Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 46674 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 233(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46674 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 233(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Then two of the masked men grunt and wrestle each other to the ground.
I watch them, wondering why they turned on each other, but then I realize that they haven’t.
Arturo has thrown them into each other.
Arturo spins out of the group, blood-flecked and near-naked, and then launches into a savage series of strikes that are so fast it’s difficult to believe they’re real.
He smashes the masked men with his fists, the crunch of their bones breaking filling the room.
They cry and scream and throw themselves at him, whistling their knives through the air.
Arturo is always just out of their reach, dancing around their attacks.
One man pulls a gun.
Marty roars, “No, we need him alive.”
But this man isn’t listening.
He levels the gun at Arturo—and then roars when Arturo grabs it and wrenches it from his hand, smashing it across his mouth and causing him to make choking, gagging noises as he collapses into a pit of his own blood.
Soon there are more masked men on the floor than standing, and Arturo doesn’t even look tired.
He just throws himself forward, a whirlwind of violence, grabbing a man’s head and bringing it down to kiss his knee with a brutal snap of bone-on-bone contact.
He spins out of the exchange, catching an advancing man with a wild-looking spinning elbow.
Finally, he scoops the gun up from the ground and leaps over to Marty, cracking him in the neck with it and then spinning around, using Marty’s body as a human shield as he brings the gun to his head.
“Enough,” Arturo growls at the battered-and-bruised men, his voice firm, that of my protector.
I feel my womb give a swelling sizzle of victory.
I try to tell her to calm down – this isn’t over yet – but she isn’t in the mood to listen.
“Throw your weapons on the floor, all of you,” Arturo snaps.
When they hesitate, he digs his fist into Marty’s side, causing the man to wriggle and let out a whiny prey noise of pain.
“Do it,” he whines. “Do it now.”
Slowly, the men start to toss their weapons down, a sea of guns and knives and knuckle dusters landing on the floor with a clang-clang-clang like metal rain.
“In the corner, on the floor,” Arturo snaps, aiming the gun at the men, keeping his other hand around Marty’s arm so the man can’t try anything. He’s wincing just from the touch alone.
The masked men do as he says, and then Arturo pats down Marty’s pockets and comes out with a cell phone.
He shoves Marty roughly forward. He falls and lands on top of his men. A couple of them catch him and then he slides to the floor, looking defeated, and pathetic.
Arturo keeps the gun trained on them, everything in him focused as he makes the call.
“It’s me,” he says. “I need backup. I don’t know where I am. Track this cell phone.”
He kneels down slowly, placing the phone on the floor, and then just stares at the men, solidly, predatorily.
I sense that he won’t turn to me or Dad until he knows that we’re all safe and are going to get out of here alive.
“Track the cellphone?” Marty groans, trying for a joking tone. But the effect is ruined by the pain quivering in his voice. “Pretty fancy for the Mob.”
“That wasn’t the Family,” Arturo snarls. “That was my contact with the FBI. I don’t think he’s going to be too happy when he finds out what you’ve been up to, Marty. No, I think you’re going away for a damn long time.”
Pride swells in my chest.
Arturo could kill this man.
But he’s doing the right thing.
Marty swallows and opens his bloody mouth as if to speak, but then he closes it just as quickly as if he realizes he has nothing worth saying.
Chapter Nineteen
Arturo
“Is this about Elmo?” Franco says, striding onto the balcony and standing over the chair. He grabs the back of it and clenches his fists like he’s getting ready to start an argument.
I make to stand up, ready to tell him to watch his damn manners when he’s in my home. Just because we’ve been through hell together these past few days, it doesn’t mean he didn’t desert me when I could’ve helped.
He made the worst possible choice.
And I had to save his ass.
Just like when we were kids.
Aida twitches, my queen telling me silently that I should let her handle this. Sitting there in her elegant coppery long dress, shining as bright and beautiful as her hair, and showing me that made-for-motherhood body to boot, she really does look like mafia royalty.
“Elmo’s still missing,” I say, keeping my tone calm. “I’ve sent Vinnie out to look for him.”
“I don’t like enemies out there in the dark, Arturo.”
“Elmo isn’t an enemy.”
“We don’t know that, do we? Peacekeepers could’ve turned him.”
“Your little friend was never a Peacekeeper,” I snarl. “My FBI contact told me he was a rogue agent. His uncle is in the goddamn Cartel. That was how he was able to get away with so much shit. You’ve been at war with the Cartel for years, and you never even knew.”