to keep them.”
He let out a dark chuckle that raised the hairs on the back of my neck. “Your mother doesn’t think so. She figures anyone who gets in our way is acceptable collateral damage. So maybe next time you’ll think twice before you defy the Deadly Rose.”
My stomach plummeted. I wanted to deny it, but I could imagine my mom giving the order all too easily. Even laughing at the thought of my distress at seeing innocent people dragged into our war.
She really had gone off the rails. She didn’t care about the deal she’d made with her Devil’s Dozen colleagues or the impact this rampage could have on her local connections. She’d gone fucking insane in her obsession with taking revenge on me.
And that made a woman who’d already been one of the deadliest in the world ten times more dangerous.
“I don’t know why you’re siding with her,” I said past the dryness of my mouth. Keep him talking—keep him from thinking about anyone else who might be approaching. “She’ll turn on you as easily as she turned on me.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. Because I know when I’ve got it good, and I’m not going to bite the—”
