The screaming from inside began, and a flurry of women, young and old, began to scurry from inside the restaurant. My head was clear, using my training to drown out the sounds of their screams. I was laser focused on the task at hand—making sure Torello couldn't hurt anyone else, ever again especially Celeste.
A large muscular man, wearing a tattered gray shirt jumped up from behind the bar, holding a rifle, aiming it directly at me. I aimed the gun at him, firing a single round at his throat, the blood splattering on the dirty aquarium behind him. His finger must have been on the trigger because he let off one shot before falling back behind the bar.
The next attempt at my life was a knife careening toward my head, which I snatched out of mid-air, quickly returning it to its sender. The knife zipped through the air finding rest in his left eye. He stood there for a bit, maybe out of shock, or maybe the adrenaline which still coursed through his body kept him from falling dead to the ground. Either way, by the time I reached him, all I had to do was push him over with one finger, and he fell dead on the round wooden table next to him.
One last lackey jumped out from behind a wall with an AR-15, spraying the scene with bullets. I didn't even try to dodge his bullets or waver in my approach toward the door to Torello's office, and with all that heavy artillery, he missed.
How did he miss?
I aimed at his arm, then shot, causing him to drop his trigger finger from the gun. I fired another round at his chin, and he dropped to one knee, screaming like a little girl. He raised the gun to me one last time, but I shot him in the mouth before he could fire a shot. He flew back, his arms and legs sprawled out on the dirty, sticky floor.
I kicked the door open, and there sat the man himself, in a comfy leather office chair, and an Uzi pointed right at me.
"Torello," I said.
"You got my property?"
"I have Celeste," I said, sitting in the chair situated in front of his desk, still aiming my guns at him.
"Like I said, my property."
"I would say we could work this out, but by the looks of that Uzi, I'd say you had your heart set on keeping her. Am I right?"
"You are pretty observant."
"So I guess we're stuck at the proverbial impasse."
A shot rang out from behind me, a bullet zipped by my ear, followed by a bright red dot which formed in the middle of Torello's forehead. He looked at me, his brown eyes glazed over as he took short quick breaths. A single stream of blood escaped from the hole, cascading between his eyes, and over the bridge of his nose, dripping onto the desk.
"No, we're not," a woman's voice came from behind me.
I didn't have to turn around. I knew she had defied my orders and had come in to exact her revenge. Torello's breaths slowed, but I could see his finger was still fixed on the trigger.
The moment stopped, as I watched him try to squeeze the small piece of metal to eject a bullet or two from his gun. Just then, another shot rang out, this one propelling Torello's body and the chair toward the wall.
She fired at him again. I turned to look at her; the tears streaming from her eyes as she continued to fire the gun until its clip was fully unloaded, and even a few pumps after the clip was empty.
I stood next to her, laying my hand over the trembling gun as I slowly pulled it away.
I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her close. "Shhh—"
She sobbed into my chest uncontrollably as I walked her out of the restaurant and toward my car. I pulled out my phone and dialed Riley.
"Hunter," she answered in a low monotone voice.
"I need a clean-up crew."
"How bad?"
"Remember the lobby in that Syrian hotel last summer?"
"That bad?"
"Worse."
"Alright, I'll let Jackson know you didn't die. Just get out of there. I already have your coordinates from your phone. I'll take care of everything."
"I'm headed to Phoenix. I'll be back for the op next week."
"Take your time. Actually no, don't take your time. I need you back for that mission."
"Do you ever take time off, Riley?"
"I wouldn't know what to do with myself."
"That's why you're the best."
"I know," she said, hanging up the phone.
I smiled, shaking my head as I stuffed the phone back in my pocket. I unlocked the car door and helped her in, but before I could close it, she looked up at me standing over her and parted her lips.
"I owe you everything."
"You don't owe me anything."
I closed her door and circled the car to get to the driver's seat. As soon as I sat down, she leaned over and grabbed my face, crashing her lips onto mine.
