Page 82 of Forbidden Hearts

“It’s okay! I’m fine!” Ben yells at the door.

The banging stops for a few seconds, then start up again.

“Write the fucking address,” I tell Ben, pushing him onto Jacob’s desk. Ben fishes for a nearby pen and scribbles the address on the back of an envelope. “Here, this is the address.”

Just as he hands me the envelope, the door slams open. I slide behind Ben as a large group of reapers point their guns at me.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Ben yells, raising his hands in front of him. “Don’t shoot! Drop your weapons, don’t shoot! Everything’s okay!”

“The fuck it’s okay,” a reaper says. “We heard gunshots!”

“Look!” another one yells, pointing at the reaper I shot a few minutes ago. “Jonas is dead!”

I slouch behind Ben, which is difficult because he’s a lot shorter than me, and point my gun at them.

“Please, put your guns away,” Ben says.

“He killed one of us,” a reaper says. “Jacob will not be happy about this.”

“No matter what happens here, Jacob is going to die tonight,” I tell them. “But it’s up to you what happens to Ben. Step aside, and I’ll let him live.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” another reaper says. “You have, what, maybe ten bullets in that pistol? There are hundreds of us out here. You won’t make it out alive.”

I grin at them. “This gun can carry fifteen rounds. I used one on your buddy over there. After I kill Ben, I’ll have thirteen bullets left. Which thirteen of you want to die first?”

The reapers look at each other. The ones standing at the front of their group step back into the crowd. That’s what I thought. The reapers like to act tough, but they are nothing more thanpetty drug dealers. I bet most of them have never fired a gun before. They are armed for show.

I push Ben forward, my gun still drawn at the crowd of reapers in front of me.

“Let’s go for the exit,” I say. “Once I’m in my car, I’ll let you go.”

“You’re just going to kill me anyway,” Ben says, planting his feet on the ground.

“I’m not going to kill you. Someone has to take over the reapers after I kill Jacob, forNuestra Casa. Do you understand?”

“Okay,” he says. “You guys heard him. Back away, please.”

The reapers lower their guns and step aside, allowing us through.

Chapter 38

Alex

I’m pinned under Sammy’s dead body. His lifeless eyes hover inches above mine.

God, help me.

Jacob grabs the guns—Sammy’s and mine—from the ground and tosses them on his desk before calling his reapers. The two reapers who have been following me around town barge into the room.

“Get her in my truck,” Jacob says, pointing at me. “And have someone call Ben. Tell him to get here as fast as he can. I need him to clean up this…mess.”

One of the enforcers leaves the office while the other pulls Sammy off me. He pushes his body aside enough to pull me out from under him. In an instant, he has me up on my feet, with both hands behind my back, forcing me to the door.

I kick Jacob’s desk to push back against the reaper holding me, but he’s grip on me is so strong that we barely move at all.Shit.

Jacob stares at me and shakes his head. His hand is still on his bleeding shoulder. “I’m going to fuck you into submission and knock that wild attitude out of you.”

He turns to the reaper holding me and tells him to put me in his truck again.

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