Page 35 of Rogue

“I must give you credit. You didn’t take what you know and go to the feds. Alas, that isn’t enough reassurance for me. Once Benny comes, you won’t be a risk for anyone anymore. It’s a shame, you are a beautiful woman.”

Popping up as quietly as I can, I move away from the building at the same time I see a small compact car pulling up.

The driver.

It’s none other than Benincio Cartagena.

Fuck. Michele’s on short time now. This man wants to get rid of any loose ends.

Both of them in the same room, easy fix and then he’s ghost.

I can’t lose her when I don’t even have her completely yet.

No, I won’t lose her.

CHAPTER 13

Michele

“Oh Benincio, how nice of you to join us,” Diaz boasts as Benny walks in.

He doesn’t look at me but instead locks eyes to Diaz. “I’m here, bastard. You called, I came. Although, having this audience seems a bit much for what you intend to do.”

“And what do I intend to do?”

Benny looks me in the eyes and I feel the tears pooling. “You want me to watch as you end Leigh as punishment for my denial of your job. Then you’ll end me.”

“You got it wrong Benincio. You didn’t deny my job, you denied the Irishman. And you did it in a way that Bianchi saw her enemy coming. You gave her an advantage she shouldn’t have had. All for the love of this whore.”

“She’s a lot of things, Diaz. She’s not a whore,” Benny tells him calmly.

“Well, for loving this whore, you were dumb. You deserve to die now. But knowing what’s to come you are rather smart Benincio. I don’t think she’s worth your life. Alas, you came as if you could do something. Always trying to save her. When will you learn, Benny? A whore will get you killed.”

“Didn’t live before her, didn’t live without her. Only time in my life I can say I was breathing with the intention to keep doin’ it was when I had her. I don’t have that anymore, so you wanna end me. Do it. But don’t you think for one fuckin’ second I’m gonna let you hurt her.”

Diaz approaches me as Benny comes closer as if he can somehow step between us.

“Look at her,” Diaz states waving his hand like he’s showing a display on a tv show. “She’s wearing another man’s clothes. She doesn’t even have on panties or a bra. She’s in his clothes. She smells of him, Benny boy.”

I drop my head in shame.

“She needs to have another man. I’m not deserving of her. And you should know for all of this, I got a mark on your head Diaz. So kill me, you can live, kill her, and you will die before the sun rises tomorrow morning.”

Diaz laughs, “Still think you have some power here. That’s the problem Benincio, you have always thought you had some control and you don’t. You’re a hired gun. Nothing more, nothing less. Always dispensable.”

Benny shrugs his shoulders not denying the statements.

“Get closer,” Diaz says taking a gun from the man beside me and pointing it at Benny. “Move to your woman, smell her Benny. Inhale the stench of biker. She came down south and learned how to be trash.”

A noise outside makes me stop breathing. I have a trigger happy cartel boss who wants to make my ex watch me die alongside a dozen other men who will kill me before letting me be able to identify any of them. And now a damn bird wants to fly into the door.

Diaz orders two men to check it out. He moves back slightly and I use the space to my advantage to talk to Benny.

“I’m sorry, Benny,” I whisper. “I didn’t know he would use me to get to you. I thought you had found me.”

“Baby, in my life everyone close to me is leverage. I let you go to save you from this,” his words hit me hard. “I didn’t look for you because I knew Giulia would do everything to keep you out of this life.”

Benny didn’t follow me. He loved me so much he refused the job to kill me.

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