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I felt Jax shifting in his seat beside me. He had looked at me like I’d grown an extra head when I’d told him my suspicions. He’d told me I was loco, especially when I’d told him that it was just me and him who were going to end this. I didn’t trust anyone else with the information. I couldn’t afford for anyone else to know; it could cost Alana her life if I did. And possibly Lucia too.
I trusted Jacob; he had been my driver since I was a little kid, but he was little more than a chauffeur these days. He hadn’t been in the thick of the action for over a decade. Besides, I needed him outside for Alana and Lucia, ready to drive them to safety in case Jax and I didn’t make it.
‘I appreciate you doing this with me,’ I said to Jax.
He turned to me and grinned. ‘Where else would I be but by your side, amigo? Until the end. Remember?’ He held out his fist and I touched it with mine.
‘Until the end.’
Half an hour later, the car rolled to a stop a few hundred yards from the house where I prayed Alana and Lucia were being held. Jacob had switched off the headlights a quarter of a mile up the road so they wouldn’t see us coming.
Jax and I slipped out of the car, sticking close to the tree line for cover as we made our way toward the building. ‘Remember the plan?’ I whispered.
He nodded. ‘Kill anyone who moves who isn’t a Montoya,’ he said with a flash of his eyebrows as he took one of his guns from his holster and connected the silencer to the end.
I looked toward the house. There were two men patrolling the perimeter. Jogging closer to them, we each took one out with a clean shot to the neck.
I indicated my head to the back of the house and Jax nodded his understanding as he edged past me. If I was going into this house, then I’d walk in like I always did. Through the front door.
Walking to the front porch, I looked inside and couldn’t see anyone. I took a breath to calm my racing heart. Maybe I was wrong about this? But, if I was, then where the hell were Alana and Lucia?
I pulled open the screen door and as I knew it would, it creaked, alerting the guard who was in the hallway to my presence. He ran to the door, but he didn’t even have a chance to draw his weapon before I shot him between the eyes. I looked down at his body. He had worked for my family for twenty years.
Traitor.
I walked further into the house, the floor creaking softly under my feet. Another man walked out of the kitchen. He looked up at me and blinked as I shot him in the face.
I heard the sound of two more muffled gunshots near the back of the house before Jax walked into the hallway to meet me. He simply nodded at me and I pointed toward the basement. Something about this felt far too easy.
CHAPTER 50
ALANA
I heard the noise above us, like the sound of something heavy being dropped to the floor and I looked across at Lucia. Her eyes met mine and we shared a look of half fear and half hope. This was either someone coming to rescue us, or someone finally coming to kill us all.
I prayed to God that it was Alejandro.
Alejandro’s Uncle Carlos heard it too because he walked over to me and pushed his face against mine. He started to laugh maniacally and I wondered if he had finally become completely unhinged.
‘Here’s your hero, puta!’ he spat in my face. ‘Let’s see just how much he’s willing to sacrifice for his little whore!’
Carlos had brought two more of his men into the basement with us a few hours earlier, no doubt sensing that Alejandro was getting closer to finding out who had betrayed him. The four other men in the room stood in the shadows, with their guns trained on the door. I wanted to scream to whoever was about to come through it that they were walking into a trap but Rafe had stuffed a rag in my mouth earlier and it muffled the sound.
Carlos walked behind me, pressing the blade of his knife against my throat. The blade was cold and I felt the biting scratch against my skin. My heartbeat thrummed against it, aware that a simple slip would have me spilling my lifeblood all over the floor.
Lucia let out a muffled scream and Carlos laughed again.
A few seconds later, the door to the basement opened.
‘I know you’re down there, Uncle,’ Alejandro called and my heart almost burst out of my chest at the sound of his voice. Dear God, please let him and Lucia get out of this. But please just let me tell him how much I love him first. I screamed again into the rag in my mouth and Carlos pressed the blade closer against my skin until I felt the sting of the steel and a trickle of blood running down my neck.
‘Alana!’ he called then. ‘I’m here, princess. I’m going to take you home.’
Then he stepped out of the shadows as he walked down the basement steps. I almost passed out at the sight of him through fear and panic and hope that there was a chance he could save us from his lunatic uncle.
Enzo, Rafe and the two newer men stood behind me, their guns raised and trained on my husband. My heart hammered so hard in my ears I could barely hear anything else.
‘You came alone, Alejandro?’ Carlos asked in surprise.
