43
3, 2, 1
I was bout to go to sleep when I heard Romeo shouting from the floor above.
I thought he was having a nightmare, so I got up ipso facto. The sound of drawers opening and closing as I went up the stairs gave me a bad feeling. He wasn”t sleeping, unless he was sleepwalking, which I doubted.
I had been suspended in limbo for an hour, in that place that kept me in between, admiring each memory, pausing in front of them, with a bare gaze and a mind full of contradictions. All of this was neither staged nor faked. He and my brother were friends. Friends! And each image added more weight to Romeo”s words that it wasn”t him. I reached the door of his room and knocked before opening.
”I heard you scream, is something wrong?” He was half-dressed and looked disheveled.
”Aleksa and Andrey have disappeared.” I raised my eyebrows at his excessive concern. Just because his man and mine weren”t at home didn”t mean anything. Well, something maybe. A smile curved my lips.
”Relax, they must have gone out for a walk and to bond,” I suggested sarcastically. He looked at me, lost in an equation that I had long understood. My guy and his had gone in search of privacy. They wanted to have sex again; that was what this smoke bomb was about.
”What the hell are you talking about?”
”Well, they are grown up enough for you not to go out at ungodly hours looking for them. They know how to get home and don’t need daddy daycare to rescue them.” I crossed my arms in the doorway while he slid the black shirt over his abdomen.
”You don”t understand. They haven”t gone partying! It”s not about that!”
”Then what?” Now I was the one who didn”t understand.
”Camilo and Mijaíl were patrolling around the housing development and they came across the car Aleksa was driving, crashed into a tree with no trace of your man or mine.”
”Did they have an accident? Maybe someone picked them up and took them to the hospital.”
That did worry me.
”Their phones are off, and there was a bullet casing on the road. It wasn”t a casual accident, they were targeted.”
”Chyórt![2]” I cursed. ”I”m going to kill those bastards; it must have been the same ones who shot at me this morning.”
”I”m afraid so, and we need to find them. The problem is we have no idea where to start. And if they went after your man and mine, I can only think of one name.”
”I can find them.” Romeo furrowed his brow.
”You?”
”Yes, Andrey has a tracker and I guarantee they haven’t found it.” I had come up with the phone in my hand. I entered the unlock pattern and went straight to the app that would give me his real-time location.
”What are you talking about, Nikita? A telemetry bracelet like the ones prisoners wear?” he asked incredulously.
”Something a bit more sophisticated and discreet. All my men wear it. It’s for safety. It’s a microchip, under the skin, it not only tells us where he is but also measures his vital signs. I don’t know if I told you that I had an uncle who was really into cutting-edge technology... He used them for other things, of course.”
”Have you chipped them like dogs?”
”It”s not about being an animal or a person, it”s about their safety. We had an incident in St. Petersburg that could have been avoided if we had had such technology. Believe it or not, I don”t use it to see if they”re going to have sex or take a piss. Only when it’s absolutely necessary. Come, take a look.” Romeo stood behind me. ”This app on the phone gives us their location with millimetric precision.” I entered the alphanumeric code for Andrey and the place where he should be appeared. Romeo let out an expletive.
”Shit!”
”What?”
”I recognize that location. That land was supposed to be ours, but Cheng beat us to it. There”s a hotel under construction there that belongs to him. I know where it is. It”s forty-five minutes away via the AP-7.”
”Twelve if we take the Ferrari and I drive,” I stated without waiting for his response.
I went straight to my room; I also needed to change out of the party dress I was still wearing.
Romeo went to Ana María”s room to wake her up and ask her to look after Adriano while we were out. I had enough time to arm myself and head down to the parking garage, eager to put those spring rolls in their place.
My husband had already made the necessary calls for our men to get moving and head to the hotel site. We didn’t know what we were facing, nor would we know, until we saw it with our own eyes. Both of us reached for the driver”s seat.
”I already told you I was driving,” I protested defiantly.
”You”ve already messed up the Divo today.”
”That wasn’t my fault, and besides, if I have you as my co-pilot, you can shoot them before they shoot us. Didn’t you say you had marksmanship Billy the Kid would envy? Well, I”m fast, effective, and I’ve never had an accident. Let me prove it, or don”t you trust your wife?” My husband sighed and finally gave in, moving to the passenger side of the vehicle.
As soon as we got in, I floored it and pushed the 812 to 300 km/h.
Romeo was pressed into the leather seat by the speed.
”Cazzo![3]”
”Relax, amore, taming beasts is one of my passions.”
The tires screeched as I spun the car to park. As promised, we arrived in twelve minutes and fifteen seconds, to be exact. Our men couldn”t catch up, even though they had left earlier. From the conversation Romeo was having, they were just three minutes away.
”Remind me next time not to listen to you,” my gaunt husband commented.
”Why have cars like these if you don”t let them fly?”
”Because there”s a difference between what they can do and what I want to do with them. For example, I married you knowing you have the cold blood to take on the whole world, and what I want from you is for you to make me lose sight of the world on top of your body.” I rolled my eyes.
”Come on, let”s forget about worlds and reclaim what”s ours.” As soon as we got out of the sports car, I saw a red dot on Romeo”s forehead that made me react instinctively. I turned around, drawing my silenced pistol, and fired, calculating the trajectory through the light, hitting my target without missing.
”You”re welcome,” I said as the first body fell on the asphalt. He had been perched on the roofing of the hotel, which was above our heads.
”Holy shit! That was incredible.”
