Page 91 of Hostile Love
Armed men spill into the stairwell. Some stay beside their boss and a few others scramble up the stairs past us.
“Are you okay?” he mumbles into her hair before cupping her jaw to secure her face before his. “Are you hurt?” His gaze drops to the blood on her clothes. A shadow of something dark and deadly moves across his expression. “Did someone fucking hurt you, Cari? I’ll get you a doctor?—”
“I’m fine.” Carina interrupts, setting her hand over the top of his. “Because of Mat’s girl. She’s the one who needs a doctor.”
Tomás’ black assessing eyes run the length of my body, pausing at our linked hands. I can’t quite read the unusual look he gives me, but when his gaze cuts to Matheus, his chest expands like he’s trying to contain a cyclone.
“Mat?” His eyes narrow and his jaw flexes. “Is any of that blood yours, brother?”
“No, Tommy,” Matheus replies, unlocking our fingers and sliding his hand to my waist. He helps me to stand next to him.
“That guy said he killed your father that night in the alleyway,” Carina announces. “He said a Souza paid him to do it.”
Tomás draws back his shoulders and I inhale a breath.
“Which Souza?” he asks, staring right at Matheus.
Every hair on my body prickles as I wait for Carina to tell him I cut the guy's throat instead of torturing the truth out of him.
26
MATHEUS
Carina peeks over her shoulder, catching Dani’s eye and gives a slight smile. Something unspoken passes between them, and then she looks back at my brother.
“He died pretty quickly,” she announces.
I guide Dani down each step to the landing where Tomás has Carina circled in his arms. He’s squeezing the woman so close he could break her back if he doesn’t relax.
My gaze falls to Dani, painfully aware she’s hugging her wrist close to her chest and the red marks on her throat are already starting to bruise.
I hate knowing she’s suffering in silence.
My blood simmers, a few degrees less than it was minutes ago. However, it’s still flamed by anger.
I know she’s a force to be reckoned with all on her own. But the fucker was strangling my woman, and I lost my shit like I’ve never done before.
Everything went black.
Sure, I could have snapped Fintan’s neck or offered the final stab deep into his neck, but I’d already won.
The bastard was choking on his own blood, had no power left in his limbs, and needed to understand that my woman was better than him.
Fintan was screwing with us, anyway. All he wanted was the last word. To have an element of control since he knew he’d served his last mission––and failed.
Lozano must have promised him enough cash to make his betrayal worthwhile. Not that it would serve him well now.
“Mat.”
Tomás keeps his gun lowered as he studies the dead guy behind me. There’s no hiding a sliced throat.
“…if you paid him to kill Papá, you need to tell me the truth now. It’s time to move on from this. I need to know.”
He’s thinking that I butchered Fintan before he had the chance to accuse me. Carina would have heard my name slip past his lips and my brothers would learn I was a traitor.
Despite the way it appears, I didn't engineer the death of Colombia's most feared drug lord. And the fact my brother is asking me to own up leads me to believe he doesn't either.
Dani straightens beside me, her posture strengthening as if she senses danger. I love this woman.
