“What the fuck?” I take a step forward but stop when the barrel of a gun hits the back of my head.
“Not so fast, little brother,” Marissa sneers. “I’d hate for your unchecked anger issues to cause you to lose your wife.”
I glance up at Tiffany once again. Her face is bruised and there’s a cut on her forehead. Her hair is matted and wet from blood. A rip in her pants leg shows me her leg is badly broken. My heart is racing, and the buzz underneath my skin has me blinking multiple times trying to clear my thoughts.
“What do you want?” I ask, defeat heavy in my voice.
Marissa chuckles, and the other two quickly join her.
“Damn, brother, you’re giving up so easily. The great Saint is bowing out.”
“He’s not so powerful when you take his men from him.” Ezra spits on the ground in front of him.
The more I think about it, the angrier I get that I didn’t blow his worthless brains out at that restaurant.
“I promised my guys here a nice show and all I get is ‘what do you want’?” Again, Marissa chuckles.
“The big bad Saint ain’t so tough,” the dipshit behind me sneers.
Trust me, there was so much I wanted to do. I wanted to raid this fucking building. I wanted to skin these muthafuckers alive and watch them slowly bleed to death.
If it were up to me, I’d have every connection I ever made storming this fishy ass old processing mill and putting so many holes in these three there would be nothing to bury. But none of that is worth losing the one woman I can’t live without.
“You did all this for a reason,” I say looking back at Marissa. It’s obvious she’s the brains behind this shit show. “You didn’t just want my attention, you wanted something. What. Do. You. Want?”
Her face falls, the smile she held seconds ago disappears into a stoic frown. “Everything,” she finally says. “I want it all. They say your net worth is 9 billion, but we both know that’s bullshit. With your Saint money and all your illegal deals, I’m guessing you are more at 200 billion.
“But I’m not interested in your net worth. I want your liquid assets. All of it. I want everything in your bank account along with your offshore accounts.” She grins wider. “We both know you have offshore accounts.”
The guy with the gun walks around me, holding his gun up. He backs over to Ezra, who hands him a laptop. Ezra raises his gun proudly and marches over to me.
I take that brief second to look up at Tiffany. Her head lulls between her shoulders. I can tell her body is in pain from the permanent grimace on her face.
For the first time since I walked in, her eyes open and fall on me. I can see everything she’s thinking. In that contact, I see her love for me, her relief to see me, and her fear for me. All of it is packaged up in those dark brown eyes I love so fucking much.
“Nico.” Her pained voice whispering my name has me shutting my eyes and taking a deep breath.
When I open them back up, Ezra is standing beside me with the gun pointed at me.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t pull this trigger,” he sneers.
Cutting my eyes to him briefly, I put my attention back on Marissa. As I said, it’s obvious she is running this. From the dynamics I’m getting, I’d say the meth head blonde with the laptop is the second in command, which makes Ezra just a lap boy.
“Pretty hard to do with your non dominate hand, don’t you think?”
There is a second’s delay before Ezra spins the gun around and slams the butt into my cheek. Tiffany cries out my name. My head turns, and blood fills my mouth, but I take the blow like its nothing.
“What the fuck, Ezra?” Marissa shouts. “We need him.”
“He’s being a smart ass.”
I spit the glob of blood out of my mouth and onto the floor. I immediately find my wife’s gaze. Without words, I try to tell her I’m okay and to not worry about me.
“It’s ready,” meth head shouts.
Marissa places her attention on me. She holds up a small square device in her hand.
“Tell me, Nicholas, how much is your wife worth to you?”
