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“Fuckin’ fancier.” Shaking my head, I turn when Tim does and follow him up the stairs and toward the house.
The interior is lit up like Times Square at nighttime. The chandelier that Pastore paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to install sends glittering light spearing into every corner of the home that is more of a mansion. Servers spill their trays, guards race to secure the house, and yet, we walk on through.
They’re blind to our arrival. Or they’ve been paid by Felix to act as such.
“Cato!” He snaps our youngest’s name and points toward the staircase leading up. “You go that way. Find Micah.” Then he racks his shotgun and points straight up at the chandelier. “Emilio Pastore! Come out, or the pretty light gets it.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I groan. I lower my rifle and take out my handgun.Better the tool I know.
Flipping the safety off and bringing it up when a soldier turns my way, I point to the center of his face and stare deep into his eyes. “Don’t,” I warn. “You’ll lose your head, and then I’ll feel bad about it.”
“Emilio. Fucking. Pastore!” Felix shouts again. And because he’s impatient, he shoots off a round that sends buckshot spraying through the crystal display. “I won’t ask a second time, asshole.”
“What the fuck?” Emilio sprints into the room on shiny shoes and in a three-piece suit thatalmostputs Felix’s to shame. His hair is gelled back, and his eyes bulge with venom. “You come into my home! On my birthday!” His shaking hands cling to a Glock Iknowhe’s used to shoot my brother this week. “You come in here, and you dare to make this mess?”
“You took our brother and sent a piece of him home in a fucking mailer!” Felix re-racks his shotgun and points it at Emilio’s gut. “You hurt one of us, when we never hurt one of yours. Business is business, and turf is turf. But we didn’t spill blood like you did. So that tells me we have a debt to settle today, and an apology coming our way.”
He looks to Tim on his right, as though in search of agreement, and though Emilio’s soldiers run closer to take their boss’ flanks, Felix hardly gives them a look.
Maybe they’re ours and Pastore just doesn’t know it yet.
Or maybe he’s fucking crazy and doesn’t give a shit if he’s shot.
“We come for our brother,” Tim commands. Drawing all eyes to him, he stares Emilio down with murder in his gaze. “We take him home. You apologize. And we’ll go back to dealing with business like the fucking gentlemen we’re supposed to be.”
“You don’t come into my home and make demands!” He shifts his gun and points it toward Tim. His finger pulses beside the trigger, throbbing with want, while the rage burning in his glare has me stepping closer.
I promised Minka I’d be safe, yet my legs bring me to a stop in front of Pastore’s gun.
“Return Micah,” I seethe. Though Tim drops a hand to my shoulder and tries to pull me back, I stay planted in place and aim my weapon so when Emilio takes one of my bullets, he won’t walk away with his life. “You will bring him to us now. Then we’ll discuss your disrespect.”
“Mydisrespect?”
He throws a glare over my shoulder when shuffling feet stop at the top of the stairs.
Turning to follow his gaze, I find Cato bent under Micah’s weight. His strength and height are impressive for a kid, but they can’t hold all of Micah’s two hundred pounds of injured man.
Bruised and beaten face. Bleeding jaw. His arm pulled close, as though it’s been broken. He sways in place, and leans on Cato as though his life depends on it.
I haven’t seen Micah in person in sixteen long years, but that time disappears when our eyes meet, and his glitter with a pain deep inside his soul.
“My disrespect!” Pastore screeches again, pulling my attention around and flaring my temper a notch higher. “You violated my home!”
“You hurt our brother!” Felix booms. “He’s gray! Why does Micah look like he’s already fuckin’ dead?”
“Cordoza will kill you.” Ignoring Felix’s question, Pastore looks around the mostly deserted room, nervous despite his armed guards. “He’s due here any moment, and you’ve made my house a warzone.” Haunted, a slow grin slides up to the side. “He’ll kill you for your insult.”
“No.” Tim steps around me so I’m no longer his shield. “Cordoza knows not to come here. You’re foolish if you think we didn’t send word to him first.”
“And if hedoescome,” Felix adds giddily, “we’ll welcome him. Because we have control of this house, and you’re nothing but a bastard who drew blood when blood wasn’t necessary. You changed the game, Pastore. You involved family when it wasbusinesswe needed to discuss. It’s not our lives you fear Cordoza will end. It’s your own.”
“He’ll wipe us all out.” Pastore brings a shaking hand up to wipe his bottom lip. “It doesn’t matter what you think you know, he won’t stand in this room and ask questions. He’ll see a threat—a threat theMalonesbrought here—and he’ll kill you first, and figure out whatever the fuck is going on later.”
“Will I?” Estefan Cordoza’s deep baritone brings me around with a sharp twist that burns my shoulder.
My stomach drops at the rage I see bubbling in the elderly man’s biting eyes.
Pastore isn’t entirely wrong; if Cordoza wants us dead, he’ll do it without a lick of remorse.
