AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Nikolai
It sounds like hellfire raining down in the hall, and I’m fucking pissed I’m not there. I’m fucking even more pissed Rose wouldn’t leave with everyone else.
Safe. Away from this place, just like the signal told us.
She slides up and squeezes my hand, then moves off near one of the doors. Reinforced. Locked from here. No one’s coming in through it. The door at the other end? Now that…
The screams and shouts die out, and I’m hoping like fuck Tony got some of them alive. The plan relies on that. My plan, anyway.
My phone buzzes once. Twice. Three times. We didn’t have a signal for three calls, just two or none. Something is up. I go for my gun but remember I don’t have it.
Fuck plausible deniability.
Rose looks up at me in question. “What—”
“Genius and Rush are long gone, taken care of by Belucci. That man’s a mean, evil SOB, but he didn’t get to this point without a stellar self-preservation streak. They’re gone, as are our guests. You know the plan.”
“I devised it,” she says, voice a study in thrill, calm, and wonder. “With your help and Gianni’s.”
Turning, I rake my gaze over my beautiful Rose. “Gianni? Do I need to kill him?”
“No.”
“Good. Garcia?” The man enters and takes Rose by the arm. She doesn’t know about this part of the deal, the counter one I made with Gianni. “Take her.”
She tries to protest, but she’s no match for the brute strength of Garcia.
“Slight change. Gotta go this way.” He kicks a chair and rug out of the way to pull up a trap door, and my struggling bride is dragged over. Someone grabs her legs, but not before she lands a foot in the face of whoever it is. Priestly, by the sounds of the yelp. In moments, she’s gone, followed by Garcia, and I close the trap and cover it.
Then, I send a text and wait.
The plan is to take the invaders down, to kill most of them, except for Popov and Adelaide. According to the airline lists Belucci got for Rose, they were on the same flight as Field—first class, economy, and business, respectively; like no one would fucking work it out.
With that and what’s been planted back home, all of it true, Adelaide and Popov will go down. Milovic never made it; I’m betting he died at Popov’s hands. A Hanlon rep came to the wedding agenda-free and escaped down one of Belucci’s tunnels, along with the other guests. They’re all heading off to a resort on a Greek Island for our real wedding, if it happens. My bride might murder me first.
My phone starts ringing, and just as I answer, the other door bursts open wide behind me. “All good, Tony. I know the issue. Keep two, separate them, and execute the rest.”
I hang up to find Popov, Adelaide, and two goons, who, at a glance are sizing up the situation and determining whether or not to switch sides.
“Really, Adelaide? Of all the fucking routes you could have taken, you chose to cross me? I’m worse than the fucking devil,” I say.
“I’ll bring you down and—”
“What? A promotion?” I smile, and she missed the nasty there; she’s too busy preening. “Or are you after the kind that completes your transfer over to the other side of the law?”
“You—”
“Milovic is dead, Adelaide, and Popov here isn’t loyal.”
The man speaks. “Depends.”
The hatred in his gaze aimed at me floors me a moment. I’d have seen it in New York. I— Wait. Rush. A girl… He said her father was affiliated with the FBI. I took it as FBI, but…Fuck me. What if affiliated meant mobster?
“Got a daughter, Ivan?” He snarls. “A good lay, I hear, though not good enough,” I taunt.
“You fucking—”
“You’re a fucking idiot, too.”
