3. Savage
Chapter 3
Savage
Staring down the trembling barrel of a stranger's Beretta, I know I'm exactly where I'm meant to be.
But I'm not fucking happy about it.
I didn't choose the cartel life. I was born into it, just like my father had been, and his father before him. Just like Vito, and Sergio, and countless other cartel men and women. Does that mean I wouldn't have chosen it? Power, money, danger. It's every adrenaline junkie's dream.
I can't remember a time I didn't crave this way of life.
Even when my mother was brutally murdered, and my father wrote it off as the price he had to pay for becoming Capo…I didn't want him to quit the cartel. I wanted to find the sons-of-bitches responsible and end their miserable lives. Even years later, when I lost someone else to the never ending cartel war, I didn't walk away.
I sought revenge.
Like a volcano, first came the deadly ash cloud that eviscerated almost a hundred men from Domingo and Bogota. Then came the lava that tore down everything in its path. If my father hadn't reigned me in and sent me away on a sabbatical, more would have died at my hands. My fury was incandescent…but I had to suffocate it. Trap it.
Now it lies deep inside me. Molten magma that swirls and boils, waiting for the tiniest crack to appear.
Where the fuck else could someone like me feel welcome? Who else would accept my psychopathic tendencies, my insatiable hunger for brutal revenge, the bloodlust that's become an integral part of my being?
I don't wish I'd chosen any different. Any of a hundred decisions could have led me to this same outcome.
It always comes down to this.
A moment in time where someone is either going to live, or someone is going to die.
But instead of standing here proud and ready to breathe my last breath…I'm livid that this stranger will decide whether I ever see my wife, Nyx, again.
I only met her a short time ago, but I've been consumed with her ever since. I've never met anyone like her. Someone who grabs life by the balls, and then squeezes . And I know exactly how hard, because she's done it to me before.
Despite the wall I'd built around my heart, in case anyone decided to use my loved ones against me again, I fell for Nyx Gray…and I fell hard.
She bulldozed through my defenses with sheer stubbornness. But I wouldn't have broken my vow against love if it hadn't been for her fierce loyalty. Fuck, I had to marry her. It was that or anoint her an honorary cartel-member. But the latter wouldn't have kept her safe from the bloodhounds on her scent.
If duty hadn't dragged me away from her, I'd still be at her side. Fuck it, we'd still be consummating our marriage like a pair of feral were-rabbits. And as soon as I take care of this woman and her shaking pistol, I'm going to make Nyx ride my cock until we both collapse from exhaustion.
"Who the fuck are you?" I snap.
My cousin, Vito, gives me a worried side glance when he hears the barely restrained fury in my voice.
We're standing in front of some sick fuck's nightmare rendition of The Last Supper, carefully staged from the maggot-infested bodies of Doctor Felipe Gomez and his young family. A man I trusted like my own blood. I have no doubt that it was his loyalty that cost him so dearly.
The woman sneers at me. "Please, as if I'd be that stupid." She points with her chin down the hall, deeper into Doc's house. "Into the bathroom. Move!"
Vito flinches, and I don't blame her. It’s obvious she’s buzzing with adrenaline, terrified out of her mind. But she knows how to pull a trigger, and unless God decides to smile down on us today, I’m pretty sure her gun is loaded.
She's still holding Vito’s phone in her hand, and we both jerk when it beeps with a new message. Somehow, she has enough restraint not to pull the trigger on impulse.
"Now," she growls, shoving the phone into her pocket.
Vito goes first, throwing me an unreadable look over his shoulder as he steps into the bathroom. It's smaller than the dog parlor I locked Nyx in, and the thought puts a cramp in my chest.
Where the hell was all Doc's money going? Why would he live like this when he could easily afford a much larger house in a better neighborhood? Did he have a debt I wasn't aware of?
“Are you a friend of Doc's?” I ask as Vito crowds against the side of the tub to make room for me to step into the bathroom with him.
The woman’s eyes flare when I turn to face her. “Doc?” she sneers as she grabs the door. “Do you even know his real name?” Her voice rises several octaves, her hand starting to tremble again.
“Felipe,” I say calmly. “But he's always insisted on Doc. Do you have something against nicknames?”
“I suppose I do, Savage.” She glances at Vito, then me, and starts closing the door.
She was planning on locking us inside. Because of how little space there is in here, the door opens into the hallway. We both stand there like grim statues, hands still bound in plastic ties, watching as she closes the door.
