Page 13 of Hostile Love
“Why would he want to take her? No one knows a Blanco soldier carried out the mission thatyouasked for,” my brother states coolly.
I blow out my cheeks. Dani and I had broken protocol. I told her to take off her balaclava before she stabbed Eduardo. It was a matter of revenge and closure.
Giovanni doesn't need to know that part, because it was just three of us inside that room. No one else saw her face.
“You have power too, Crow. I didn’t dig any deeper into why that particular mission had to happen since you cleared it with the boss. You had your reasons. Whoever took Buffy must be after Blanco. They took her from his place. I’m sure the asshole has plenty of enemies.”
“Can you run a plate check for me?” I ask.
“Of course. If you need anything else, call me. Stay safe, Crow. And wear your mask.”
When Giovanni ends the call, I pour a neat whiskey and knock it back seconds before Dario enters the room.
“You need to see this, Souza.”
5
DANIELA
“So, you think I’d give you my eyes willingly?” I laugh under my breath, pitying these two amateurs. “This isn’t a game. You come at me, and I’ll kill you.”
The guy wearing a baseball cap glances over his shoulder at his friend who rolls his eyes, the two of them thinking they’ve got the upper hand.
“Cuff her, Jonny. I want thisputatied up like my uncle was when she stabbed him.”
Jonny digs out a set of handcuffs from his back pocket.
“My pleasure, Toño.”
As Toño angles his head back to me and our eyes meet, the familiar rattle of submachine guns firing off 800 rounds a minute sends his brows snapping together.
“They’re here already,” he mutters.
“Let’s get this over with.” Jonny lunges at me, his reactions panicked.
The second he wraps his hand around my forearm, my instincts to kill flare up. A black mist descends, and I move quickly, twisting Jonny like a pretzel and punching his throat.
While he struggles to breathe, my focus jumps to Toño and his gun.
He pulls the trigger and I dodge the bullet. A hiss of anger spills from his lips, the stench of violence thick in the atmosphere.
His efforts to grab me are short-lived when I twist sideways, spin, and raise my leg high, booting him in the face with the back of my heel.
Toño staggers, blinking wildly. Blood explodes from his nose, which distracts him for a second.
I don’t waste the opportunity, silently loving the surge of adrenaline in my veins.
While he wipes his nostrils with the back of his hand, I snatch his gun, aim, and shoot him in the thigh, happily watching him writhe on the floor.
From behind, a sudden red-hot burn slices my cheekbone.
Motherfucker.
Patting the cut he’d just carved into my flesh, I rub the blood between my fingertips, glaring at Jonny’s heaving chest and flaring nostrils.
“You’ll pay for that,” I snarl under my breath.
Jonny glances at the gun in my hand and then his gaze cuts to the river of blood leaking from Toño’s leg.
