“No play,” I said, my voice flat. “You get my family safe. My sister knows where our money is. You get them away after. But now, I go in. I kill him.” And no, I wasn’t expecting to come back out.
Jamie’s eyes went wide with something between delight and horror. “Jesus, man, subtle.” Then his grin snapped. He held out his palm, revealing a small, flat disk no bigger than a coin. “Here. Slam this on his neck.”
I frowned. “What is it?”
“Burn charge,” Jamie said, looking positively gleeful. “Hit the center hard.” He tapped the tiny indentation. “It’ll activate on impact. Burns straight through muscle, hits the spine if you’re lucky. Nasty little thing.” He grinned. “I love it.”
He flipped it once, and I winced as he caught it, then held it out again. “Press hard. Slam it. Burn, okay?”
I took it from him, the weight deceptively light in my hand, and nodded. “Okay.”
Jamie grinned wider. “Go make history, Doc.”
“We’ll be a block away, moving in after you have his attention,” Enzo murmured, and then he and Jamie left.
“I’m coming with you,” Levi said, and Novak nodded once—silent, steady, meaning he was prepared to do the same.
“No. This I do alone,” I muttered, already moving. My legs carried me in the direction of Novak’s warehouse before my brain caught up, but Levi was faster. He grabbed my arm, spun me, and planted me back against a wall.
“No more alone shit,” he snapped, shaking me once—not hard, but enough to break through the adrenaline roaring in my ears.
I exhaled shakily. “Fine. You stay outside. You leave if it goes sideways. And you look out for my family, Levi?—”
“Fuck you,” Levi cut in, fury and fear tangled in his voice. “The man I’m falling in love with is coming back. Do you hear me? I’m not losing you. Not now. Not tonight.”
I froze. Love? That word hit like a bullet—clean, shocking, sinking straight into my ribs. And worse… it felt right.
“Then wait outside,” I managed, my voice rough. “Because I don’t want to die today if I can help it.”
TWENTY-ONE
Alejandro
No one stoppedme from approaching. I knew this area well—I’d worked with Novak long enough to have visited on more than one occasion. The outside door clanged shut behind me, then I walked the short distance to Novak’s kill room, waiting for the two men with Raven to let me in. The room was bright, and in its center, a man was tied to a chair, broken and near death by the look of it.
“Finally,” Raven said. “This is the fourth one who’s nearly dying waiting for you to get here.” He gestured into the far corner where three broken bodies were piled as if they were nothing.
I didn’t turn away from Raven and his gun because showing my back was a weakness. Showing fear was worse.
“You came alone,” Raven said as the two men flanked him, just another iteration of the ones who’d followed him at the old Águilas. “Good boy.”
“Touch my family,” I said, “and I’ll cut out your heart.”
He laughed. Same sound from years ago—when I’d been crouched in a corner watching a man tied to a chair, bleeding out while Raven told me to learn something. The man in this chairwas alive, but barely. His face cut to ribbons—Raven had already had his way with this victim.
“You’re all grown up, El Doctorcito.”
“You’re uh… not looking so good,” I deadpanned, although my chest was so fucking tight it was getting hard to breathe. Raven’s skin was twisted from the acid I’d poured over his shoulder, splashing his face, a knotted mass of scars he’d attempted to hide with a ball cap and the collar of a leather jacket popped up.
He stiffened, his temper flashed in his eyes, and he took a step toward me, but then he appeared to gather himself and stopped before gesturing at the broken man in the chair. “Go on,” Raven said, “keep him alive for me.”
“Who is he?”
“You never asked before.” He tilted his head as if he was confused—I wanted to stab his fucking eyes out. “Interesting.”
I stepped forward, breath held tight in my chest. No expression. No shaking. Only that cold prickle at the base of my skull—the old instinct to disappear into myself before anyone noticed fear. The kid he trained knew how to hide everything.
The man in the chair gurgled, begged through broken lips, his voice garbled, and I immediately went to stand next to him.
