Page 94 of His Passerotta

They have at least as many men as we do.

Before the SUV is even parked, I’ve counted ten men. Five posted in the yard, standing guard like soldiers on the front line and five on the roof. There’s a barn off to the right of the house and a neglected field beyond. If there are this many men out in the open, there must be a lot more hidden.

We park the string of SUVs maybe a hundred yards back and get our guns ready. They haven’t started shooting, so that’s a good sign. Maybe they want to negotiate. That would mean Maksim is alive.

The soldiers are the first to get out, and when no shots fire, the rest of us step in front of the vehicles, staring the men on the lawn down. There must be thirty guns pointed at their ten, and I’d venture to guess we have more experienced shooters, so as it is, the front-line guys don’t stand a chance.

I stand off to the right with Lorenzo, while Settimo and Nikita take a post on my left. Cormac must not feel the need to prove his dick is bigger than the rest because he’s tucked behind several soldiers off to the side like a smart boss would do. The bosses will be the prime targets.

A man with a bull ring circling his nose walks up carrying a walkie talkie, and several guns point his way. He stops a few feet from Settimo and Nikita.

“We have your people,” Bull Ring says, his face a calm mask. I wonder if he knows he’s nothing but his boss’s sacrifice. “We’re giving you a chance to turn around and go back the way you came before we kill them.”

“Them?” I ask, unsure who I’m missing.

Bull Ring turns to me. “The whore and the lieutenant.”

The whore.

My throat closes up like it’s slowly turning to ice.

They could be talking about anyone. If Bailey was here, she would be with her brother. She’d be one of them. They wouldn’t have any idea about her involvement with me unless she told them. And even then, she could play it off like she was doing them a favor, getting intel.

She’s okay. It isn’t her.

Then why do I feel sick to my stomach?

“What’s her name?” I manage through the small hole left in my throat.

“Is that for me?” Nikita interrupts, pointing to the walkie talkie.

Bull Ring glances down at the device, then back at Nikita.

“What’s the girl’s name?”

“Anthony,” Settimo warns.

Bull Ring doesn’t answer, and I assume it’s because he doesn’t know the answer. It could be an actual whore no one mentioned was missing. It isn’t Bailey.

Still, I scan the house as if I’ll catch sight of her in a window or something. I don’t see her.

Bull Ring hands Nikita the walkie talkie just as something red catches my eye. Parked among seven other vehicles is a beat-up red Impala.

The gas station I met Bailey at flashes into my mind, and I see that car, sitting in the parking lot with her finger pointed at it.

No.

Nikita clicks the button to talk, but instead of using words, he raises his gun to point it at the man’s chest.

“No!” I yell, reaching my hand out on impulse when several shots fire into the guy. His eyes are wide like he did not in fact know he was a sacrifice, and they remain that way even when the life leaves them.

His body slumps on the ground, and Nikita takes a step forward to fire several more shots into his chest, unloading his clip like the unhinged sociopath he is.

All at once, gunfire starts, and a crowd of Russians make a shield in front of Nikita, their guns blasting the last couple of gangbangers standing.

Nikita tosses the walkie talkie on top of Bull Ring’s body and turns to his right-hand man who stares at him with the obvious question written in his expression.

Nikita carelessly lets the empty clip slide from the gun to clatter on the dead grass, then he reloads. “Maksim can take care of himself.”

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