“Given my specific skill set, don’t you think I’ve already gone down every possible avenue of her rescue?” I tried to keep my voice even. “She doesn’t have her phone, Tex doesn’t have his phone, they’re gone and the only way we’re getting them back is if we wait.”
“We are not waiting.” Nixon growled.
Trace put her hand on his back and started rubbing. Nixon flexed and unflexed his fist.
“There is no way to track her.” I sighed. “I’m sorry, Nixon. We wait. We have to.”
“We wait when I say we wait,” Nixon yelled.
I held up my hands in surrender. “Fine, you’re the boss.”
Luca stood abruptly and marched out of the room, cell phone in hand.
“Wayta piss everyone off, Sergio,” Chase murmured.
“This isn’t my fault!” I shouted. “I was taken from behind!”
“You should have been paying attention!” Nixon roared. “What the hell were you doing! Watching a damn sitcom!”
“She was with Tex!” I jumped up from my chair. “She was safe!”
“She is never safe with Tex.” Nixon jabbed his finger in my chest pushing my legs back against the wooden chair. “Never, do you understand? From here on out, you’re her freaking shadow. I want to know how many times she tosses in her sleep, I want to know how many eye lashes she loses per hour. When we get her back, not if, but when we get her back, her life is more important than yours. Do we have an understanding?”
Rolling my eyes wouldn’t be effective, but that’s exactly what I wanted to do. And this was why I hated working for the family. I bit my tongue, allowing myself a few moments of sanity before speaking. “We have an understanding.”
“Good.” Nixon popped his knuckles and picked up his gun again.
“Put that down before you hurt yourself,” Chase whispered then gripped Mil’s hand and whispered into her ear, “They’ll be fine, Tex is an animal.”
“That’s the problem,” Nixon interjected. “He’s an animal I can no longer control.”
“You don’t know that,” Frank piped up. “You know nothing of what happened.”
It was true, even the camera system had somehow been overridden so we were literally blind on all fronts. How the hell had they infiltrated so quickly, the thought that it was planned entered my head probably the same time Nixon’s cold gaze met mine.
“No.” I shook my head. “Tex wouldn’t do that.”
“Would he?” Nixon whispered. “How else would they be able to infiltrate the house? It’s a fortress.”
“Nixon—” Trace held out her hands in front of her. “No, we’re talking about Tex, your best friend Tex!”
“The world is an ugly place,” Nixon spat. “You of all people should know that, Trace. After all, Phoenix was my best friend too, and look how that turned out.”
“Enough.” Frank entered the room again sliding his phone back into his pocket. “They’re fifteen miles south of here.”
“What?” We all said in unison.
My eyes narrowed to tiny slits. “How do you know that?”
Luca met Frank’s gaze. It was tired; hell they both looked like they needed a vacation. “Oh, Sergio, I know a great many secrets. This one, I just hoped to keep a little longer.”
“All good things,” Frank whispered.
“They must end,” Luca agreed. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The kiss of death—what a way to go.
Tex
KISSING MO WAS EASING the pain. Had I been dying, this was exactly how I wanted to go. With her tight body pressed against mine, with her hot breath tickling my lips, with her tongue teasing every inch of mine until I was ready to go insane.
I wanted to wrap my hands around her, but they were still tied behind me and it wasn’t some crazy BDSM shit that had them tied. Nope, just my crazy family. Hell, I’d always envied Nixon and his family. I fought against the zip tie. Yeah, envy officially gone.
“Tex.” Mo pressed another lingering kiss to my lips. “I have to tell you something, it doesn’t matter anymore because—”
Shots started firing from the outside.
“Get behind me, Mo.”
“No!” She crossed her arms. “I’m not using you as a shield!” Her eyes widened in horror.
“I said. Get. Behind. Me. Now.”
She looked between me and the door. “Look, if I pull the knife from your thigh you may bleed like a bitch but at least I can get you loose and—”
“Mo!” I wasn’t above begging. “Please, for the love of God, just let me do my job, let me protect you, this is all I have, my body as your freaking shield, alright? My soul for yours. That’s what I have right now. That’s what I’d give to keep you safe, so I’m not asking you, I’m telling you, I’m demanding you get behind me before I He-Man my way out of this binding and rip off my damn hands in the process.”
With a stunned expression she hobbled behind me.
“Crouch,” I instructed. “I want them to see me first, not you, if shots are fired, at least it won’t hit your head.”
The shots kept echoing outside the door. Whoever was out there was seriously having a hell of a good time with their semi-automatic.
More shouting and then complete silence.
I counted to three before the footsteps started.
Funny, how counting to three used to be something I was taught when I was little and had a tendency to go all rage-oholic.
Nixon had been the one to teach me to control the rage. He’d always said the most powerful men in the world weren’t the ones who were angry but the ones who knew where to direct their anger.
I wanted to be powerful.
So I learned to direct.
I learned to collect the emotions and then use them to my benefit.
So right now, I wasn’t scared.
I was pissed.
Beyond pissed.
Livid.
Ready to lose my shit, because Alfonso had taken something precious to me and exposed her to Hell, and I wanted to be the one to send him there, I wanted to be the one to end this bloodshed, this battle within my family.
I’d never fit in. I’d never felt complete, I’d always had this lingering feeling that something was missing in my life. Even Mo hadn’t been able to fill it, but as I sat in that metal chair and counted to three I thought about my life, about what I wanted it to mean.