What sounded like skin-hitting skin preceded a cry of pain as she was flipped onto her stomach. He slammed his foot down onto her back to make sure she stayed in place.
“Listen, as I tell all of my late-night visits, I have limited tolerance for bullshit. You’re just pure shit, Evie. Looking at your botched face is legitimately pissing me off.” I double-checked my magazine despite knowing it was full.
“The woman in the car was not a whore. She was someone that enjoyed cocaine. And you don’t have a daughter, Evie. Rhiannon has a daughter.”
“That was my--.”
“I don’t want to hear it. I have someone Brianna is going to bring to meet you and if you say anything rude or disrespectful, Bri is going rip your tongue out. Blink once for yes, twice for now.”
Her eyes full of fake tears blinked once. I looked to Bri and gave her a chin nod. She understood and quickly exited the room. Now all I could do was wait and see how this reunion would go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
We sat in silence but with him, it never bothered me or made me uncomfortable.
I’d been around Theo so often recently I knew he wasn’t much of a talker. He reminded me of the special agent from a cartoon movie where a little blue alien was being hunted.
It fit him too because for Judas to leave me alone with him meant he had a deep level of trust for this man. I looked out the windows, wondering how Evie could afford to live in a location like this. Did the money she and Marcus had hidden last her this long?
A single gunshot carried through an open window, causing me to jump from the abruptness of it. I twisted around with my heart in my throat, straining to see in the darkness.
Romeo had stilled, his ears perky ears at attention, and his body tense as he listened for something only he could hear.
No more shots followed, and silence resumed, the quiet beginning to grate on my nerves now because of the unknown. I assumed someone had been shot that wasn’t Judas.
He had Gavin, Brianna, and Owen with him. There would’ve been a lot more than one shot fired if something happened to him. Santiago had men here too somewhere. There was no way Evie’s people could’ve taken all of them out before our arrival. If she even had some. The only car in the driveway was an Audi.
It took forever, but someone finally emerged from the house after approximately ten minutes that felt more like hours. Romeo spotted them and didn’t react negatively, so I took this as a sign they weren’t coming to give us the same treatment Rochelle and her guard had just received.
As the figure got closer, I was able to see it was Brianna.
Theo hit the unlock button and she tapped the rear passenger window to indicate we should get out. He exited before I did and pulled open the door behind the driver’s seat for me. Romeo jumped down after I was out and bounded up the driveaway, circling back to follow us.
“Are you okay?” I asked Brianna because it seemed appropriate after she and her boyfriend had just been inside this house dealing with who knows what.
She glanced over at me and for a few fleeting seconds the bubbly woman I knew her as shined through the beautifully deadly woman beside me. “You’re so sweet. I’m fine. This was one of the easiest things I’ve ever had to do.”
I didn’t say anything after that as we were seconds away from crossing the threshold into the house, but I wondered how things would’ve been had I never been stolen away.
Brianna had done her due diligence in earning her place amongst these lethal men. I’d never had that same opportunity and with Judas’ being my future husband I’m not sure I would.
The front door was wide open, splintered apart where the deadbolt and doorknob should go. Light from inside bathed the walkway. We walked in and it was like a shock to my brain. Everything was white.
Everything.
Stark white. The floors, the walls, the décor. The only thing with color were a few black and white pieces of art and the stairs themselves. The banister was white too.
“Terrible, isn’t it? It’s giving sanitarium,” Bri remarked. “They’re upstairs.”
We walked in the direction of the stairs, and I took in my surroundings.
There was a bloody handprint on one of the walls. as if someone had been trying to hold onto it and then got dragged backward.
The red stain was bold against the white paint. We reached the steps and Romeo bound up them, disappearing down the hallway. From my peripheral, I saw Juan move from one room to another dragging a body behind him. I could only imagine how all of this had to be cleaned up.