by LP Lovell
His lips pull up on one side in a sad smile. “Until I saw what happened to Maria.” He trails his fingers over my cheek. “Dominges won’t just kill you, Anna. You’ve made him look weak. I’ve made him look weak. He’ll rape you, and torture you just to prove a point.”
I swallow heavily. “I know.”
“Then you know I would never risk you falling into his hands.” His voice wavers. On a shaky breath, he reaches around me and takes the gun from the back of my shorts, holding it out in front of me. “If you won’t leave, then you promise me… if he gets you…”
I wrap my fingers around the hilt and grip the metal tightly. “I know.” I nod my head, dropping my gaze to the gun in my hand.
He presses a finger under my chin, forcing me to look at him. Those dark eyes are hard and determined. “Don’t get caught, avecita.”
“I won’t,” I whisper. And I hope that it’s a promise I can keep because for once, I hope that fate will actually smile on me.
I want a future, and I know this is all or nothing.
We win, or we lose, and there’s no in between.
15
Rafael
I glance at my watch—twenty-four hours exactly. I’m waiting for some kind of stealth attack. Una is more than capable of it. Picking off my men and taking Anna would be her style, and it’s making me anxious.
Anna shifts beside me. “She gave you twenty-four hours. She won’t renege on that. She’ll give you the chance to hand me over.”
I glance at her. “You sure about that?”
She tucks her hair behind her ear. “Nero won’t let her just attack you.”
I laugh. “Ah, avecita, you assume Nero has her on a leash.”
“She has to adhere to a degree of politics.”
“That’s just it, she doesn’t.”
The door to the warehouse opens, and I tense, waiting. Samuel walks in, his expression steely. “They’re here,” he announces.
“Bring them in.”
I glance around the warehouse, meeting the eyes of several of my men, all lingering nearby, armed and ready. I don’t want to hurt Una, simply because it would upset Anna. I want the Russian’s alliance just as surely as I have her sister’s, but Una Ivanov is an unpredictable animal, one that can never truly be trusted. She’s dangerous, and Nero’s backing also makes her powerful. In fact, the combination of the two of them makes them practically untouchable.
Sam walks back outside and comes in a few seconds later with Una…and Sasha.
“Shit,” I mumble under my breath.
Anna’s hand lands on my arm as if to calm me, or maybe restrain me. “It’ll be fine,” she says.
Una’s eyes narrow, honing in on Anna’s hand on my arm. “Wow, he works fast,” she says acerbically.
Anna steps in front of me, placing herself between her sister and me. “I’ve made a deal.” Una arches a brow. Sasha hangs back, his sharp gaze taking in every single detail of the warehouse. I can practically see him spotting every exit, planning exactly how he’ll kill each and every one of my men and in what order. There’s always something inherently unsettling about the absolute iciness that seems to infiltrate his every action. Una alone is bad, but he makes me very uneasy.
“You made a deal?” Una asks with a smirk.
“We all want the same thing,” Anna says.
Una takes out a knife, and Samuel reaches for his gun until she flashes him a halting glare. She twirls the knife in her hand as she paces a little way across the warehouse. “So, you came here to kill the men who imprisoned and enslaved you, and now you’re allowing him to imprison you and do it for you…am I right?”
I let out a low growl. “I am not imprisoning Anna.”
Anna takes a step towards her sister. “This is the smart thing to do, Una. They help us, we help them, and we can take down the entire Sinaloa.”
Una looks from her sister, to me, and back again. “And did you come to this agreement willingly or were you backed into a corner?” Anna says nothing. “That’s what I thought.”
Una rounds Anna’s still form until she’s standing right in front of me. “You overstep. Anna is not yours. The only reason you’re even aware of her existence is because you were charged with taking care of her…for me.”
“Make no mistake Angel de la Muerte, Anna is very much mine.” Una has the blade of her knife at my throat in a heartbeat, and I hear the unified sound of several guns being raised. Glancing over her head, I see Samuel with his gun pointed at the back of Una’s head. Sasha places a gun to Sam’s head.
