“Good, bella. That’s good.”
“Stand up,” Reynolds said, moving in front of us with the gun pointed down.
“Be careful,” Alejandro told him, tapping his arm. “Don’t hit my son.” Then, he nodded toward me. “Maggie, move away from him. Come here.”
“I will not.”
Dimitri was calm as he stretched his arm out. The black ink on his skin barely visible as I gripped it, trying to keep Mateo from crying when he wiggled against my chest reaching for Dimitri.
“What do you want with him anyway? I thought you wanted us here. Leave…leave him out of this.”
“Carelli is the reason we’re all here,” Reynolds said, gesturing his gun to get me to move. When I didn’t, Reynolds stepped closer. “I don’t care who gets shot here. It would be…disappointing if I didn’t get the tradeoff…”
“What fucking tradeoff?” Dimitri said, reaching to the side to keep the baby from jumping away from me.
Reynolds smiled, glancing at Alejandro, who didn’t seem able to do anything but keep his head down. “It helps that my friend here is smart.” He moved to my ex’s side, lightly slapping his face. “He’s a genius programmer, but he’s a fucking junky, you know that, don’t you, beautiful?”
Beside me Dimitri stiffened, his shoulders and arms stretching like he was ready to pounce on Reynolds and take his chances with the gun. I couldn’t let that happen. “You’re not telling me something I don’t already know,” I said, squeezing Dimitri’s arm, my fingers against his chest to calm him. “I remember that night in our apartment.”
“I bet you do,” Reynolds said, grabbing Alejandro by the back of the neck. “Took me four hours to get this asshole to calm down. By the end of it, I felt sorry for him and gave him the shit because I’m a nice guy.”
I held back the laugh that bubbled in my throat and Reynolds rubbed the gun against his thigh and continued, like he was telling some stupid frat party story, and not how he’d manipulated my junkie husband. “But, because I was so generous, Alejandro owed me and I fucking love when people owe me. Favors, man. They’re my favorite.”
“And who the hell else owes you?” Dimitri asked, moving to his feet. I stood with him, adjusting Mateo as we moved behind him. “Is it Finney?”
“Finney?” Reynolds laughed, his smile wide and exaggerated. “Shit, man, you gotta think globally.” He touched the barrel of the gun to his temple and rubbed, pretending to scratch the skin there. “You really need to broaden your perspective. I know if I was in a family that had pissed off the fucking Irish mob…well, I think I’d be more observant.”
Dimitri snorted out a low laugh, not looking amused at all, muttering “Liam Shane” so low I knew only I could hear him. I’d heard that name at least a half a dozen times from Dimitri and Toni. Shane was the asshole Dante was running drugs for out of Dario’s bar. Shane had screwed everyone over and fled the country. He left Dante with a lot of product and the feds closing in on him, but it was Dario who took responsibility. Jesus, all of this because some mafia asshole wanted to pretend to be a baller and now Reynolds did too.
“So, someone in Shane’s family paid you to take me out? Is that what’s happening here? You and your little office buddies come to my family’s restaurant to get a take on how and where we operate?”
“Not anything so basic,” he said, the smile nearly gone. “But I needed an investor and he needed someone in your family gone. Didn’t really matter who. Just someone the Carellis gave enough of a shit about to start a war.” He looked at me, the grin returning. “It was easy enough to find your girl Kat. She freelances. She’s good. Or she was.”
Dimitri stepped forward, pausing when Reynolds raised the gun.
“Careful. Don’t want your brain splattered all over that baby’s face, do you?” He didn’t lower the gun until Dimitri moved back next to me. “Kat’s fine. Slipped right out from under my nose two weeks after we took her. Pissed me off, but I forced enough info out of her, and I got my happy little accident seeing beautiful Maggie’s picture, knowing I could tell my boy where his wife had run off to and get him to clean up long enough to set up surveillance.” He glanced at Alejandro, head tilted when my ex didn’t return his nod. Reynolds walked up to him and flung an arm over his shoulder. “So everyone gets a happy: my client gets one of you Carellis gone to get his retribution; I get my investment for doing it; my cousin August gets cash to fund his research for finding out everything he can on Maggie here; Alejandro gets his kid and all the smack he wants and me…well…like I said, I fucking love favors.” Reynolds licked his lips, his gaze shooting to my breasts, then dipping lower. “My favorite one so far has me fucking his wife for keeping him medicated the past year.” He shrugged, patting Alejandro’s face again when the thin man flinched away from him.
“Like hell,” Dimitri said, jumping right at Reynolds. The movement was so quick, so surprising, and Reynolds had his attention on me, that he didn’t seem ready for Dimitri when he moved.
I yelped, moving away from the men when Dimitri went at Reynolds. He took a quick first swing and Reynolds fell back but managed to stay on his feet. Dimitri’s balance was still off, but he kept his feet apart and his fists up just as Reynolds regrouped and dove right for Dimitri’s gut.
“Maggie!” Dimitri called, catching my eye when he wrapped his arm around Reynold’s neck and his long legs around his waist, getting him into a chokehold. “You…promised!”
Damn him.
Mateo’s screams and cries were almost as loud as the noise Dimitri and Reynold’s made as they fought. I tried to hush my son, tried to calm him as best as I could, but Dimitri destroyed Reynolds, clocking his nose and chin, thrashing his face over and over again, and Mateo watched him, screeching and crying.
“No,” I told him, running away from the slamming, punching bodies when they landed against the wall. Reynolds pushed Smoke against the table holding all those monitors.
I was nearly out of the door, ready to dash to the car when Smoke picked Reynolds up by the collar, shaking him until the man’s head volleyed like his neck was broken and Smoke threw him against the table.
The crash was deafening as Dimitri screamed, “Maggie, fucking go!”
Mateo’s cries were louder than the smash of computers that collapsed on top of Reynolds. I tore through the door, covering my son’s head, taking the steps two at a time. Behind me Alejandro and Dimitri yelled, and I thought they’d started fighting too.
“Leave her alone, you asshole,” Dimitri yelled. Then, louder, his voice coming out in a wheeze, “Maggie, go. Don’t stop!”
There was another crash and then Alejandro calling my name made me run faster. My insides burned as I moved toward the parking lot.
It was the shots that stopped me.
One piercing the air, stopping me as I ran.
The second one freezing everything inside me.
I turned, Mateo’s loud sobs rattling in my ear as I pressed him close to me, my grip loosening only for a second as I spotted Alejandro running toward us as Smoke leaned against the doorframe in that small green cottage, one hand gripped on the frame and the other over his chest.