Page 63 of Guarded By Them

Dillon glared at him. “No, I fucking wouldn’t.”

“What about if we doubled it to twenty?”

Dillon ground his teeth, not backing down, and I loved him for that. “She’s not a thing you can just sell when you feel like it. She’s a human being.”

Frankie gave a one-shouldered shrug. “You’re wrong. She belongs to me.”

“You gave her to us, remember?” Dillon said, shaking his head.

“That was only ever supposed to be temporary. Now that arrangement has come to an end, so I suggest you either take the money and walk away, or you join me and my brother, and we work on the same side. I could do with a couple of guys with your skillsets onboard, ’cause it seems to me that we all want the same thing.”

Kodee interjected, “Which is?”

Frankie Capello smirked. “Your girlfriend here to stay alive. After you shot Nettie’s men out the front of his house and then ran, it occurred to me that we should be on the same side.”

Kodee scowled. “You only want her alive for as long as she’s useful to you.”

“That’s right. I like useful things. And like I said, I think I could make use of you, too. I’m offering you something here, and I seriously think you should consider it.” He waved his gun around at the clearing. “’Cause right now, things aren’t looking so great for any of you.”

I sucked in a breath. One thing both Kodee and Ryan had berated Dillon for was getting involved with the Capellos, and now, here they were, inviting them into their circle. The Capellos might have saved our lives, but they weren’t our friends. They were the type of men who only kept you alive so long as you were of use to them. Once you’d served your purpose, they no longer wanted you around.

“You don’t have to do this.” My voice was a breathy whisper. I wasn’t sure who I was talking to—Kodee and the others, or the Capello brothers.

Kodee looked to me. “We do, though, Rue. What other choice do we have?”

He was right. The Capellos still wanted me because they didn’t want to see Joe Nettie walk free, but unless the guys agreed to working for them, they’d just continue the job Nettie’s men had been about to do and shoot them here and now. It would be unlikely their bodies would be found any time soon, and even if they were, the Capellos would never take the rap for it. They’d be long gone, and they were smart enough to cover their tracks. Our deaths would be blamed on Joe Nettie’s trial, without a doubt.

So, no, they didn’t have a choice. We had to go with the Capello brothers now and do whatever the hell they wanted.

We’d taken a gamble, and we’d lost.

“It’s okay, Rue,” Kodee said softly from beside me. “It could be worse. We could be dead.”

I pressed my lips together, tears filling my eyes. Yes, that would be worse, but I was terrified about what would happen when we got back to the city. At some point, word would get back that Nettie’s men hadn’t been able to complete what they’d been sent out to do. Too many had died for them to just let this go.

There had already been a war raging between the two rival gangs, but now we’d found ourselves right in the middle of it.

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