29. Raphael
Raphael
29
Michael and I have a nickname among our allies.
The Twin Grim Reapers
And over time, it became a name our enemies feared.
When we worked together, we moved as one. We know what the other is thinking with just a single look. We were the last thing our enemies saw before we brought death on their heads. And today is no different.
Muted daylight streams in through the warehouse’s dirty windows. The scattered beams highlight the hazy atmosphere of dust and dirt among the maze of towering boxes and pallets, leaving us to move in the shadows like predators hunting our prey, silent and deadly.
Up ahead, a voice drifts, breaking the quiet, and we pause.
“When are they coming to pick up the shipment again?”
I slowly peer around a pile of boxes and count a pair of guards with their backs to us.
Idiots. You should never leave your back defenseless.
“Last time I heard, it was sometime tonight.”
The guard on the right smacks the other’s shoulder. “Hey, that gives us time to sample the product, yeah?”
“I like how you think, man. But I’ve got dibs on that young blonde kid. You know how I’ve got a thing for little girls.”
Fury fills me with their conversation and I don’t need to see Michael’s eyes to know he feels the same. These men are done breathing air now.
Silently, I approach the one on the right from behind, wrap a hand over his mouth, and bury my knife in the side of his neck, killing him instantly. Beside me, Michael is about to do the same to the other guard when he catches sight of me from the corner of his eye.
He turns on me, and I barely dive out of the way in time to miss the bullet he fires in my direction. Michael uses the moment to throw a knife at the man, his aim deadly and true, the blade burying itself in the guard’s neck.
“They’re Triads,” Michael reveals after shoving one of the dead guards over to see his face.
Sure as shit. When I push the other guard over with my shoe and stare down at his face, his Oriental features stand out. “So Xiao’s really behind this, then?”
Before he can say anything back, bullets start flying all around us. Seems the gunshot blew our cover.
Michael joins me behind a tower of crates with a sadistic smile. “Just like that time in Capri, huh?”
“You and I remember that summer in Italy very differently,” I remind him while I reach for my gun and cock it back.
“You have to admit it was fun.”
“We set fire and destroyed half an island.”
“Allegedly,” Michael corrects me. “We allegedly set a fire and destroyed half the island.”
“Because of a dare.”
“It was that or admit to Enzo that I fucked his cousin.”
“But you did fuck his cousin.”
Michael chuckles under his breath. “Exactly. But I wasn’t going to admit that. Even at sixteen, Enzo scared the shit out of me. ”
Rolling my eyes, I count as the bullets start again. When they’re forced to reload, we make our move. Leaving the safety of the wood tower, we each take a side and lay waste to the rat infestation.
“You know, you fucked his cousin too,” Michael says when the last Triad member falls.
“Why do you think I joined you on that dare?”
We kick in a door at the very back of the warehouse and come face-to-face with a group of scared young girls and the pair of Triad members pointing guns at them.
One of them swings toward us, and Michael buries a bullet in his forehead before he can squeeze the trigger. His partner turns, and I shoot his knee out before he can do anything. He falls to the ground in a crying heap of blood and tears.
“Wrong move,” Michael tells him as he steps forward and grabs the gun the guard dropped.
“We need this one alive,” I remind my brother. “For information.”
Michael concedes with a groan, like the idea of leaving the bastard alive for a second longer is highly inconvenient.
While Michael ties up the Triad guard, I tend to the frightened girls including the little blonde girl the guard talked about. A few of the younger ones just arrived from China with the promise of a better life, only to be met with the opposite. Two of the older girls work at one of the Russian’s less exclusive sex clubs, which made them easy targets. And it’s not a coincidence either because they weren't alone when they were brought here. So it seems Evie and Enzo’s research was right, too.
Maybe a few would have ended up as prostitutes working the streets and others as slaves working until their fingers bleed from hard work, but all would have been treated like Lily. Thankfully, nothing more terrible will happen to this group.
I call Enzo in, and together, we load the girls into a van. He offers to take them to the closest hospital, where the authorities will meet them. As they drive away, it finally feels like we’ve gotten a step ahead of Xiao, and I intend to have his head before the week’s over.
“Well, well, well,” I drawl when I rejoin Michael and our guest. “Who do we have here?”
“You fucking Italian bastard!” the man spits.
“Well, that’s rude.” Humming low, I take my knife out and spin the blade in my hand. “Do you know who we are?”
“You’re the DiAngelo brothers,” he hisses through clenched teeth.
“That’s right. Then you also know—”
“That you’re a pair of idiots who think you’ve won when you’ve never lost so hard.” The man interrupts through a wet laugh as blood spurts from his mouth.
I glance at Michael, who stands watching the exchange with a blank expression. “That’s funny. Because from where I’m sitting, you’re the one who’s lost.”
“Don’t you think it was too easy that you found this place?”
“What do you mean?”
“Xiao wanted you to find this place. He needed you out of that tower of yours to get back what’s rightfully his.”
Realization dawns on me, cold and freezing as if a bucket of ice water has been tossed over me. My breath catches in my lungs as my heart seizes.
“Lily.”