“You fucking bastard.” I lunged towards him just as multiple barrels whipped up, all trained on me. My chest heaved, body shaking with barely controlled anger. These were the people who had killed my family. Betrayed me. Sweat pricked at my palms, my heart racing.
I wanted to tear them apart piece by piece. I wanted to rip their hearts out and feel the heat of their blood slipping down my fingers as I took their lives. They had takeneverythingfrom me. My vision narrowed in on the two men standing before me. The two monsters who I swore would take their last breath tonight.
“Uh-huh,” Mateo wagged his finger as if I were a child that needed scolding, “play nice, Sienna. He was just following orders.”
“Why?” I snarled. “Why the hell would you work for this maniac? What about your family? Are you even a special agent, or was that just another lie?” I spat.
His eyes were as hard as steel, never breaking eye contact. “It wasn’t the Snake that had killed my family.” His words dropped like stones at my feet.
“Then who—”
“Don’t you get it, Sienna?” Mateo slung an arm around David’s shoulder. “It was your father who killed his wife and child. Yours…and Dante’s.”
Confusion and fear coiled in my stomach. “What are you talking about?”
Mateo clicked his tongue. “You really were oblivious all those years, weren’t you? When the FBI came sniffing around our business a few years ago, your father and Sal thought to do something about it. This one here,” he gave David a small shake, “had gotten a little too hot on their tails. So, they took out his family while they were safely sleeping in their beds. One bullet for each by the order of the great Dons of New York City.”
The image David had shown me of his family flashed through my mind. I could remember the woman and child so perfectly, laughing at the beach. They’d seemed so happy, so carefree. And my father helped end their lives. All because David was a little too good at his job. But my father would never harm a child. I knew he wouldn’t. Only a sick man would be able to do that. Only a fucked up person would ever take the life of a kid.
And my father wasn’t like that. I’d known him my whole life. He could be cruel when he needed to be—but outright killing a child with no better reason than to deter the father just didn’t sit right with me. It didn’t fit the image of my father I’d had in my head since I was a little girl. There was no way he was capable of doing that, that he would have agreed to that plan in the first place. Sal, I could understand. I wasn’t surprised by that part. But my own father? No. I couldn’t believe that was the truth. I wouldn’t believe it. Mateo would say anything right now to throw me off, to keep me unbalanced. He had to be lying.
Mateo shot me a look of pity. “Believe me or not—that’s the damn truth. Isn’t it?” He turned to David, waiting for an answer.
David nodded once, never speaking. I glanced between them, feeling more helpless than ever. If that were true, then I never really knew my father at all. I knew the shit he’d done as Don, the shit he had to do to keep our family safe, but I never thought he was capable of that.
I shook my head slowly, a whole new level of pain slicing through me. “No…no, you’re wrong. You’re lying.”
It couldn’t be true. My father…Gemma…none of this could be real. I struggled to sort through it all, to have it all make sense. Pain and fury ripped through me. My best friend had betrayed me. My underboss had murdered my family. My fingers inched towards the knife hidden in my belt buckle.
I was going to kill them all.
There were ten mercs in all. Two flanking me, two behind, with six fanned out around the open space. I had four knives within reach; the pendant, my shoes, and the belt buckle. One for each of the fuckers surrounding me. And if I got my hands on at least one of their guns…
Mateo’s arm slipped from David’s shoulders. He checked the time on his watch, making a show of looking bored. “As I said, I don’t care if you believe me. And I’ve wasted enough time on you.”
My mind was frantic, fear making it nearly impossible to think straight. I knew my time was essentially running out. There was nothing more I could do. I’d come in the hopes of saving my best friend, only to find her father waiting for me. For the man I’d trusted to help me end all this, stand there and blame my father for the death of his family. Surrounded by hired mercenaries with assault rifles.
Mateo glanced at David once, his lip curling. “I promised you your revenge. While I couldn’t give you the man responsible, I can give you this. A child for a child. A life for a life.”
David’s hands curled into fists, his knuckles white. For the first time, something that resembled regret passed over his face, but it was gone before I could register it. He nodded again, his hand moving towards his back. He slipped a gun from the waistband of his slacks, and my heart skipped a beat. For the second time in a month, I found a barrel of a gun pointed straight at me.
“David, please.” I hadn’t meant to beg. But it wasn’t just my life I was begging for. “You know…you know I’m with child. Please don’t do this.”
His hand shook as he clicked the safety off, but he didn’t waver. His finger twitched on the trigger.
Mateo had already started heading towards the warehouse doors. When he heard my words, he stopped.
Glancing over his shoulder, he said, “Why do you think I said a child for a child?” And, without looking back, the man I’d known for my entire life, the man I’d trusted, walked out. Leaving me to fend for myself against an FBI agent and ten hired guns.
I caught David’s eyes, steeling myself. “If you think I would make it this easy for you, then you’re more stupid than I thought.”
My fingers snagged on my buckle, yanking the knife from its hiding place. Red tinged the edges of my vision, and rage and adrenaline raced through my veins. The blade whistled through the air, lodging in the exposed skin of the mercenary’s neck beside me. I ducked and rolled when the gun fell from his hands just as the first bullets went off, opening the hidden compartments in the soles of my shoes. More blades found their marks, stabbing two more men in their thighs as I spun towards the fallen gun. The pendant’s knife slid free, flying through the air before the last mercenary could fire off another shot.
I snatched the gun from the floor, firing off a few of my own shots as I dove for cover behind the metal containers. Shots echoed around the warehouse, pinging against the metal. I was pinned. There were five more mercs left, plus David. I didn’t like those odds, but I had something those paid soldiers didn’t–an appetite for retribution.
33
DANTE