Page 20 of Traitor
I paused. “How much of that phone conversation did you hear?”
“You mean, since I was in the same room the entire time and you keep the volume on your phone turned all the way up?”
I peered over my shoulder. “This directly affects you, you know.”
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
I turned to face her. “If my warehouses go down, I lose control of what I’ve fought so hard to maintain. That means less money coming in, which means you don’t get to buy a fuck-ton of heels every time I turn around. You ready to start downsizing your shoe closet?”
She scoffed. “Or, you could simply have your warehouses fully guarded like I told you needed to happen in the first place.”
I ripped the door open. “See you next week, Wifey.”
“Mateo, wait!”
I slammed the door behind me and jogged for the car. And when I slipped inside, my driver took off before I even got myself buckled. I didn’t bother looking back at the house, because I hoped one day to never have to see it again. That place was a damn prison, and Rosana was my full-time torturer.
I don’t like the way she mocked me.
Since when the hell did that woman become so brazen?
“Where to, Mr. Emiliano?” my driver asked.
I reached beneath my seat for my rifle. “The southern interior warehouse, but keep a healthy distance. It’s currently being attacked.”
He peered at me in the rearview mirror. “How bad?”
My eyes met his in the reflection. “Bad.”
My driver stepped on the gas and I couldn’t have respected him more in that moment. I logged away the idea of a raise until I could get to my books and crunch some numbers, because for now I needed to focus on the task ahead of me. I had to reclaim my warehouse and mount a counter-attack that showed Lorenzo exactly who he was fucking around with.
And I needed to make sure that my attack left him understanding that he should have never messed with me in the first place.
“How far out are we?” I asked.
My driver didn’t hesitate. “Less than two miles.”
I didn’t hear anything. “This isn’t good. Pull over and stop.”
He did as I asked without question and I eased my window down. If we were this close and the gunfire was still going on, I would’ve heard it three miles ago. But, there was nothing. The smell of gunpowder and smoke hung in the air, but that was the only evidence that something had actually gone down.
And when I checked my phone, I didn’t have any missed calls or messages.
“Shit,” I hissed.
“Mr. Emiliano, up ahead,” my driver said.
I turned my head to face out the windshield and I saw a group of men emerging from the woods. My driver had long since turned off his lights, leaving us in a black car sitting in the darkness. It was the perfect perch point, and I watched as the men dressed in uniforms that I recognized from Lorenzo’s place walked with a confident sort of swagger down the road.
So, I aimed my rifle out the window and lined up my first shot.
While I didn’t have the information I needed to take down the trafficking ring altogether, this much I knew from the little bit of work Char had already done for me: the Lucchese Family doubled-up on security men doing other jobs for them in order to save money. That told me they weren’t doing nearly as well as most people would think, and for all I knew these guys walking down the road helped out with that ring.
For all I knew, these were the men that had kidnapped Char in the first place.
“Gotcha,” I whispered.
My rifle kicked back against my shoulder as I fired, and I watched two men drop to their knees. The great thing about waiting and timing a shot is that someone can really make a bullet work for them if they shoot at the right angle. And when the first two men stopped to talk, I had both of their heads in a glorious shot.
