"Well then, I'm hoping it's gang members," I said.
Carmine grinned, and his eyes lit up. "Me too."
Carmine pulled the car into the vacant lot, and the two of us exited the car. We both looked around, noting our surroundings. The lot was empty, just a few cars that had clearly been abandoned there.
"No one around," I said.
"Appears that way," Carmine agreed.
"I'll take your lead. Just tell me what you need from me."
Carmine stepped closer. He gripped my collar and pulled me in for a kiss. Once I was breathless and incredibly aroused, he pulled away. "Just stand there and look cute. I'll handle this." He patted my chest.
I didn't intend to actually do that, but watching Carmine at work was like watching Monet paint or Mozart compose. It was art.
We walked into the building and followed the muted shouts until we found a group of gang members standing around arguingabout whatever the fuck. We didn’t care, and I didn’t bother to even decipher what they were saying.
One of them was a man wearing a leather jacket with spikes on the sleeves and a neck tattoo of a spider web. Only the spider only had seven legs. Maybe he couldn’t afford the eighth leg? Or maybe he’d never bothered to count.
"Who the fuck are you?" he asked. His eyes were bloodshot. Lack of sleep? Or drugs?
His comrades all flanked his side as if they were preparing for battle. It seemed we were going to see some action after all.
"Who I am is irrelevant. What I need is what's important."
The alpha's eyes turned lecherous as he looked my omega up and down. "Oh, I know what an omega like you needs." He gripped his crotch and thrust his hips forward. His friends laughed like it was the funniest thing they’d ever heard. Their argument from earlier was forgotten.
Carmine wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Hard pass. I need you and your friends to leave this property."
"Yeah, that's not happening. This is ours.” The alpha spread his arms wide, gesturing to the whole place like it was some sort of palace and not an old abandoned building that had seen better days.
"It's really not. The new owners want to have the place vacated. So you need to scram."
The alpha stepped closer to my mate, and it took all my strength not to pounce on the man and tear his arms off.
Carmine stood still, looking bored and not the least bit threatened.
"Yeah, that's not happening."
"Okay. That's fine." Carmine didn't give him another chance. He’d asked once, and that was all they were going to get. His fist flew quicker than my eyes could follow. The alpha folded over, his hands going to his throat as he coughed and struggled for air.
The men around him stared in shock. Then all of them snapped into action at once. Two pulled knives, while the other two came straight at him with their fists.
I went to intervene, but before I could take a step forward, Carmine had one of them on his ass and was pounding the other in the face. Blood spurted from the man's nose, and Carmine gripped his shoulder and kneed the man in the balls.
"Fuck!" The man was screaming as he fell to the ground.
The two alphas with knives came at him, so Carmine pulled his weapon and trained it on the one man's head.
He stopped in his tracks.
"Last chance," Carmine said.
Like the coward he was, the man turned and bolted. The other man with the knife decided to try his luck against Carmine. He didn't get a chance to regret it. Carmine pulled the trigger and the man crumpled.
"Clean shot," I said.
Carmine turned to me and winked. "Of course."
