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The man closest to me has a red spot on the side of his chin where I made contact. He’s glaring at me and doing his best to disguise his ire.
“Take me back,” I demand.
“If you’re going to threaten someone with a gun, then make sure the fucking safety is off.” Ricardo disarms me faster than I can follow, snatching the gun from my limp grip and twisting it away from me.
He flicks off the safety and points it at my face with his arm straight and unmoving. I gasp, my throat closing.
“Do you know what kind of damage you might have caused? Besides kicking Barry in the fucking balls?” he asks.
Barry, the man standing to the right of us, doesn’t look the least bit perturbed, and I don’t remember making contact with anyone’s testicles today. Not with my foot, at least.
“Take me back, and I won’t have to fight you. I’m begging you. This is my family.” He has to understand. Doesn’t he?
“You’re not going back.” Ricardo refuses to back down.
“Yes, I am!”
The four of them crowd me closer against the car, and I give half a thought to scrambling through the seat and out the driver’s side before they catch me. Ricardo must have sensed the half-formed plan because he grabs my wrist with his free hand, the gun still trained on my face.
“Get in the car, Isabella, and make this easy on yourself. I am not above doing what I have to do in order to keep you safe.”
I take a step forward, but the strong facade is broken by the way my knees tremble, and I almost go down newborn deer style. “You're welcome to try.”
The trembling started in my legs and now travels all the way up to my arms, my shoulders. This uncontrollable shaking they all see and they all wisely refuse to comment on.
I open my mouth to argue further when my cell, forgotten in the middle console, starts to buzz, the sound of several rapid-fire texts sent one right after the other. My eyes widen, stomach swelling again, and I turn to seize the phone.
“Iz, wait—” Ricardo starts.
It might be Mia or Lucia. My thumb swipes across the screen, and the line of messages jumps to life.
It’s neither.
All of the texts are from Drago. The tears threatening my eyes finally break free as I open the screen, the software recognizing my face and opening up to the message thread.
I know what you did, beautiful Bella.
Everything on the zip drive is false.
Which is fine.
Your services are no longer required. I’m prepared to handle things on my own from now on.
“What does that mean?” I’m vaguely aware of Ricardo looming over my shoulder to read the messages, my thumb shaking against the screen as I scroll down. “I don’t understand,” I say, floundering.
Ricardo takes the phone from me, gentler than he’d been when wrestling the gun away. He holds it up to his face before he reacts, throwing it into the ditch beyond the cars.
“Drago is selling your ownership,” he tells me in mincing terms. “He’s included the information in the text thread. This move against your family is not just to establish himself as competition.” He rakes a hand through his hair, looking paler than I’d ever seen him despite his olive skin tone. “He plans to absorb us all and take over the entire operation.”
I fall against the side of the car, utterly numb. He sold my ownership? How…how can he do that?
“Today’s attack on the house is nothing but the initial flag being dropped,” Ricardo continues. He paces slightly as he thinks. “A start to the games because he knows the takeover won’t be easy. He doesn’t want it to be easy. He wants chaos.”
“Bloodshed,” I add, picking up the thread of conversation.
“Yes,” he agrees. He doesn’t seem the least bit concerned by the presence of the others listening in on us, although one of the men has gone to fetch my phone. “He wants as much destruction as possible. Hey. Focus on me.”
I’m unresisting when he pulls me into his arms.