“Tell your men to stand down,” he says coldly.
Sam grits his teeth. “Fuck you, Russian.”
“Stand down!” I call out before Sam gets his brains blown out. My men hesitantly lower their guns.
I focus on Una again. “Anna will always be mine,” I tell her. Her jaw ticks and the knife flinches against my throat, digging into the scabbed remains of the wound Anna inflicted last night. My heart beats heavily, and I wait for her to open my throat. Her arm tenses and I suck in a readying breath.
“Stop!” Anna shouts, pointing a gun at her own sister. Her arm trembles and her expression is pained. Una glances at her, stilling.
“You would choose him?” she asks.
Anna sucks in a sharp breath. “I won’t let you kill him.” Una seems to deliberate for a moment before the knife disappears from my throat. She flips it over in her hand and shoves it into her thigh holster. “This doesn’t need to be a choice,” Anna says.
Una walks away and takes up her position beside Sasha. The action is seemingly absentminded, but I remember Nero once saying that Sasha is like a brother to Una. The look on Anna’s face would suggest that it stings a little.
“I’m willing to lend you all the manpower, guns, and protection at my disposal,” I say to Una. “All I ask in exchange is that Anna remains under my protection.”
Una snorts and folds her arms over her chest. “So you would keep my sister locked in your gilded cage?”
“No,” Anna says. “Dominges is mine. I’m simply allowing Rafael to…oversee things.”
“Why? We don’t need him. His cartel is barely surviving this war.”
“The more manpower we have, the more chance we have of succeeding.”
“Dominges is one man,” Una says.
“I don’t just want Dominges,” Anna replies.
“We’ve been through this. We are not taking down an entire cartel.”
“No, but they can.” Anna points at me. “And then…”
“And then what?” Una tilts her head to the side.
“And then we can get the girls out.”
Una spits a curse and tilts her face to the ceiling. “No. This is not the plan, Anna.”
“What girls?” I ask.
Una’s the one who answers me. “It seems my sister fancies herself some kind of savior. She wants to save the slaves.”
I frown. “The Sinaloa have hundreds of slaves.”
“I got eight out in Romania, and that was hard enough,” Una grumbles. Romania…
“What’s the point of all this if they’re just left there?” Anna asks. “I won’t abandon them.”
Una’s gaze locks with mine. “I agreed to kill Dominges and his inner circle. I’ll stick to that, but as for rescuing girls…that’s on you. I’m an assassin, not a fucking priest.”
“My focus is on taking down the Sinaloa right now,” I say, avoiding the subject somewhat. “I’d rather work with you than against you.” I eye both Una and Sasha.
She sighs and gives a hesitant nod, holding her hand out to me. I take it and shake her hand. Her body visibly tenses, relaxing only when I release her. The girl is a raging psycho. I don’t know how Nero does it.
“You’re welcome to stay here. Traffic in and out of the compound poses a risk of being followed.”
She gives a stiff nod and flicks her long white blonde hair over her shoulder as she turns and heads for the warehouse do
or. Sasha falls into step beside her, his gun still in hand. Anna makes to follow her sister, but I grab her wrist.
“Oh no, little warrior. You and I need a catch-up.” I pull her over to my office and close the door behind us. “You want to save all the slaves. Really, Anna?”
Leaning against the door, she folds her arms over her chest. “I didn’t ask for your help.”
I lean against the front of my desk. “Didn’t you? Because I have a feeling that this wasn’t the plan until just now. And what the fuck happened in Romania?”
She drops her chin to her chest and waves of golden hair tumble forward over her face. “I killed Alexandu Dalca,” she whispers. “And rescued the thirteen-year-old girl that I found chained to his bed, naked and bleeding.”
I swallow down bile and grip the edge of the desk so hard that my knuckles ache. “Anna,” I groan.
“There were seven more in the basement. Living in cages in the freezing cold…”
“You can’t save them all,” I say quietly.
