Page 6 of Falling for the Enemy

Momentarily ignoring the fact that he seems intent on destroying my possessions, I lift my chin. “Who?”

He exhales harshly, his ruddy cheeks reddening further. “Arianna fucking Ivanova!” Planting one palm on the center of the glossed wood, he uses the other to swipe across the top, knocking a crystal ashtray to the marble floor, where it shatters.

It’s the last straw.

Uncaring of the mess I’m about to make and that my maids will have to scrub clean, I release the shotgun and stand. I drop my Cohiba in one fluid movement and grasp the Beretta secured to my side, ripping it from its leather holster. My sights are trained on the black mole between Angelo’s infuriated eyes before he can blink.

He may be a quick draw, but I’m quicker.

The move does little to instill fear in him. Oddly enough, he smiles despite his impending death, revealing his coffee-stained teeth. “And you, Alejandro…” He lifts his hand and jabs his index finger into the air, pointing at me as if he isn’t close to taking his final breath. “You’re going to help my brother and me kill her.”

He couldn’t be more wrong.

Having never met her, I know little of the woman he refers to. But according to rumors whispered by lesser men, she’s cold and calculating, ruthless even.

I call bullshit on that.

As the heir of a sonless Pakhan, the reign she holds became hers by default when her father died. Unlike the ones I violently took possession of, they weren’t earned through years of bloodshed and pain, along with invisible wounds that will never heal.

Despite the title she now holds and the men she’s said to command, inheritance by birthright doesn’t make her someone that battle-scarred soldiers like me should fear.

No, it makes her fucking spoiled.

Regardless, I won’t help the worm before me end her life.

I’m not a good man. That’s a fact. What few morals I possess are skewed, and I’ve spent all but twelve of my thirty-four years as a hired gun, drug trafficker, and now, Colombian kingpin.

But even I have rules.

One, I don’t deal in human trafficking. In fact, I’ll kill anyone who does for free. Two, I don’t hurt women or children. My fucked-up heart may be black, but it still beats.

Benito moves in my peripheral, circling Angelo. Glock drawn, his finger hovers over the trigger. One wrong move and I won’t get the chance to end the swine before me, his jowls shaking the slightest bit as he trembles with fury.

My lieutenant will do it for me.

“You’re estúpido for thinking I would help you kill a woman,” I say, sensing movement from Christian as he moves in the opposite direction of Benito. “Because I won’t.”

Angelo’s maddening smile grows. “You will.”

My pulse surges. “Again, are you deaf, DeMeo? If not, get your head checked since I just—”

“Tell me, Jefe,” he spits, mockingly calling me by the title I earned through bloodshed. Boss. “How’s your sister?”

His question drives a spike into my Achilles heel.

No one, not my allies or enemies alike, should know of my sister’s continued existence. To them, Carmen Santiago, former Miss Colombia, and my older sister no longer breathes. Just like the pimp that Melendez handed her over to years ago led everyone to believe.

“My sister is dead.”

The lie tastes like vomit as it rolls off my heavy tongue because for so long, I’d believed it to be true. The day I found out Carmen’s heart still beat was the day I stopped Melendez’s.

For good.

Standing tall, Angelo shakes his head. “Don’t bullshit me.” His body grows relaxed, no longer drawn taut with tension despite the three guns aimed at him.

I remain silent, refusing to react.

Finding out what he knows will be impossible if I shoot him now as I want. To protect my sister, staying calm despite the murderous rage building between my temples is the only option.

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