Page 14 of Wild Angel

Neither Sergio nor my father had been at the food truck setup. It made no sense for them to be exposed like that. We only took about ten sicarios anyway, Vito and I leading them.

But even though we’d been in positions of power back there, none of the men involved would have thought twice to give an accurate report of events.

Like the part where I ran after Nyx and disappeared for a day.

“This was the only one who survived.” Sergio walks up to the wooden ladder-back chair set in the middle of the barn’s open floor.

The man tied to the chair looks dead. There’s a rough burlap hood over his head, his chin against his chest. He’s slumping forward, his arms taut, as if he was trying to get out of his bonds when they ended him.

I flinch when Sergio rips the hood off and the man under it groans. I squeeze the bridge of my nose, forcing a hard breath in and out of my lungs.

Christ, I need sleep. I’m way too edgy.

“It’s fortunate you stopped by,” Sergio says, directing his voice at me.

I take away my hands, studying him with dead eyes as he moves around the hostage. The man is in his late forties, unremarkable in every way. I recognize him as the sniper who had Nyx in his sights.

But I wish I hadn’t.

Because as soon as my brain makes the connection, a wave of hot, energizing wrath sears through me.

He was going to kill her. I watched him through my fucking binoculars as he lined up the shot. I can still remember the burst of adrenaline that coursed through me, how my hands felt like they were shaking, but how my fingers were steady as fuck as I dialed Nyx’s phone to warn her.

So many things could have gone wrong that day. But they didn’t. It went as smoothly as I could have hoped for, and Nyx is alive because of it.

A dull ache in my hands makes me realize that I have them in fists at my side. I don’t bother trying to force them open—they’re a focal point for the rage I desperately need to bottle up right now.

“He refuses to tell us who he’s working for,” Sergio goes on. I’m struggling to listen—my ears are buzzing like a fucking chainsaw. “Loosen his tongue.”

My uncle takes something from his pocket. There’s a flash of indignation when I realize he was in my bedroom, in the drawer in my closet where I keep important things. My passport, some cash, my knife.

Did he see the ring box?

That thought pings through my mind like a sonar, echoing, echoing.

Did he see that pink box?

I try desperately to focus on the knife, but I’m losing it. Thoughts tear and splinter apart.

Did he touch it?

Did he open it and look inside?

Did he wonder why the fuck it was empty, and why I’d bother keeping something so worthless?

A hand grips the back of my neck.

I blink, let out an animalistic huff through my nose.

“We can’t hang around here all day, Savage,” comes Vito’s too-cheery voice. “Take the knife and cut the fucker’s face off.”

I crash back into my body. When I move, my legs feel like wood, and my joints like rubber. I take my bone-handled knife from Sergio’s open palm and weigh it in my own. Testing it, as if to make sure he hadn’t fucked with it in some shape or form.

But no.

It’s as perfect now as it was when I first found it.

My fingers curl around the handle, bone warming to my touch.

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