I fill the magazine to capacity, slide the bolt to chamber the first round, and brace it against my shoulder as I slip out of the guest cottage. Sneaking around to the back of the main house, I make my way to a door that leads to the butler’s pantry flanking the prep kitchen. The quick, quiet squeak of the hinges causes me to cringe, and I freeze, holding my breath and checking my surroundings.
Still good, and I slip inside, silently easing the door closed behind me.
The prep kitchen, the main kitchen, and the dining room down the adjoining narrow hall are all dark and empty, but I can hear conversation coming from the great room, echoing through the cavernous center of the house, and Iknew it.
Despite how much Papá always insisted that everything was gravy, I knew these fuckers were going to show up and pull shit like this at some point. And I can’t hear much, but I hear enough to know they’re after blood, and the blood they want first isIsla’s. Graciela’s at home with Auggie over on the Upper East Side, and Lili is in New Orleans for a bachelorette party, but I know Isla has been holed up here since Mal ended their marriage—douchebag—and I know they’ve got her in there with Papá and probably Mamá, too.
Baby brother to the mother fucking rescue.
I silently step toward an opposite narrow hall that leads to a side entrance to the great room, and, flattening my back against the wall, I peer with one eye around the edge and see the whole crew.
Six guys, and I’ve only got five rounds loaded, but I’ve got pockets full of extra ammo, soyep.
Hope for the best.
I’ve got a clear line of fire on Ignacio, one of Papá’s much younger cousins, who I know runs all of their operations inEl Norte, but sticks to his personal territory in Southern California when he’s not here on the east coast, demanding that Papá bring his money back to the family. Ignacio is a real sick fuck, a total sociopath, and I don’t feel the least bit bad that he’s about to fuckin’ die.
But just as I’ve got his ugly-ass face in my crosshairs, mother fuckingMalachislips into view in the main entryway to the great room. He’s wedged against the corner of the hall with a chrome pistol raised at the ready, and if I fire right now, he might end up collateral damage. Andyes, I’m still pissed at him for roughing up Isla and then divorcing her, but not quite enough to take him out along with the rest of these fuckers. And besides, he’s obviously trying to take them out, too, and two guns are definitely better than one in this situation.
So, I fuckingwait.
But I don’t have to wait long before Mal takes the first shot, and some guy I can’t see hits the floor, and then all hell breaks loose.
Deafening firepower explodes from all directions. Another guy drops, and Malachi darts across the room, but gets fuckin’nailedin the process.
He’s either already dead, or he will be shortly, and that fuckin’ sucks, but there’s enough chaos in the room that I can slip in unnoticed and hide behind a looming mahogany bookcase.
“Can you see this guy,El Duque?”Ignacio says, crouching next to Malachi—who I guess isn’t deadyet—while also gripping Isla’s hair as she flattens her palms against Malachi’s shredded, bleeding stomach. “Turn your head so you can look at him.”
There’s a pause before Malachi mutters a barely audible, “Fuck… you.”
Yeah, seriously. Fuck you,vato.
“Ahhh…” Ignacio chuckles. “I think you mean, fuckher, ‘cuz he already did once. And you know that, don’t you? You’re looking really pale,El Duque,but I can still see that you know this guy from the sexy photo they sent you. Right? Did you like that picture? Did you look at it while you were beatin’ your meat and crying over how she cheated on you withtwo guysat once?”
Ignacio chuckles again, andwhat the fuck?
Isla wouldnevercheat on Malachi, even with as much of a piece shit he was to her while they were married. And I don’t have time to process what Ignacio means, but beyond all the shit that’s wrong with this situation, nobody fucking talks about my sister like that.
“Well,” Ignacio continues, “I’m thinking the perfect send-off for you is to let you watch him do it again, right here in this beautiful living room.”
My brows crawl up my forehead as I blink rapidly, and over my dead fucking body.
So yeah, Reader. I promised at the beginning of this little interruption to tell you why I popped in like this, and here it is:
My Papá might have worked his ass off to keep our family away fromhisfamily, but the truth isel sangre de mafiososruns hot through my veins. And if you fuck with my sisters, I will fucking kill you.
Literally.
TWENTY-ONE
ISLA
Present
“ISLA.” MALACHI IS SO pale now that he already looks like a ghost of himself, and with my arms wrist-deep in his blood, I can feel his pulse slowing, and this isn’t howanythingwaseversupposed to be.
The chrome pistol is laying at Malachi’s side, but it’s too far for me to reach. Papá’s relative that I can’t identify is wrenching my head back farther, and he’s about to hand me over to one of the last standing men that are strangely familiar. And now I knowwhythis man is familiar.
