Chapter 21 The Pawns #2
I could feel my face twist into an ugly scowl before dropping my empty rifle for the Sig I still had in my pocket, aiming it at Matt’s stupid face.
“Fuck you, Matt. We have a better chance at a reunion than you and Kayla, you delusional fuck.”
Unphased by my threat, Matt quickly raised his Glock, pointing it directly at me. “Shut the fuck up, Jaden. You’re the reason I lost her in the first place, you lying little bitch.”
“That’s right, I am,” I affirmed, stepping closer to him, and then swiftly kicking him right in the balls.
He doubled over, groaning loudly while giving me the opportunity to disarm him, then pistol whip him across the face so hard that he fell back onto the stairway.
“And I’ll be damned if I let you think for one second that you’ll ever get her back. ”
Matt chuckled lightly as he wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth where I hit him. “You fucking women,” he began, groaning to himself as he adjusted his ball sack in his pants. “Always thinking ahead of yourselves and never living in reality.”
I cocked a brow at him. “Says the man currently staring down two barrels who acts like he’s walking out of this house alive,” I replied bluntly. “I was going to keep you around long enough to help me find Jason’s team, but I think I’ll manage without you just fine.”
Matt grinned something ugly, his eyes brightening under the guise of what could only be nefarious intentions. “What team are you talking about?”
The question made my stomach clench with dread.
“The one that Sid spoke of. The one that was supposed to be sent here to find me!”
“Oh, you mean the team I disposed of right before I got here? Yeah, I wouldn’t expect them anytime soon,” he answered smugly.
I could feel my chest growing heavy as I watched the smirk on Matt’s face bloom into a full-blown bloody grin.
“You’re lying,” I forced myself to say. He had to be.
He tilted his chin, and his eyes suddenly grew dark. “Am I?” he taunted. “You think I’m going to allow those fucking Boy Scouts to keep me from what’s mine? Not on your life. They’ve outlived their usefulness. And so has Jason.”
An animalistic snarl instinctively ripped from my throat at what I had always known to be the truth. “I knew they couldn’t fucking trust you.”
Matt shook his head at me. “I already told you, Jaden, trust doesn’t exist in my world. You only live long enough to serve my best interests. That’s it. Threaten them, and I will eliminate you. You should be intimately familiar with that philosophy by now.”
I could feel my teeth grinding into each other, the pressure causing my jaw to ache as angry tears welled in the corner of my eyes.
“Oh, I am,” I growled, clutching the guns in my hands tightly.
“More than you know, in fact. But while you benefit from keeping certain people alive to serve you, I find that orchestrating their deaths is far more beneficial, especially your cousin’s.
The tricky part is getting the right person to pull the trigger. ”
Narrowed dark eyes glowered back at me. “What in the fuck are you talking about?”
My smirk practically split my face in half, knowing I officially had his full attention now.
“Just like you fucking men,” I mocked him, “Regina also had an ego problem that was easy to exploit. It wasn’t difficult to provoke her into pushing Dominic to go to Honduras, where I hoped he would run his mouth like Darren feared he would.
Which, by the way, I would never have known about had you kept your mouth shut about Javier.
It’s why Darren rarely discusses business in front of me, because he knows how much of an opportunist I am.
So thanks for that. It was very instrumental in making all of this happen,” I added, waving my hand at the growing destruction around us.
A scowl deepened Matt’s features as he absorbed my words. “So you’re saying you used my cousin to push Darren’s youngest brother into a situation that you knew would most likely get him killed in hopes of starting a war?”
I nodded enthusiastically. “Yep, all thanks to you. You’ve actually been a surprisingly helpful little pawn in all this.
Isn’t it funny how irony works? I use Regina to kill one of Darren’s brothers, hoping it would start a war between Darren and that cartel, and when that worked, I then use his last remaining brother to kill Regina, knowing it would start a war between you and him, and then I use Darren to kill him.
I mean, it’s practically poetry, don’t you think? ”
You would have thought Matt’s eyes exploded with how large they suddenly became. “Wait. What the fuck? What did you say?”
“Oh, you heard me right. I was dying to tell you this in Chicago, but it obviously would have spoiled everything, so I couldn’t.”
“Are you seriously saying you’re the one who got Regina killed?” he snapped, his body twitching like he was ready to launch himself from the steps. “That you started all of this?”
