Page 36 of Tempting Fate

“Givin’ him a coke nose would be easy.”

“If you say so.” I redirect my attention to Hugh. He blinks up at me with alarm in his eyes. Blood wells around the scalpel blade and runs down into his ear. Pressing my weight forward, I enquire in an innocuous tone, “What do you think? Could he give you a coke nose without killin’ ya?”

Hugh shakes his head and Slash scoffs. When our captive pats my ankle in the universal sign for submission, I ease off his throat. Grumbling under his breath, Slash pulls the scalpel out of Hugh’s face. The mangled mobster cries, his body wracked with tremors as he clutches his bound hands to his gut wound. Me and Hunter barely have time to step out of the splash zone when Hugh rolls to the side and vomits all over the concrete.

I roll my eyes at Slash when he turns green. “You can carve up someone’s face without a second thought, but the sight of a little spew has you goin’ out in sympathy.”

“Shut up,” he mumbles, then he gags.

Slapping a hand over his mouth, Slash darts toward the door that leads into Sander, Cub, and Fret’s house, dry retching all the way. Our brothers laugh, their amusement growing louder when the sound of our newly appointed sergeant-at-arms vomiting reaches us.

“Tell me how we get into the house without puttin’ Lily at risk?”

This time, Hugh doesn’t bother trying to fool us.

He shares his insider information in a rush. “Alex scrimped on the back-up generator. Left it vulnerable to sabotage.” When he trails off, I take a step closer to him. He crosses his arms over his face, pressing one of his forearms to his punctured cheek. I can barely hear him as he blurts out the other weakness in Alex’s preparations. “The generator is in the shed that runs along the back fence. A pair of bolt-cutters will get you access… you can drain the fuel from it, then take out the power to the house. All of the systems will go down and the security shutters will automatically lift—that was a fire-safe override the council insisted on. With the perimeter monitors down and no way to get his security system back up and running, Alex won’t know which way you’re coming from. He’ll try to cut and run, and Anna will take him down easily.” Pride ripples through as he voices his awe at my tough woman. “It’ll be like taking candy from a baby since he’s got some misguided belief that if he treats her better this time, she’ll actually fall in love with him.”

I’m rendered mute by his admission about Alex.

Maybe I’ll get Lily back in one piece?

“How many men does he have with him?” My tech officer continues the interrogation when it becomes clear that I’m not capable of it. “What are their roles in all this?”

“As far as I know, there’s only one other person there.” Hugh drops his arms to look at Cub as he tells him, “He sent the other ones away… didn’t like the way they were looking at Anna.”

Relief blooms in my chest.

I guess Alex’s one-eyed obsession with Lily has more than one silver lining.

Still, the idea of my sweet thing being left alone with her rapist makes my mouth run dry. My head pounds with rage. Determined not to spiral into an episode and derail our progress, I settle for digging the toe of my boot into Hugh’s ribs. “If this goes pear-shaped, we’ll be takin’ your eye and fuckin’ up your nose. You feel me?”

“Yeah.”

Leaving Fret and Isaiah to gag Hugh and chain him to the ceiling again, I head over to the stash of weapons our prospects retrieved for us after we realised that Lily has been abducted by the Maddison clan.

“Nice of you to return,” I tease Slash when he stumbles over to me. Sporting a freshly washed face and minty breath, he’s still green around the gills. “I hope you’re ready for your close up.”

“Fuck up,” Slash snaps in his gruff voice. “Wait ‘’til I tell Cherub that you’ve been givin’ me shit all day.”

“Wait ’til I tell Lily that you were off brushin’ your teeth while I organised her rescue.”

“Wait until I tell her that you two found time for jokes while she was missing,” Hunter interjects. He slams a semiautomatic against my chest, then does the same to his brother. “Both of you better sleep with one eye open because she’s goin’ to be out for blood.”

Ducking my chin to my chest to hide the chuckle that’s trying to escape because it feels out of place to laugh when Lily is still in danger, I bunch my hands into fists and give myself a second to pull my shit together.

Once I’m steady, I offer him a tight smile. “No one likes a snitch.”

“Not true,” Hunter quips with a half-smile. “Anna adores me.”

The energy in the garage shifts as Fret uses the butt of his gun to knock Hugh unconscious.

Knowing that it’s time, I pull my game face into place, and so does Slash. My other brothers crowd around us. We’re ready. The five of us are anxious to get into position, while Cub, who’s staying behind, makes sure we’re operating in optimal conditions. He’s in charge of logistics and keeping Hugh alive, since we’re going to have some explaining to do when Brutus realises that I shot the son of the underboss of the Maddison clan in the gut.

Shooting and torturing him is bad enough.

Killing him would start a war.

If my gut instinct is accurate, we’re on the cusp of war anyway…

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