Page 118 of Darcy
“What you’ve said,mijo, aligns with our information.”Roberto sounds carefully calm, in the way people often do when they’re about to break bad news.“The Belladonna they’ve sent after us is focusing on you. She’s taken out your surveillance, interfered with the old man, and now you say she’s spying on you? All of this… well, it’s why we’ve decided to shut down this arm of the business.”
Miguel’s bottle slips from his fingers.“Shut it down? But I’m so close to scaling it up. It’s been the perfect cover for years, and I’m so close to luring in new talent—”
“There will be other chances to prove yourself,”Roberto promises.“For now, we need to bunker down and cover our tracks here. The band will need to be silenced. Overdose the addict. His death will give the others an excuse to quit touring. They’ll stay quiet, or we’ll follow through on our threats to their families.”
My heart ices over. They want to kill off my guys to cover their tracks? Fuck that.
Part of me wonders if I shouldn’t give them the easy fiery death I had planned. Perhaps I should take a page out of Ivory’s book and play with them a bit first.
“This was supposed to bemyarm of the business,”Miguel retorts.“You can’t just snap your fingers and shut it all down. I’m making money, aren’t I?”
Roberto gives him a patient look.“You are makingpeanuts, mijo. What product you manage to shift in a year is nothing in the grand scheme of things, and the cost of all this pageantry isn’t cheap.”
Miguel is quiet. Too quiet.
While his brothers are cool and collected, I’d have expected some kind of outburst from him by now.
Evidently Joaquin thinks the same, because he leans over to pat his younger sibling on the shoulder.
“Do not take this to heart,”he says, gruffly.“This is the Belladonna’s fault, not yours. Once we are back home, we can create a plan to take her out, and maybe then you can get more experience managing our operations at the docks.”
“We can talk about that later,”Roberto mutters, putting down his own beer.“Once we’re safely aboard our yacht and far away from the assassin.”
Miguel stiffens, then relaxes, shoving his way out of his seat.“You’re right,”he admits.“Come. Let’s speak on the yacht. As you said, there’s no time to waste.”
His older brothers relax, and Joaquin nods, heading for the door.
I need to move fast. They’re heading for the boat way too early. Hefting my rucksack over my shoulder, I—
BANG.
BANG BANG.
My hands fumble with my phone in my haste to figure out what just happened.
BANG.
“ASSASSIN!”
It takes me a second to realise that that final gunshot, and the accusatory voice that accompanied it, aren’t coming from my phone. Ignoring the pinch in my shoulder, I turn and come face to face with Jackson, pistol raised and pointed at me as he talks into his radio with the other.
“It’s the bitch the band was fucking. I need cleanup.”
Shit.
He made one fatal mistake: not finishing me off straight away.
Drawing my own gun, I fire on instinct, taking him out in one neat shot to the forehead. I don’t waste time watching him slump to the ground or admiring the blood splatter. He’s just a pawn, and I’m here for the brothers.
Only, it appears I’m too late to take out the two older Rosales. On my phone, Miguel is standing over their corpses, golden glock in his hand. Roberto is face down on the floor and unmoving, but Joaquin has managed to catch himself on a chair. With one hand, he reaches for his youngest sibling in a silent plea, but a final shot finishes the eldest Rosales brother off before he can say anything.
Shit.
I swipe across my screen, firing a tracer bug from the bot before Miguel can vanish. The tiny dart hits the back of his collar, and affixes itself. Before I can do anything else, more security—drawn my way by Jackson's shout—rush through the door.
More gunshots. Shit. My plan is falling apart. I take out my attackers and take cover beside the door. With one hand, I blindly swipe across the surface of my phone, activating the warning beacon.
My guys have to get out of here.