“I mean, Regina kind of got herself killed at her own husband’s funeral by admitting to me within earshot of his grieving brother that she had convinced Dominic to go to Honduras against his brothers’ express orders not to,” I explained, replaying the fun little memory in my head.
“It probably didn’t help that I also, within earshot of said grieving brother, insinuated her motive was to inherit Dominic’s estate as his widow of only two weeks.
It really wasn’t a hard story to sell since there was probably some truth to it anyway.
It wasn’t like it was outside of her character. ”
Matt sucked in a labored breath. “You little bitch,” he rasped, his tone full of disbelief as realization finally dawned on him. “This is all your doing. You knew about my promise to my uncle, that I vowed to kill anyone who hurt Regina.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I did, and what a banger it turned out to be,” I replied, the smugness on my tongue tasting better than ever. “Another little secret brought to me by you since Kayla told me that one.”
Hatred flickered across Matt’s eyes as he scowled at me from behind gritted teeth. “You really are a manipulative little bitch.”
I lifted my guns just a little higher. “Like I said earlier, I prefer the term ‘opportunist,’ and now that you’ve finally outlived your usefulness to me, I think it’s time we—
“Mrs. Davis! What are you still doing here?” cried the horrified voice of a familiar guard.
A glance to my left revealed Eric rushing over to me, looking a complete wreck as he stumbled all over himself.
Fuck! “You can’t be here! We have to get you out!
Where is Sloane?” he called as he staggered to a stop, practically knocking me over.
“Eric! What the fu—”
But I didn’t get the chance to finish my sentence before Matt took advantage of the distraction, pulling out another gun and firing multiple shots right into Eric’s back.
Goddammit!
Eric’s heavy body fell forward over me, his temporary use as a shield from Matt’s gunfire lasting just long enough for me to make it around the corner to find cover before returning fire and making my escape.
Racing through the house, I made it into the kitchen, and nearly tripped over huge hunks of brick, timber, glass, and insulation that had been scattered all across the floor.
A gust of salty air hit me in the face through the new gaping cavity of what had once been the exterior wall of the side of the house leading into the kitchen.
The floor-to-ceiling windows had essentially evaporated while water leaked onto the floor from the exposed copper piping now dangling from behind the pulverized drywall.
Despite the extensive damage, I quickly navigated through the mess of debris and took cover from Matt’s erratic gunfire behind the kitchen island as more stray bullets flew overhead.
“Where the fuck are you, you little shit!” he screeched as he stormed through the house.
Chest heaving, I tried to steady my breathing as I stayed crouched to the floor, listening for angry footsteps through the blood pumping loudly in my ears.
Staying low, I quietly inched my way around the island, but then suddenly froze in place when my eyes met the pretty blues of a very familiar blonde standing not more than thirty feet from me.
“Ka—”
“Gotcha,” Matt suddenly said as I felt the barrel of his gun press against the back of my head.
Fuck! “On your knees.” Cursing myself internally, I carefully raised my lower body, keeping my hands in the air and stood on my knees, trying not to make any sudden moves until the right moment.
“After Darren kills Jason and comes back to find his home under siege, I’m going to make sure the last thing he sees is me blowing your fucking head off right before I put a bullet between his eyes. ”
“Like fuck you will,” quipped a strong female voice to my left. “Put the gun down, Matt, and let her go. Now!”
I smirked to myself, wishing I could see Matt’s face as he turned to see the woman he’d been chasing down for the last several months standing there with a fucking M4 tactical shotgun pointed right at him.
“Kayla,” he murmured, the ghost of a smile in his voice.
Glancing up from the floor, I winced at the cringeworthy longing in his eyes as he grinned back at her like a fucking doofus.
But while he was completely mesmerized by her very presence, all I could think about was what the fuck was she doing here?
She shouldn’t be here at all. Especially if Jason’s team really was dead.
“I’m serious, Matt, let her go,” Kayla reiterated, clutching her shotgun even tighter.
And she was serious. With her hair back in a tight ponytail, she wore Kevlar over a black shirt and dark camouflage pants tucked into combat boots.
With two pistols strapped to her hips, the shotgun in her hands, and fury in her eyes, Kayla looked every bit the woman scorned who was finally back from hell to settle a score.