Chapter 8
Niran
It was nice to see that option two was what we had to work with—that they were down on their means and dumb as fuck.
Turning off their security feed on the way to their location had been as simple as hacking into their Wi-Fi system and turning it off, which meant we’d infiltrated the building with absolutely no fucking problem because no one was aware we were even there.
I was almost disappointed by the lack of challenges. I would’ve hoped someone who had the balls to try to kidnap Rico’s husband would at least be a bit smarter and have more resources, but they were just as dumb as a box of rocks.
It was silent when we walked inside the packaging plant, and Alfonzo and I took the lead, covering each room before we allowed Rico inside.
While the man could definitely hold his own, he had us now so he didn’t have to.
And honestly, even if I wasn’t his personal guard, I’d still do it just so I wouldn’t have to hear more of Anurak’s crying if something happened to his Papi.
I’d had enough of that boy’s tears to last me a lifetime.
As we moved deeper into the warehouse, voices began to reach us, though they were faint.
Alfonzo and I split up to come at them from both sides.
Rico went with Alfonzo, along with one of the guards I’d brought with us, and the other two came with me.
I followed the sound of voices, coming to an open door that led into a meat freezer.
And standing in the middle of a circle of about twelve men was my man.
Bento was outnumbered, his lips and fingertips were blue, and he had bruises forming on his face. He was clearly on the verge of hypothermia, if he wasn’t already there. My jaw tightened at the sight of him.
I was going to slaughter every mother fucker standing there for touching my man. For daring to try to take him from me. No one got to touch him but me.
“Rico owes me, and you fucked up my whole plan of kidnapping his husband to get what I want from him—” an older man was saying.
He looked suspiciously like Rico, but I wasn’t focusing on that at the moment.
My goal was to get Bento out alive. And since it seemed like he and the young man next to him were the brains of the bullshit operation—even if the brains weren’t all that much—I intended to take out the ten other men in the room while leaving those two alive for questioning.
And torture. Because their deaths would not be quick. Not after what they’d done to my Bento.
Bento abruptly laughed at the man, but it was cold and menacing. Pride swept down my spine for him. He wasn’t laying down and taking the shit they doled out to him. He was standing his ground, even if it meant his death.
And if there was one thing I knew Bento would always do, it was run his mouth.
He was excellent at doing that. I’d never been able to get that one trait out of him, no matter how hard I tried.
But right then, I was glad I hadn’t. No doubt, Bento thought he was alone in this, and it was clear he wasn’t going down without speaking his mind.
Bento’s loud clapping filled the air, and his grin was damn near maniacal.
“You really fucking think you’ll get what you want from Rico by kidnapping me?
” His laughter grew in volume. “You really are fucking stupid, huh? He must’ve gotten all his smarts from his ma considering he definitely didn’t get them from you.
News flash, dumbass. I’m nothing more than a street rat that Rico rescued.
He couldn’t give two fucks about whether I live or die. ”
Bento was so much more than that. Though he didn’t realize it, Rico looked at Bento as a son in some ways. Rico didn’t just rescue anyone, yet he’d brought Bento home and demanded he be treated with decency. He wanted him comfortable, and he ordered me to mold him into a respectable man.
Rico didn’t care about many people, and he certainly didn’t go out of his way to help them. Bento had no idea how incredibly fucking lucky he was.
“He’ll come looking,” the older man growled, his face coloring with anger at Bento’s audacity to call him a dumbass.
Bento shrugged. “To get revenge for the hell you put his husband through, probably. But to rescue me? Nah. He’s not coming for that.
” I shook my head. The moment Rico had gotten his hands on Anurak, he’d ordered me to find Bento.
I was going to find him regardless, but Rico wasn’t letting Bento die.
Not after all the work he’d put into keeping Bento around.
Bento threw his arms out to the side, and my gut dropped. Was he welcoming them to fucking shoot him? He’d lost his fucking mind. “So come on. Put an end to it, old fuck. Rico’s not coming for me.”
I’d had enough of letting Bento have his fun. They were not putting a single fucking bullet in him under my watch.
“Even if he didn’t, I fucking always will,” I said, stepping up to the entrance of the cooler as I announced my presence. The cold air bit at my skin, but I ignored it.
Bento’s gaze swung to me in surprise, his arms dropping to his sides with a smack. He didn’t have a second to move more than that before the young man who was clearly in cahoots with the older one grabbed Bento and pressed a knife to his throat, pinning Bento to the front of his body as protection.
Smart move. I’d give him credit for that. But putting my man in danger—
I watched a trickle of blood run down Bento’s neck and ground my teeth together. Scratch that. For spilling a single drop of my man’s blood, he was dying fucking regardless. And I was going to spill as much blood from his worthless body just for that single drop he’d made Bento lose.
Everything of Bento belonged to me, and this mother fucker was carelessly wasting it.
“Nice of you to show up,” Bento rasped, not seeming alarmed in the slightest, even though he was between my target, a knife was at his neck, and I had an automatic rifle aimed in their direction.
My lips quirked in amusement. It was rare I let my stoic mask fall in front of him, but I couldn’t fucking help it. Even in the face of death, Bento had a smart-ass mouth. That trait was both endearing and annoying.
“You’ve been mine since the moment Rico brought you home,” I told him. His nostrils flared at my admission. “No one gets to fucking take you from me.”
Then, without warning, I fired off a shot, watching as the bullet whizzed right past Bento’s ear and took out the guard standing behind them.
I rolled my neck around and took out another, watching out of the corner of my eye as Bento took action and snagged his captor’s wrist, yanking it away from his throat and snapping the bones, forcing the man to drop the knife as he screamed in agony.
The fist he swung into the man’s face next had my cock thickening. Despite his frostbitten fingers, Bento swung hard enough to knock the son of a bitch out cold with one hit.
“Alive!” I shouted at him. That mother fucker wasn’t dying here.
Bento nodded once as he turned to face the older man.
The glint of steel caught the corner of my eye, and I swung to face their direction too, hoping to stop the inevitable, but before I could, the son of a bitch fired the pistol in his hand, catching Bento in the shoulder.
Bento shouted in pain, then tackled the asshole to the floor all while blood spilled from his shoulder, pumping hot and fast.
Too fucking fast.
Trusting the other two soldiers to take care of the remainder of the guards, I rushed over to Bento, shoving him aside.
Alfonzo and Rico rushed into the room with the other soldier.
They covered us, taking out those around us, while I flipped the older man onto his back, zip-tying his hands together.
Then, I rolled him back over and spit in his face.
“You’ll pay for that,” I promised him, my voice cold.
Then, I turned to face Bento. He was swaying, and right as his eyes met mine, they began to flutter closed.
I hurried over, grabbing him in my arms before he hit the floor.
My knees damn near buckled under his weight, almost sending us crashing to the floor, but I managed to lock my knees in time, balancing Bento’s heavy weight against me.
“I’ll take care of these two,” Alfonzo said just as the gunshots stopped. “Get him to the hospital.”
Before the command came out of his mouth, I was already lifting Bento’s unconscious form into my arms. Rico reached out to steady me as I straightened. Bento was heavy as fuck, especially when he was basically dead weight, but there wasn’t a fucking thing I wouldn’t do for him.
“Get me to the hospital,” I rasped, not caring I was technically giving orders to one of the deadliest men I’d ever met.
But he didn’t seem to care.
“On it,” Rico promised, already moving ahead of me.