She lifts her gaze, her glassy eyes meeting mine, breaking me just a little. “That girl was once me. I won’t abandon a single one if I can help it.”
Anger has my muscles instantly tensing. I try not to, but all I see is Anna, naked, bleeding, and chained. And I can’t even imagine her thirteen-year-old self like that. It makes me want to lock her away from anyone who would ever hurt her, just like Una said. Her sad eyes meet mine, haunted by a lifetimes worth of demons. She’s so strong, my little warrior. She’s survived so much.
“I understand why you want to save them, but it’s just not possible, avecita.”
“Would you give up on me so easily? If I were in their position…”
“You know I wouldn’t. I didn’t.” When the Russians took her, I thought I’d lost all sense of sanity. I’d have given anything for her, and I did. “But I love you, it’s different.”
“They aren’t so fortunate as to have someone who cares.”
“Avecita, you’re too soft-hearted for this.” She’s too kind for the cartel. Too fragile for my world.
“Not when it comes to Dominges. I want his entire cartel dead and buried. If we leave even a handful of Sinaloa men alive, those girls will die in captivity, and you know it.”
“I can’t promise you I can save them, little warrior.”
“I don’t need you to. Just win your war.”
“With the Russians on side, it should be easy.”
She nods. “Good. I need to go and talk to Una. We were planning to go after one of their distributors tonight.”
I stiffen at the thought of her running straight into the line of fire, but this is what I agreed to isn’t it? All of this is forcing me to fight so hard against my nature.
“It will be fine,” she says, flippantly.
“You just killed the consigliere of the Sinaloa cartel. They’ll be on high alert. Nothing about this is fine.”
“Don’t even think about trying to talk me out of it. We have an agreement, an alliance. Not as your…whatever.”
“You’re mine.”
She glares at me. “This is an alliance between two people with a mutual enemy. Nothing more.” I’m not sure if she believes the lie or she just hopes that I will.
Biting the inside of my cheek, I deliberate over my next words. She wants to play assassin with her sister, but I know how dangerous this city is, how lethal Dominges can be. Letting her go out there…it goes against every ingrained instinct I have. I’m limited in options here.
Wrapping my hand around the back of her neck, I tug her forward. Her hands land on my chest and her rapid breaths wash over my lips. “I’ll go with you,” I say.
Her eyes lock with mine. “Strategically, it would be better if you hit them elsewhere at the same time. Confuse them and deal a double blow.” She’s right. I know she’s right, but it doesn’t make much difference. “I can send Samuel.”
Her lips pull into a small smile, and she grabs my face, forcing me to meet her gaze. That simple contact is like a shot of everything I crave being injected straight into my bloodstream. She’s innocence and light and everything that’s sorely lacking in my world. “You’ll go yourself and trust that I have this.” I open my mouth to respond, but she places her palm over my mouth. “I won’t be your weakness.”
“Some things are inescapable, avecita.”
“This is the way it needs to be. Take it or leave it.”
“Little warrior…you are trying to be something you’re not.”
“What if I am though?”
“You’re not.”
“Maybe I’m right, or maybe you’re right, but if you never let me go, you’ll never see it. Things have changed.”
I know I’m not going to win this fight with her, and if I push too hard, she’ll just go with her sister and do it anyway. “Fine.” I wind my fingers around her throat and turn, changing our positions and forcing her up against the desk. “But if you die... or get hurt.”
“I won’t.” She swallows heavily, the muscles of her throat contracting against my palm as I force her to sit on the desk. Her legs part around my hips, and I can feel her pulse thrumming against my fingertips. My cock stirs to life as her fingers grip onto my biceps, her nails digging in hard enough to leave marks. I touch my forehead to hers, inhaling the subtle floral scent that clings to her. “I won’t,” she whispers.
“I can’t survive a world that doesn’t have you in it, avecita,” I confess.
“And this is the only way for me to really live.”
I inhale a deep breath and pull back, swiping my thumb over the corner of her lip. “So be it, little warrior.”
