My hand flies to my mouth. Oh, God. My stomach gurgles. I’ve never committed a violent act in my life and now I want to shrivel into the floor.
But in a way, he got what he deserved too.
Snake Eyes roars with pain and grips his bleeding wrist. Size sixteen boots stomp all over my phone and ledger. He glares at me with sparks of anger and evil in his eyes.
“You fucking, bitch. I swear to God I’m going to kill you.”
He stumbles back and his blade falls with a thud to the carpeted floor. He doesn’t look like he’s taking the whole situation with the level of grace and humility as he should. In fact, the man looks like he’s about to go for his bigger weapon when he realizes three powerful mafia men are barreling toward us.
“Snake!” Harlon barks, his tone thick with fury. The security guards on either side magically forget about their hangnails and pop to attention. But it’s too late. They’ve been spotted.
“I’ll speak with you later.” Santi, my cousin’s partner, and best friend, nails the guards with a death glare and picks up his walkie to talk to the security room.
I flick my eyes over the brute’s shoulder to catch Lexi’s eyes and mouth a silent thank you.
Harlon, Santi, and Cassius all move swiftly. Harlon is in the front. His eyes latch onto Snake’s wrist. Santi and Cassius bring up either flank.
Alone they are powerful. Together, they are unstoppable.
Just like the Southern Alliance, but I flick the thought away for another time.
“You just had to go and tattle on me.” Twitchy fingers go for what I think is a gun inside Snake’s leather jacket. What else would an assassin have in there?
I hold up both hands. “Look, you left me with no choice. What was I supposed to do? Let you play slice-an-undertaker? I like this blouse and it cost me a fortune.”
“I hear you’re having trouble.”
Harlon, looking every bit the six-foot mobster with a chip on his shoulder grabs the back of Snake Eye’s collar and throws his two-eighty frame toward the exit like a rag doll. The clumsy douche stumbles, falls, stands, and then falls again when he realizes his boss has a loaded .357 magnum pointed at his ball sack.
“Boss. Mr. Constantine. Look, I was just tryin’ to teach the new undertaker who holds the power here. We don’t work for thieves.” His scared expression doesn’t match the snarled warning in his tone. Too bad for him.
Harlon cocks the hammer.
The crack of the gun going off isn’t what makes me jump. It’s the deafening shriek from the leather-clad assassin. He crunches into the fetal position when a bullet sinks into the carpet where his dick had been a fraction of a second earlier.
Cassius’ voice goes flat. “It sure the fuck isn’t you, Snake. Is it?”
Crack.
He smacks the butt of his Desert Eagle into the back of the man’s head.
“Nu, nu…no, sir.”
“Has anyone taken something that belongs to you?”
That’s Santi. He’s beside Snake checking over his nails like this is some irritation and nothing more.
“No, sir.”
“I see.” Santi fists a handful of the man’s hair and pulls him to his feet. “Threaten my friend’s family, you might as well be threatening me. Since your parents didn’t teach you manners, let me remind you how to behave in another man’s home, pedazo de mierda.” Piece of shit.
I rarely hear Santi fall into his native Spanish tongue so that’s a very important clue for Snake Eyes about just how pissed he’s gotten his boss.
Santi drives a fist into Snake’s mouth. Once and then again. “When you speak to a lady in our house, you watch your fucking tongue. You have issues. You come to us. Got it?”
Fresh guards come off the elevator and my cousin signals toward the two worthless ones still looking like statues.
Cassius jerks his chin toward each of the offenders. “Take him to the lower level. Leave him in a waiting cell. And these two. Put them in there with him. I’ll be down momentarily.”
Ooh shit. I forgot to mention the holding floor. A discreet level only the unlucky ever find out about. Sucks to be them.
All three pale but hey, karma, right?
I raise my chin and hold my attacker's hatred-filled gaze as he’s shoved toward the elevator, my blade still in his wrist.
Cassius’ lips part with a sarcastic smile when he comes to check my throat. “You just can’t have a normal day at the office, can you? Always the trouble maker,” he teases tugging at the ends of my hair. Something he’s done from the first day I met him years back.
I smirk right back. “You know me. Action at every turn.”
Not really. My life is as mundane as it can get. Wake. Breakfast. Sign contracts. Shuffle millions of dollars around. Bed.
Santi joins us and clips my jaw in a playful tap. “You’ll have a few bruises, hermosa, but I think you got the upper hand.” When Harlon couldn’t watch over me his childhood friends were there to help. The concern in Santi’s tone and Cassius' touch is brotherly and welcomed.
Cassius winks at me, bends, and collects the items I dropped along with Sanky’s blade.
My throat feels bone dry and tender so I just nod and tuck my trembling fingers around the ledger and phone he retrieves from the floor.
I guess I was right about today being a real ass-dragger.
I didn’t see him at first, but a man in a leather cut is leaning against the reception desk with his feet crossed and looking bored. He turns to say something to Lexi and that is when I see the familiar flaming skull across the expanse of his back.
Harlon finishes with the guards and joins us, his fingers automatically straightening his immaculate cuffs.
Good looking, confident, and observant. Reminds me of the men of Genesis. His name comes to me after a few moments. Riot. A brother of the Sons of Bratva Savages. His being here means trouble is on his ass.
Now what?
I don’t have a lot of fucks to give at the moment so I don’t put any effort into my tone. “Why the hell is a Savage here?”