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“You know, Greta,” Gabe said, coming to stand next to me, wearing one hell of a smirk, “you’re one hell of an actress. You could make a fortune in Hollywood.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, but living it beats the hell out of reading it from a script.”
I still felt rattled, though. To fake it like that, you had to make yourself believe it, and believing I’d been about to put a hole in Gabe Costa wasn’t a warm and fuzzy feeling.
“You knew we were just buying time?” Brute asked. “Because that was one hell of an act.”
“I didn’t know at first,” I said, shaking my head. “But when Gabe said I’d ‘accidentally’ shot him when we’d gone after Herrera, I knew something was up.”
Brute’s brow furrowed like he wasn’t quite following.
“It wasn’tmewho shot him in Colombia; it was Herrera—after Gabe goaded him into it.”
Brute smiled. It was the best thing I’d ever seen, something I wasn’t entirely certain I’d ever see again when I’d woken up here.
“I was afraid after finding the tracker gone and discovering I wasn’t in Mexico, you weren’t going to be able to…”
Brute scoffed. “I told you I’d come for you, darling.”
He reached for me and wrapped his big arms around me, and something warm and wonderful exploded in my chest. I’d had victories before, and I’d made it out of situations I wasn’t quite sure I’d live through, butthiswas different.
It was soft and tender and explosive all at once—if that made any sense. And it made me really wish that everyone around us would disappear—just for a while.
“Well, it’s great that everyone’s so happy here,” Raven said, coming up next to me with her not-so-happy face on, “but if you ever do that to me again, I’ll—"
I cut her off with a laugh. “Are you trying to say you didn’t enjoy rushing in and rescuing me?”
She shrugged. “Of course, I did. But I was worried about you too. So, how about you let it be someone else who needs rescuing next time.”
“My sentiments, precisely,”SignorLuciano said, as he andZiettoVito came up next to Raven, looking me over for injuries. Their eyes narrowed in on my bloody hand, and the muscles in their jaws twitched.
“Thanks to Mateo, it’s just a flesh wound, not a missing finger,” I assured them, nodding to where Mateo was standing, looking rather uncomfortable amid all the dead Domínguez men around him.
“Leeri told us,” I explained to him before he decided to try to make a quick—and futile—escape. I owed him that; he’d yanked my hand out of the way and talked Domínguez out of separating my fingers from the rest of my body.
Brute nodded. “Mysister’s waiting for you back at the Costa estate. I promised to bring you back in one piece.” He rolled his eyes like he didn’t completely agree with Leeri’s plan to keep Mateo Flores breathing.
“I appreciate that,SeñorHastings.”
“It’s Brute,” he replied. “Just Brute… unless you do something to hurt my sister or anyone else I care about,” he said, turning to look pointedly at me. “Then you won’t be calling me anything other than, ‘please God, make it stop’. Do we understand each other, my friend?”
Mateo nodded, though his jaw was clenched tight. Even though he’d only acted as the head of the Domínguez cartel, I had a feeling he wasn’t used to people talking to him with anything other than fear and respect in their voices.
Shit.Speaking of Domínguez’s cartel. “It wasn’t us he was after, Gabe,” I said. I tried to pull myself away—we needed to leave, now—but Brute held me tight.
“It’s not a problem,” Nico said, coming in from another room. “I’m very glad to see you’re well, Greta,” he said as he wrapped his arms around Raven from behind. “And I appreciate you not putting any holes in my brother.”
Gabe laughed. “You were leaving it kind of late there, weren’t you,fratello?”
“Once you got inside, we had to be sure we’d taken out all of Domínguez’s men who were watching the place before following you in. And besides, it took Aldo a while to find the bomb in Onyx. We had to make sure Dynamite had time to disarm it just in case Domínguez tried to detonate them when he realized we’d played him.”
“Bombs?” Holy shit. Domínguez really had gone all out.
“They weren’t positioned to do a great amount of damage,” Nico explained, “just enough to catch us by surprise had we not been expecting them.”
He glanced at his watch. “Domínguez’s men started to swarm our warehouses three minutes ago,” he said. “Sandro tells me our men have taken down many of them, but it’s likely to go on for some time still unless they choose to run away like cowards,” he said, smiling while cold steel flashed in his eyes.
“Nacio’s men are waiting for them if they decide to try to flee back to Mexico,” Gabe added.