She pushes off the desk and steps around me, walking out without another word. There’s nothing to discuss.
We have to agree to disagree and hope that Dominges doesn’t reap the rewards of her brashness.
16
Anna
I stare through the night vision binoculars at the green-tinged scene in front of me. There are at least twenty men, all loading stuff into several trucks. This is the base of one of the Sinaloa’s main cocaine distributors. The entire operation is run by a guy they call Scorpion. If we remove him, we land a huge blow to the Sinaloa business. Rafael and his guys are hitting two other big distributors. In theory, we should cripple the Sinaloa drug operation in one night. Of course, this is just one part of their business, but it’s a start. Empires cannot simply be destroyed—they must be picked apart. I’ve learned that much from watching Rafael.
Una says something to Sasha in a hissed whisper, too quiet for me to make out.
“Our intel says Scorpion is inside,” she says to me.
“Okay, how do you want to do this?”
“Sasha will cause a distraction. You and I go in and take him out.”
I nod, even as my heart thrums in anticipation. Adrenaline fires through my bloodstream until my limbs feel shaky with it. Una, as always is ice cool and completely collected. Sasha pushes to his feet and stays low amongst the scrubby desert as he approaches the front of the compound. Una taps my arm and signals me to follow her as we head in the opposite direction. The warm night air clings to me, making my skin sticky and unpleasant. Cicadas chirp all around us and glow bugs dance through the air as though they’re lost.
Una slides through a fence, passing by several cows that barely look up from the pile of hay they’re eating. This farm is one of the biggest beef distributors in Texas…but their meat is packing some extra special ingredients. In the cocaine business, a distributor is only as good as his smuggling methods. And Scorpion’s are…inventive.
I whirl around when I hear the rapid sound of gunfire. I know it’s Sasha, and I know he can handle himself, but there’s one of him and so many of them. Una tugs me away impatiently until we reach the back of a huge barn. Jumping up, she finds footing on the wooden siding and drags herself up to the hay door on the second floor. I start climbing, and she reaches down, taking my hand to pull me th
e rest of the way. As soon as we’re inside, the smell of fresh cut hay and cow manure hits me. There’s a low humming from beneath us like an engine or machinery.
Voices drift from somewhere in the barn, and Una crouches down, prowling to the edge of the loft entrance and peering down the stairs. It’s impossible to really see anything from that tiny square in the ceiling, but if we go down, we could be walking into anything. I look through a tiny gap in the floorboards and spot a man in a cowboy hat, his beige colored pants and jacket adorned only by the gold star on his chest. A sheriff. He shakes hands with another man before they walk off. Una tilts her head to the side, listening for voices.
“Ready?”
No. “Yeah.”
My pulse is now racing as I watch her jump down through the small hole, but I never hear her land. Glancing down, all I see is dust and hay covered concrete. Taking my gun in hand, I swing through the hole and land in a crouch. Una is standing a few feet away, a body at her feet. His head is at a very strange angle, and glassy eyes stare straight through me.
She immediately starts moving through what looks like some kind of engine room. There are cogs, belts, and chains that whir round and round, never stopping. One of the chains is interspersed with hooks, and I know that the red tinge on the worn iron is not just rust. There’s a door at the end and the closer we get to it, the less I can smell the evidence of cattle because the distinctive scent of blood niggles at my senses, making me shift uncomfortably.
Una reaches the door and peers through the gap, taking a silencer from one of the many little hiding places in her outfit and fastening it to the end of her gun. My grip on my gun tightens as I get ready to jump into whatever is on the other side of that door. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. I’m not like my sister. I wasn’t trained and conditioned for this. I don’t have the absolute belief that I’m invincible, which I’m sure she does. For her, killing is a reflex like drawing oxygen into your lungs. For me, it’s a mental challenge, something I have to think about and execute. More than that though, I don’t think Una fears death. Maybe she’s killed so many people that she’s just desensitized to it. I do not want to die. But sometimes, it’s moments like these that truly force you to live.