”I”m not too shabby myself,” I boasted.
”I meant that you just saved my life! I could have been a widower!” he exclaimed incredulously. I hadn”t even thought of that.
”Don”t get too excited, Romeo. It was pure instinct, and if anyone”s going to kill you, it”s going to be me. And don”t look at me as if there”s something more between us than the dopamine from the sex.”
”Your actions contradict your words, you”ll realize that, even if you want to call it sex, what we have goes beyond that.” Romeo drew two of his guns and emptied the magazines over my shoulders. The groans followed soon after, along with our men”s cars.
I turned to see a couple of Orientals staining the parking lot red.
Romeo holstered his weapons, grabbed my arms, and scraped the fine skin of my neck with his beard.
”You”re welcome, amore,” he purred into my earlobe.
”Now we”re even,” I murmured, barely hiding the admiration I felt. ”Let”s go get them, amore.”
We quickly devised a plan with our men. This was a damn skyscraper and we were not alone.
We split into two groups, one to lead the way, and the other to take the back access.
As we spoke, we kept looking around.
”Andrey is still alive and, according to the app and the laws of arithmetic, he has to be on one of the top floors. We assume Aleksa is with him, so our goal is to get to them before they are killed. Understood?” The men nodded.
”Be careful, keep your eyes peeled, we don”t know what we”ll find inside,” Romeo stressed. ”And now, disperse.”
We were six, and four more went around the back.
The access door was locked, so we shot one of the glass panels to enter.
The shards flew through the air like a shower of diamonds at our feet.
There was no one visible in the lobby. The elevator was operational, but we didn”t trust it. Someone could shoot the cables and send us plummeting. It was time for some exercise.
Romeo nodded towards the stairs.
Still, we left two of ours posted in front of the elevator. Just in case they decided to use it.
We headed for the central stairs while the rest of our men took the service ones. My heart was racing. I couldn”t lose Andrey, much as he had screwed up, I trusted him. I valued him. As soon as we reached the stairs, we were greeted by a gunshot that lodged in one of Romeo”s men”s leg at thigh level. He threw himself to the side and responded by blowing the brains out of his attacker, which scattered on the floor. My man took off his tie to make a tourniquet.
”We can”t waste more time,” I complained, eager to go up first. Romeo stopped me.
”Wait.”
He called one of the boys who was at the elevator to help the
wounded and asked the other to go up with us.
The two men who were still in one piece would lead the group as a vanguard.
We began climbing the stairs, pointing in all directions. My blood flowed altered with a thirst for vengeance.
The bullets whistled. Those damn cowards were shooting at us from the upper floors hoping to hit their mark. The projectiles threatened us by embedding in the walls, bouncing off the wrought iron railing to end up forgotten on the floor.
”Stay behind me,” Romeo muttered.
”Since when did I miss something and you became a fucking bulletproof vest?” I pushed on, climbing more steps.
”I don”t want to carry your death on my conscience. Yuri”s was enough. Think of it as if by protecting you, I”m doing myself a favor.”
”I doubt that...” His face sought mine.
”You would have already killed me if you thought I was guilty. You know as well as I do that I”m not lying, even though it”s hard for you to admit it.”
I pursed my lips and we continued climbing. I had that damn sensation pushing in my chest again. Why? What had changed that now I saw my husband through a ”maybe you were wrong,” instead of a ”it”s definitely him”? My head was going to explode and I would have a heart attack because of him. I needed to calm down and focus my emotions. That Capulet couldn”t disarm me. I fixed my gaze on his broad back and kept moving forward.
”How much further?” Romeo questioned.
”According to this, a couple of floors,” I commented, glancing at the phone I safeguarded in my left hand.
Something rolled down the stairs, a sort of metallic cylinder that ended up at Romeo”s feet.
”What the hell?” he inquired, not finishing the sentence as he lunged for the object. In a fraction of a second, he threw it with all his might down the stairwell, shouting, ”get down!”
We all ducked, tasting the end in the pits of our stomachs, he threw himself thoughtlessly over my body and the detonation shook the building. I thought we wouldn”t make it out. My ears rang sharply.
”Damn Chinese!”
”Govnó!” Under the weight of the male body, I touched my fingers to the tragus of my ears to press on them. I opened and closed my mouth like a fish.
”Are you okay?” I could hear amid that annoying sound. It was my husband again concerned for my well-being.
”Yes, and you?” I replied, noticing the loss of his weight on my muscles. One of the steps dug into me, but that mattered little.
”I”m whole, which is a lot.” He stood up and offered me a hand to help me up. ”Let”s move before they shoot us or we blow up.”
Romeo gave the order to our men.
We knew we were close when the rain of lead made parts of the wall jump. A projectile hit one of my men in the forearm. Romeo made a dangerous dodge over the railing that caught the Oriental holding a machine gun that had just jammed by surprise.
The response was as immediate as it was lethal. The Cheng man took a bullet to the chest that made him sway, bring his hand to the impact spot in a sad attempt to save his life, and fall through the same gap where he had thrown the explosive.
We managed to reach the target floor feeling screwed.
”They might be using Andrey or Aleksa as human shields. Watch what you shoot at, make sure it”s not them, I don”t trust these bastards, I have a bad feeling.” I sought Romeo”s gaze, which was anything but reassuring.
”Nikita is right, keep your eyes peeled, let”s not kill our own.”
We crouched on either side of the door. I was sweating like everyone else and boiling with impotence because they had
screwed us. Romeo counted down with his fingers.
3, 2, 1.