Chapter 33 #2
Over his shoulder, his eyes met mine. “Lock the door and stay in the car.”
“What’s going on?” I asked. He’d killed Grimaldi… Wasn’t this over?
Instead of replying, he turned back to the four approaching men. All of them carried guns. None of them tried to hide it either.
I glanced up and down the street, wondering where everyone was. Why weren’t there any cops here? Everything that just happened inside Neon Reef could not have been quiet. There were several other businesses on this street.
Were they all pretending they didn’t see?
The barber shop next door had a closed sign on their door even though it was definitely business hours. The boutique on the other side had sheer curtains drawn across the front window, but I could see a shadow hovering at the edge so I knew they were watching what was going on.
Maybe they were afraid.
Maybe I should have been too.
My eyes strayed to Kieran, whose black trench stretched across his broad shoulders, noting his wide stance as he stood between my door and everything else. He didn’t appear threatened at all, almost as if he were bored.
This is why I wasn’t scared. Because Kieran was here. Because we were together. Because I’d handled one hundred percent of my hard days so far, including four attempted murders. Five if you counted me getting run off the road. And yeah, I counted it.
The four men stopped just feet from Kieran. The man in the center spoke, but I couldn’t hear what was said. Kieran said something back, and judging from the looks on their faces, they didn’t like whatever it was. My stomach twisted a little, taking in the guns and how outnumbered Kieran was.
It made me think of Ghost, and I darted a worried glance at the fish store, wishing Ghost was up to backing him up but at the same time wanting him to stay inside because he was already hurt and needed medical attention like stat.
Tapping anxiously on the steering wheel, I pulled my fingers back to gnaw on my nails. The SUV was in park, but the engine was still running. If things got out of hand, I could just run everyone over. I wasn’t sure I was made for killing, but if Kieran needed me, I’d do it.
In a burst of movement, one of the newcomers shouted and launched himself forward. Kieran reacted by grabbing the gun from the man’s grasp, then twisting his arm behind his back. The SUV shuddered when Kieran slammed the man into the front end, and he slumped to the pavement.
The three remaining men converged on Kieran like a pack of starving vultures.
I laid my palm on the horn, blasting the street with a drawn-out honk. Everyone ignored it, so I tried again. Kieran slammed into the hood and was pinned down face-first.
I bolted out of the driver’s seat, my feet slapping the pavement so hard they stung. “Get off him!” I roared, leaping onto the back of the closest man without any hesitation.
He cursed and spun, but I held on, locking my arms around his throat and squeezing. He reached around to grab me, and I pulled his hair, making him howl.
Scuffling erupted nearby, and I released his hair to jab my thumb into the socket of the man’s eye.
“You little fucker!” he roared, reaching up to flip me over his shoulder. I smacked into the ground, breath punching out of me on impact.
The blast of a gun made me roll and raise my arms protectively.
The body of the man who had tossed me over his shoulder fell beside me, a bullet hole in his forehead. For long seconds, I stared, caught in the empty eyes of the dead man. One moment, he’d been alive and breathing, but now he was lifeless.
Tearing my eyes away, I looked up to see Kieran standing there with a gun in his grip and livid eyes. “I told you to stay in the car.”
Someone lunged from behind.
“Watch out!” I warned, but Ghost appeared and knocked him out of the way.
Kieran spun and started fighting alongside his friend, and I scrambled up just as Rett came charging out of the store with a pair of aqua-scaping tweezers.
They looked a lot like the things people plucked their eyebrows with but supersized.
As he ran, he drew them back and brought them down into the man who was squaring off against Ghost.
The man bellowed and looked incredulously at the blunt object poking out of his arm. Seconds later, he lunged for my friend, but Ghost threw himself in the center, and two men leaped at Kieran.
Bang! Bang!
The succession of shots made everyone look.
“Enough! You’re creating a spectacle,” announced a man standing beside the car in front of the SUV.
He was wearing a deep-blue suit without a single crease and a blood red tie. The cufflink at his wrist glistened in the sun when he lowered the gun he’d fired into the sky.
Where did those bullets go?
The back door of the car closest to me opened, and a man stepped out. He was wearing a crisp black suit with a silver tie. He looked a lot like the guy in the red tie.
“You have balls, killing one of my men,” he said to Kieran.
“He should have kept his hands to himself,” Kieran replied, completely unapologetic.
It was one thing to be told your boyfriend was a hitman but entirely another to actually see him do it.
I love him anyway.
