I hit the rusty dirt in the barn and the boot-stomping started. I curled up to protect my vital organs, but my kidneys took a kicking all the same.
Motherfuckers.
It reminded me of my wasteman old man and the steel-capped boots he’d worn to work. My mind drifted and I heard his voice, but I was moving again before I was gone too long.
Thing One hauled me up and threw me further into the barn. I expected to land in a heap on the ground.
The rickety chair caught me off guard. It protested at the impact as I crashed into it, wood creaking, but Thing Two steadied it, breathing garlic and tobacco into my face.
I waited for him to bitch-slap me. It was his favourite move. But the blow didn’t come. He smirked at me and stepped away, and I realised two things.
One, that I wasn’t tied down.
Two, that the numbers in the barn had swelled beyond the Thing Twins.
Shiny shoes.
Tailored suits.
Italian.
Spanish.
Lorenzo Sambini and... Carlos Esteban.
It shouldn’t have shocked me to see them together. It shouldn’t have shocked me to see Carlos at all, but the sight of him jarred me, the numbness I’d carried since I’d watched Embry get cold-cocked seeping away.
Fear took its place, the visceral kind that was so far beyond nerves my body didn’t know what to do with it.
Lorenzo didn’t scare me. He was a spoilt little shit so hungry for power that he’d tie his own dick in a knot to be king.
Carlos petrified me. There was every chance his goons had killed Embry on Rubi’s kitchen floor, that Juana and her unborn baby were dead in an unmarked grave, and he’d just stopped by to tell me my daughter was already in the hands of the highest bidder.
Whether he stuck his favourite knife in my throat before delivering the good news seemed irrelevant.
That pain was nothing.
The Thing Twins moved aside. Lorenzo Sambini stayed where he was, but Carlos came forward, confidence in every stride, smirk building on the face of a man who always,alwayswon.
He stopped a foot away and leaned down. “You have something that belongs to me.”
Okay. Maybe not.He doesn’t know where they are.I kept the soul-saving relief from my face, flattening my expression. Maybe he didn’t know what Embry was to me either.
Maybe, justmaybe, he’d left him alive.
He was unconscious and bleeding. What if he ends up like Rubi? Scared of the sun in case it singes his brain through his fucking eyeballs?
What if he’d been dead before he hit the ground?
One split second and a thousand thoughts, none of them good.
Carlos smirked, as if he’d caught me contemplating my own death, but he was shit out of luck if he thought I’d waste a minute on that. Worrying about certainties I couldn’t change was a luxury I’d never had time for, and if there was one thing I was certain of, it was that this fucker was gonna kill me.
Slowly.
Can’t wait.
Sarcasm was thick in my brain as Carlos came closer, his fancy shoes kicking up dirt. He smelt like money, something I only noticed now, thanks to Embry and his obsession with scent.