She pulled away, smiling, still gazing into my eyes. "You know I don't have to go to Phoenix anymore," she whispered.
I grinned as I pressed on the gas, burning rubber as the car zipped down the street. "I know."
BROTHERS
DETECTIVE MORRISON
An hour later…
"So you think this was a rival mob hit?" I asked, leaning over the body, peering directly into his, still open, eyes. "Who killed you, Rez?"
"You think he's gonna answer you, Detective?" the officer nearest the door asked.
I chuckled. "Shit, I hope not. We'd need a priest instead of a coroner in here."
The officer snorted out a laugh.
"Looks like someone did us a favor. This is gonna put a big dent in the drug running game in SoCal for a while."
I was still staring into his eyes when the sound of a woman's sharp voice zipped in from outside the office. "I don't care who you are. I'm above your pay grade. Now let me through."
I walked around from behind the desk, leaving the body to investigate the commotion. Coming toward me was a beautiful, tall, slender woman, wearing the tightest official skirt I'd ever seen.
"Let her through," I said, motioning to the officer, who kept trying to insert himself between her and the crime scene.
Passing through the threshold of the door, she flashed a badge then threw it in her purse. "I'll be taking over this investigation."
"Wait. Who are you?"
"Is that a question you're willing to lose your job over?" she asked in a nonchalant, yet threatening way.
"I'm going to need to see your badge again," I requested.
She turned to me, slowly nearing as she spoke. "If I have to put my freshly manicured hand back in my purse to pull out a badge that I've already shown you once, I'll have you out of that thirty-dollar suit and into an itchy polyester uniform so fast—"
"Okay, okay. I got it," I said, holding my hands up in surrender.
"Thank you," she said smugly as she turned and walked toward the body.
"What do you think happened here?" I asked.
She straightened her posture and glared at me. "Are you still here?"
"Fuck, don't shoot."
I watched as she pulled out her phone and pressed on one button for a second or two. If she had taken the time to reach back into her purse for the phone, she could've at least pulled her badge back out, but I wasn't going to ask again.
"Jackson," she said, pausing for a moment. "Send everyone to clean."
My brows furrowed as I pondered her words. "What do you mean 'clean'?
She didn't even bother to look at me this time.
What a disrespectful woman.
But her arrogance was pretty enticing to a guy like me.
I took in a breath. "At least tell me what your name is?"
She banged her palm against the desk, narrowly missing the pool of blood. "It's Riley. Do you need a fucking blood sample to go with that?"
Damn, I think I love this girl.
HUNTER
Five weeks later…
Dropping off all my equipment at Citadel after having just come back from another week long op in the Sudan, I couldn't wait to get home and get my hands on Celeste. She was everything that every other woman wasn't—p
erfect for me.
After killing Rez, she had nowhere to go, so I offered her my home, but what I wanted to give her was something more real. After all, guys like me didn't get second chances at love—or so I thought.
Tapping on the large round glass table, I impatiently waited to debrief with Jackson, but before that could happen Riley walked into the briefing room with a look on her face I had never seen before—terror.
"What's wrong?" I asked, shooting up from my chair, immediately going into high alert.
Riley wasn't the type of woman who looked scared. She was the type of woman who ate scared for breakfast, so I knew it was something bad.
"I just got off the phone with Torello," she said in a low, monotone voice.
I chuckled. "Quit fuckin' with me, Riley. We killed Torello. You cleaned it up yourself," I said, sitting back down, relieved nothing was wrong.
"Not Rez. Ryker," she said, walking around the table while pressing some buttons on her phone.
"Who the fuck is Ryker?"
"His brother," she said, handing me her phone.
"Brother?" My brows furrowed as I took in her body language. "What's going on?"
"Watch this," she said, shoving her phone into my hands.
I looked down, to a video of a man, a younger version of Rez, yelling and waving a gun in the air. My eyes narrowed when I saw who was sitting behind him, bound, and gagged on the floor.