“You think you can demand a meeting and then not show up?” the man asked, moving on from his dead associate. He must not have liked him very much because he didn’t seem upset at all. “We’ve killed men for less.”
Realization slammed through me. Oh my God, it’s them.
I gaped, taking in both men, noting how imposing they looked. Both reeked of money, were tall, and had athletic builds. Both also had dark hair and eyes, with the man in the red tie sporting a beard. I stared so thoroughly that I noticed the matching silver rings they wore on their right hands.
The Salvatores. My father’s brothers.
My uncles.
It couldn’t be. I looked nothing like them. They were filet mignon, and I was ground beef from the clearance section. The fatty kind.
There was no way I shared even a shred of DNA with these formidable men. Kieran’s intel had to be wrong. I turned to tell him and realized, while I was spiraling into some weird identity crisis, Kieran was being held at gunpoint.
“No!” I yelled, vaulting over the dead man to throw myself in front of my boyfriend. I held my arms, using myself like a shield. “Don’t shoot.”
Kieran let loose a string of very bad words and grabbed my arms, forcing them down as he spun so he was the one blocking me. “How dare you put yourself between me and a gun?” His voice was nothing more than an angry rumble.
Twisting free from his hold, I turned to face him. “Am I supposed to stand there and watch you get killed? If you’re going to die, then I am too!”
Okay, that sounded a lot better in my head.
Kieran’s face turned a concerning shade of red, and the blue of his eyes deepened to near black.
Uh-oh. Note to self: Never mention dying in front of him again.
A bark of laughter had me leaning around Kieran to look at the man in the silver tie. The second our stares clashed, his dark eyes gleamed with malice. “You think I won’t kill you too?”
Unnerved by the devil in his gaze, I blurted, “I’m your nephew!”
Kieran’s body went rigid, but everything else on the street stilled. One heartbeat, then two passed. Each second felt like an eternity.
And then, finally, a question disturbed the stillness. “What did you just say?”
“U-uhhh,” I stuttered, gripping Kieran’s forearms with so much force it hurt my bones. “U-uh…”
“Bring him to me,” silver tie ordered.
I squeaked, and Kieran went on defense with Ghost jumping into the fray as three men lunged.
One of the men slammed his gun into Ghost’s bullet wound, and he sagged onto his knee.
“Nooo!” Rett yelled, trying to run to Ghost, but he was detained by a gun to the head.
“I’m okay,” Ghost grunted and forced himself to his feet, swaying a little.
“I’m coming,” I called, holding up my hands. “Let them go.”
“No,” Kieran bit out, hissing when he took a hit to the ribs. Instead of running to my boyfriend, I went in the opposite direction, striding right over to the man in the silver tie. I was within touching distance when someone grabbed me from behind, pinning my arms back.
Kieran yelled, but I didn’t look. There was only one way to stop this.
“My name is Haz Maddox. Apparently, I’m Matteo Salvatore’s son.”
Silver tie dude laughed. “You?” he spat, dragging his arrogant eyes from my toes to my head. “A pathetic man like you could never have Salvatore DNA.”
You know, I was really tired of people underestimating me because of my size.
I slammed my foot down on the shin of the man holding me and then spun to kick him in the face as he bent.
He fell back but caught himself with his hand.
As he pushed up, I kicked him in the nuts and then took the gun he’d shoved into his waistband.
The second I aimed it at him, he cursed.
I turned back to my uncle, leveling the gun at him. I made a show of flipping off the safety, you know, just to prove I knew what I was doing.
There was a scuffle behind me, but I kept my stare level on his, not once looking or reacting to what was happening behind me. Kieran was there, and he would handle it.
Another scuffle sounded, but silver tie dude lifted his hand, stopping whatever was going on.
“Your eyes,” he murmured.
Kinda rude he was more bothered by my eyes than the gun, but whatever. “Maybe I don’t look like much, but Grimaldi sure did think I was a threat because he tried to murder me five times.”
“Grimaldi had a hit on you?” red tie dude chimed in.
“Yeah, and now he’s dead,” I said, gesturing to the Neon Reef.
The man in the red tie gestured, and two men went into the Neon Reef to confirm. Moments later, they appeared, and one whispered something to his boss. Red tie pursed his lips and glanced at me briefly before his dress shoes clipped over the sidewalk as he approached.
“It’s true,” red tie told his brother. “Grimaldi is dead.”
“Look at his eyes,” silver tie replied, voice a bit spooked.