Page 81 of Empire of Carnage
“Where are you?” I sent back to him.
“Stuck inside the fucking DJ booth,” Santos yelled into his speaker.
I gnawed on my cheek, looking back at Celia.
“Mateo,” she warned, knowing exactly where my mind was going. “I swear on all that is—” I interrupted her, pulling her into my body and pressing my lips into hers roughly.
She responded, parting her lips for me and letting my tongue invade its way into her mouth. Her free hand ran up my chest, caressing the side of my cheek and raking through my hair as we deepened our kiss.
“Reina,” I whispered into her ear, doing my best to pronounce it the same way I’d heard the others. “Please,” I begged, pulling back and looking into her black eyes.
“I can’t stay here, not knowing what’s happening out there,” she yelled, not holding back her emotions. “You can’t keep me here, in the dark, with all those guns going off, just waiting for someone to rescue me.” Her eyes welled up with tears but not a single one fell.
I knew what she meant when she said in the dark, she didn’t mean the quality of the light in Sokolov’s office. She was talking about history repeating itself, her traumas. She couldn’t handle the idea of being helpless and blind to what was happening out there, while we, her family, might be in danger.
Fuck.
“Fletch, I need cover.” I sent the audio message and waited for a response.
“Where you at boss?” he yelled over the background noise.
“Trying to make our way to the DJ booth.”
I pulled her close behind me and opened the door to find Russians, cártel grunts, and stray Crows alike dead on the ground. Men hiding behind bodies and open doors shooting towards this end of the hallway. We couldn’t go back the way we came.
“Run to that door on my count.” I pointed to the door across the hall from us, it was only five or six feet away, but a bullet didn’t care about that kind of distance.
It was still far enough to die getting there.
“One… Two… THREE!” I pushed her towards the door, barreling myself in front of her and hitting an incoming Bratva soldier dead smack in the chest with a bullet just as she pushed open the door to reveal the backstage area.
It was a complete clusterfuck out there—bodies lying on toppled tables, blood and booze dripping from every surface of the place. Any civilians were likely nice and dead at this point, not that there was much to feel guilty about.
Every fucker inside this place was here to buy a woman.
We gave our men one rule only.
Don’t shoot the girls.
I pushed Celia against a corner, sheltering her from any Bratva asshole in the audience. That’s when I noticed the three dancers huddled in the opposite end, using the blind spots in the stage to their advantage for cover. I put my index finger over my lips to signal them to stay quiet, and they nodded fearfully, crouching down further.
I could only hope that they had no reason to fear for their lives. Sokolov’s men would have had no need to injure or kill any of the women who were working here, and our men weren’t set out for that kind of mission. As long as they avoided a stray bullet, they could make it out of this.
Right now, I needed to focus on getting my best friend and keeping the woman we loved alive.
31
Ronan
They were supposed to be waiting outside, waiting for a signal or some word from us that it was time to go inside and wreak havoc on Sokolov’s little slice of hell when I got the text from Kane that Celia had snuck off and was now missing.
“Let me find this stupid fucking bird, or she’ll never let me live it down,” I whispered into the phone, unsure if I was heading in the right direction in this pitch-black basement.
There was a dripping of a faucet somewhere in the distance, loud and constant enough that in the two minutes I’d been down here it was already driving me to the edge of madness. If anything was alive down here, it was certainly insane from it.
“I’m not waiting anymore Zerkos, I’m going in.” Santos clicked off the line and I sent a voice message to Fletcher and Ethan to let them know it was time.
I pulled my glock out, just in case, and delved further into the dark abyss of the basement, kicking the bodies of the Bratva grunts who’d seen me breaking in through the window.