My eyes shot up from the phone to Riley. "What the fuck?"
"Turn the volume up. He called right after he sent this."
"How'd he get your number?"
"These people have connections, Hunter. Obviously a lot of them."
Clicking on the volume button on the side of her phone, the man's voice grew louder, searing through the cold, stark room.
"—that was my big brother you fuckin' killed. Eye for an eye, that's what the bible says! Your bitch is about to lose hers and a whole lot more—" the man in the video screamed before I clicked the pause button mid-sentence.
"Riley, what the fuck am I looking at?" I asked, unable to formulate a coherent thought as I focused in on Celeste's bloodied and bruised face. "Why is Celeste—where—what the fuck?" I said, pressing play to catch the rest of his sentence.
"—meet me if you want her back in one piece," the man continued.
Riley grabbed the phone from me. "We're going to get her back," she said, lodging a tendril of hair behind her ear while clearing her throat. "He already set up a meet with you."
I brushed by her toward the door. "There's no 'we'. She's my responsibility."
"We all care about Celeste, Hunter. Where are you going?"
"The armory. Tell me where the fuck he is," I said as I walked out the door.
"Wait. You just can't go running around half-cocked," she yelled from inside the room.
My anger wasn't trying to listen to any voices of reason. I just found her, and I wasn't about to lose her to some asshole looking for revenge. Opening the door to the armory, I was shocked to see Jackson strapping on a Kevlar vest.
"What are you doing?" I asked, brushing by him to grab what I needed.
"You think you're doing this shit on your own?" he asked, snapping a magazine into his gun.
"I'm not putting you in danger for my personal shit, Jackson."
"I'm not fuckin' asking," he replied, holstering his gun. "Besides, I'm tired of this family bullshitting with your time."
"Why?"
"Because your time is my time, and there's nothing I hate more than some fucker wasting my time. So whenever you're ready, get your shit together and let's go get your girl."
It had been a long time since I'd seen Jackson suited up and in the field. I had to admit, I was a little excited to fight alongside my mentor, but it came secondary to saving Celeste from the maniac who thought he could come into my house and take what he liked.
"You think you can keep up, old man?" I asked, strapping on my vest.
"I was doing this shit before you were even a twinkle in your mama's eye, son," he said, standing at the door waiting to leave. "You think you're gonna be ready in the next century?"
"I'm ready. I'm ready," I said, sliding an extra 9 mil into my leg holster.
He started down the hall. "Riley has already given me the coordinates of the meet."
"What if it's a trap?"
"Oh, you know this shit's a trap. No two ways about it," he said, pushing his way out of the side door.
"Whose car we taking?" I asked, staring at his gunmetal black Tesla Model S Limited seated on 22's.
"Don't even think about it," he said, standing next to his '69 Dodge Charger.
"Really? You're gonna take your baby out?" I asked.
The '69 was his pride and joy and only took it out on special occasions. And when I say special occasions, I mean the Pope or the President coming to visit.
He banged on the hood of the car, and said, "This baby is my good luck charm, and I'd say we need all the luck we can get today. Don't you?"
I nodded, walking away from the Tesla and toward the Dodge.
CELESTE
He smelled like an ashtray with a bit of whiskey and tequila mixed in. If I wasn't so scared, the smell alone might have made me throw up, but I wasn't focused on his smell. I was focused on the gun he was waving about as he erratically walked around the room.
Suddenly and without warning, he kneeled next to me. "I'm gonna take this gag off you. If you scream, you aren't gonna like the consequences. Nod if you understand," he said, standing over me, looking just like Rez.
I nodded, and he removed the gag from my mouth. "Why are you doing this to me, Ryker?"
"Why did you kill my brother?"
"Because I had to," I replied.
"Seems like we both have the same reason then," he said, walking toward the table.