"Don't do this," I tell her, cold and hard as a fucking glacier.
"Go to hell, cartel scu—" She cuts off with a yell as I barrel into the door with my shoulder, slamming it against her.
Somehow she holds on to the gun, and despite her yell of pain, she even manages to aim it at my head. She'd have fucking killed me if Vito hadn't body-slammed her. He has so much momentum they both skid over the carpet when they hit the floor.
There's a brief wrestling match between the two as I stoop to pick up the Beretta she dropped. Before I can point it at her, Vito knocks her out with a punch to the jaw.
He straddles her, letting out an exhausted sigh like he's just gone three rounds with a world champion. "What the hell is it with women trying to kill you, Savage?"
I don't have to ask who he's referring to. I wish I could say breaking my nose was the worst thing my new wife's ever done to me.
"Nyx wasn't trying to kill me," I remind him sourly.
“It's not love if she hits you.”
I give Vito a hard stare as I step over the woman's body, watching as he rummages in her jeans.
He pulls out two phones, his and hers, and shoves both in his jacket. The plastic ties he finds are next. Then comes a small pocket knife.
She came prepared…but for what?
Vito awkwardly sheers off the plastic ties around my wrist with her knife. I return the favor, slipping the knife in my pocket before massaging my wrists where the plastic bit into my flesh.
“I don't know this chick. Who the fuck is she?"
“You don’t know everyone, Vito.”
He purses his lips. “Not for lack of trying.”
I crouch beside her and click my fingers at Vito. He pulls a pair of plastic ties from his jacket and hands them over as he gives the woman a quizzical scan. I'm doing the same. There's no resemblance to Doc that I can see, but she could be an estranged step-daughter or something. A niece?
Familial connections aside, she could be here to check that whoever killed Doc made a good job of it. But Doc and his family have been dead for several days. Why'd she have left it for this long?
Too many questions. We’ll have to wait to get our answers once we've relocated this woman somewhere safe…and private.
“Shit.” Vito stares at his phone’s screen. “Matt’s been trying to get hold of us. Something about Nyx.”
I shove him so he'll get off her, roll her onto her stomach, and fasten her wrists behind her back. If those two idiots are bickering with my wife again, I swear I'm going to fire them.
“What about her?” I growl out when Vito doesn’t elaborate.
He holds up a finger, widening his eyes when I roll my lips in frustration. “Hey Matt. Yeah, sorry, we got held up.” He chuckles when my eyes dart to the ceiling. Nothing can dampen Vito's sense of humor. Except his father, maybe.
“Wait, you’re where ?”
I rush to my feet, snatching the phone out of his hand despite his bleated protest. “The fuck is happening, Matias?” I grate out, trying to ignore sudden pin pricks of nervous energy flooding my fingertips.
There’s a pause before Mat’s voice comes through on the line. “I tried to stop her, Boss, but it’s Viv, you know? What am I supposed to say?”
“Viv? I don't give a fuck about her. What's happened to Nyx?”
“She’s out with Viv.”
“Out where?”
“They're having sushi.”
My mouth stays open just long enough to croak out, “Sushi?” before Vito takes his phone out of my hand. He obviously realizes I'm too angry to be coherent right now.
“You weren’t trying all that hard to keep her in the villa, were you?” he says, flicking his eyes in the direction of the woman at my feet as he heads out Doc’s house. "Make sure she doesn't leave your sight."
He pauses, then adds a flustered, "Well, no, not if she goes to the bathroom. But then you fucking call us, because I swear to God that woman pisses standing up. If she's taking longer than a minute in there, she's pulling a runner."
"Fuck that, she doesn't leave their sight," I yell.
I don't hear what Vito says. I'm too busy tossing the woman onto my shoulder. I follow my cousin out of the house, mentally listing the number of fuck ups I've been part of recently.
Assassin turned girlfriend, check.
Shotgun wedding to said assassin, check.
Murder scene rendezvous without backup, check.
Guerilla attack by unknown woman, check.
Despite what Vito had told this woman, we didn't have backup coming over here. I thought they'd be better off keeping my wife out of mischief. Not only because my wife could earn a gold medal in getting up to shit if it was an Olympic sport, but also because Doc lives in what I used to consider a safe zone. We never even considered the need for backup.
Something tells me that’s an outdated mindset.