Page 5 of Falling for the Enemy

Which means he just became my mark.

Smiling sadistically, I slip a lit Cohiba between my lips, pulling in a mouthful of smoke. The cigar’s cocoa and white pepper flavor rolls over my tongue before I exhale, clouding the space between him and me.

Red-rimmed eyes narrowing, his fingers still.

I don’t know whether it’s my twisted grin or the white smoke surrounding him that he disapproves of, but I care little either way. He’s in my home, attending a sit-down he paid in spades for one of my men to arrange.

This is my game, not his.

Ignoring his glare, one he’d be foolish to believe affects me, I chuckle and toss back the shot of Guaro I’ve been holding since he walked in. The empty glass clinks as I place it on my desk, the sweetness of the firewater continuing to linger on my lips.

Two figures move into the room to my left, hugging the shadows, their footfalls near silent. Without having to turn my head, I know it’s Benito and Christian, two of my lieutenants. Hands undoubtedly poised on the Glocks they wear strapped to their hip and side, they’re just waiting for my signal.

One quick nod.

That’s all it will take to end La Famiglia’s Consigliere for good, and I’d be lying if I said the command isn’t a tempting one to give. Especially since, with his slicked-back hair, soulless eyes, and pinched lips, Angelo reminds me far too much of another, whose thirty-year reign of terror destroyed many lives.

My family included.

I was only six when Carlos Melendez ordered my Papá, a strait-laced police officer, to be tortured and murdered after refusing to join his city-wide payroll of corrupt puppets. It was just half a dozen years later, and only hours after my older sister had been crowned Miss Colombia that he returned, destroying what was left of my family.

That night, his men killed my mother.

Then they kidnapped my sister and me.

After being forced to become one of Melendez’s soldiers at only twelve and having everyone that had ever meant anything to me ripped away at his hands, it took me over two decades to mete out justice.

But in the end, I made him pay for the lives he destroyed, the dreams he crushed, and the scars he inflicted with both pain and blood.

As well as his life.

The sounds of his agony-drenched bellows as I gutted him like the animal he was are seared into my memory.

Revenge was sweet.

But the sounds of his screams were sweeter.

Now, everything he owned, along with the cartel he spent his life building, belongs to me. As for what remains of him and his lieutenants, they sit on a handcrafted bookcase along the far wall of my study.

Most days, the sight of their skulls soothes me.

Today is not one of those days.

“Start talking,” I snap, my tone cracking through the smoky air like a whip. “Or else I suggest you leave before you suffer the consequence of wasting my time.”

Angelo’s shoulders stiffen, tension polluting the air. He says nothing, but I’m no fool.

Fully aware of his short-temper and infamous quick draw, I take another hit of the Cohiba and reach forward, my free hand gripping the sawed-off shotgun that’s mounted beneath my desk, the concealed muzzle pointed at his soft middle.

Always shoot first.

It’s a motto that’s served me well.

“Are you deaf, DeMeo, or did you—”

“That little Russian bitch!” He stands so quickly he knocks over the leather wingback chair he’d been sitting in. My finger twitches against the shotgun’s trigger. If my property is damaged, he will die. I’ve killed for much less. “She murdered”—his chest heaves as he brings his heavy fist crashing down onto my desk, rattling the items it holds—“my nephew!”

Consider my attention captured.

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