"You can let me go. I won't tell them where you are," I begged with tears cascading down my face.
He chuckled. "You think I'm scared, baby girl?"
"You should be."
"I told that fucker right where I was. I got guys posted everywhere. He ain't gonna even make it out his car."
"Just let me go, Ryker."
"Shut the fuck up. Have some fuckin' dignity."
I couldn't hold back the tears any longer, and the wails that accompanied them. They burst out like a damn breaking forth.
"Shut the fuck up!" he yelled, running back over to me before backhanding me in the cheek.
The jolt sent my body flying to the left and on to the floor. I winced at the searing pain which radiated through my jaw to the back of my eyes.
"I don't know what my brother ever saw in your whiney ass. Sure you're pretty, but that's it. Must be a good lay," he said, eyeing me from above.
Using the tip of his boot, he pushed my shoulder back, allowing him to see my face. He trailed the boot down the length of my arm, over my hip, and down my thigh, sliding it between my knees.
"Are you a good lay?" he asked with a hint of curiosity in his tone.
"No," I replied through gritted teeth, trying to force my knees closed.
"It's gonna take a lot more than your word to make me think otherwise," he said, forcing my knees apart with his boot.
"Please don't," I begged profusely.
HUNTER
"This is it," I said, looking at the small dot on my GPS. "This is where Riley says it is."
Jackson looked around the abandoned industrial lot. "Yup, definitely a trap."
"What's your plan, boss?" I asked, scouring the rooftops of the dilapidated buildings, looking for hints of a sniper.
"Headshots. Headshots all the way through," he said, slowly coming to a stop behind a large dumpster.
I stepped out of the car and instantly a bullet zipped by me, lodging itself into the roof of the Charger.
"Fuck me!" Jackson yelled. "My, baby!"
"Shouldn't have brought her," I said with a slight chuckle as I panned the area the bullet came from.
/> There was a slight movement behind a stack of concrete blocks about a hundred feet from us. Inhaling a deep breath, I slowed my heart rate, focusing in on the area.
As soon as I saw a tuft of hair rising out from behind the stack, my fingers instantly squeezed the trigger, firing one round. The bullet made it over just in time to catch the man square in the forehead as he rose from his hiding place.
"One and done, baby. That's how the fuck it goes," Jackson said, firing his gun in the same direction I had just fired in, snagging himself an asshole who had popped up a couple seconds later.
A bullet snapped through the air, grazing the flesh of my arm. "It's like playing fuckin' whack-a-mole," I yelled, shooting the asshole off the roof with two shots to the chest.
"What happened to headshots?" Jackson asked, running over from the driver side to inspect my wound.
"Damn. You see how far that asshole was?"
"No excuses," he said, slapping the open gash from the bullet. "Eh, you'll be fine. Just a flesh wound."
I cringed but shook off the pain, jogging behind him toward the main building. Jackson fired off another round and shot at a man who jumped out from behind a wall, pointing an AK at us through a broken window.
"They're like roaches," I said, firing at an armed guard who was running toward us from inside the building.
My bullet took out one of his legs, but he got right back up and started firing at us. Jackson pulled out an extra 9 mil from his leg holster and began to fire both guns at him.
The man fell to his knees, convulsing as each bullet pierced his torso and head. By the time we approached him, he was dead on his knees. Jackson pressed the muzzle of his gun against the man's head and fired one last round. The velocity of the bullet caused him to fall backward onto the ground; his legs still bent underneath him.
"And I'm the muthafuckin' exterminator," Jackson growled.
"Shit, remind me never to piss you off," I said, handing him an extra magazine for his gun.
After snapping in the new magazine, he said, "Reminder—don't piss me off."
He pointed the gun straight at my head, my eyes widened, and my heart fell into my stomach an instant before he fired. The bullet whizzed right past my ear, hitting flesh and bone behind me.
Envy: A Second Chance Romance (Deadly Sin Series Book 2) Page 16
