Page 29 of Hidden By His Side

“Oh, I think my message was perfect because here you are.” Guzman laughed. “Don’t worry about getting out of here alive. We won’t kill you, not yet. I want you to have a front-row seatfor what’s going to happen to the only thing in this world you care about.”

Ramiro held his smile as fury spiked through his veins. “Well, that makes this easier,” he said, holding his gun steady and squeezing the trigger.

He’d gone for a gut shot, and the scream from Ovidio was satisfying.

Ramiro slid to the ground as the other men in the room began to shoot. The chair he’d been sitting in was shot to hell, and the glass doors behind it shattered. Ramiro squeezed off two more shots into Ovidio’s chest before the lights went out.

Hayes had great timing.

The screams that came from the main floor were louder than the thumping bass from before.

Ramiro rolled to the side of the couch, taking out the two men on that side to give him breathing room, or at least assuming he took them out from the groans and the lack of bullets plowing into him in return.

The shooting stopped before the lighting came back on as planned. Ramiro had needed a distraction, but he hadn’t wanted the clubgoers to get trampled to death.

“Why’d you wait so long?” Ash complained from the open doorway in the wall he’d hinted at earlier.

“I needed him to say it.” Ramiro’s thoughts were always consumed with Summer. He’d wanted to confirm that she really had been targeted.

The thugs from below the stairs rushed the VIP room. He and Ash took them out, but a dozen more approached from the other side of the upper hallway.

“Time to go,” Ash said, melting back through the secret door.

Ramiro scrambled after him, darting past the opening as bullets slammed into the couch behind him.

If Ovidio was still alive, his men were likely finishing the job. Three bullets should have been more than enough, though. Ramiro had no pity for the man. The cartel would splinter with his death. Summer would be safe.

Ash was nearly out of sight down the dim, hidden hallway. Ramiro followed, knowing he wouldn’t feel any satisfaction until he saw for himself that Summer was safe.

Chapter 10

Ramiro had picked Summer’s apartment for the security. It had a doorman, coded elevators, and securely locked fire escapes. Ash checked them out regularly for Ramiro. He’d also been the one to slip the camera into her neighbors’ apartment, a camera whose image Ramiro already had pulled up on his phone again.

Her two friends lay slumped on opposite ends of the couch while Summer picked up the room. Her face no longer held the fake smile, but showed the aching sadness he was used to seeing whenever she didn’t realize he was watching.

Summer was his light, but not because she was happy all the time. No, that sunshine persona she’d learned to put on wasn’t the real her. She thought she needed it to be liked. Ramiro tried to convince her she didn’t need it around him.

Diego often teased him about having some sunshine in his life. He thought that was what drew Ramiro to Summer.

It was the opposite. She was dark and sad and as broken as him. Ramiro’s jagged edges fit perfectly against hers, as if he were made for her.

There’d been a moment, after both Diego and Naz had fallen in love, when Ramiro started to think he could be with the person he loved.

He watched Summer place her hand over her stomach, deep worry lines carved into her face.

Ramiro had been fooling himself. Summer wasn’t meant for him. She never had been.

She left the apartment to return to hers. Once she was safely behind locked doors again on the feed, he exited his car.

Seb was hidden near the parking garage, with a view of both the front and back entrances.

Sebastian Guzman was still a bit of an enigma. Naz had vouched for him, and it didn’t hurt to have a Guzman on Ramiro’s payroll, even if he was a bottom-feeder relation with limited prospects. Seb was an opportunist, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

When Seb spotted him, his sardonic smile pissed Ramiro off like usual. Nothing seemed to rattle the man. He calmly calculated and either acted or stepped back as he saw fit.

The man didn’t seem to care about anything besides himself, and Ramiro couldn’t understand why Seb had supported Naz in the cartel conflict, if he even had. It was more likely that Seb hung back to see which way the wind blew.

Right now, it blew with Ramiro, as long as his newest message to the cartel held.

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