Page 86 of Where the Wicked Reign

“Move in,” I commanded.

“Wrecking ballin effect,” Emilio said, breaking from the tree line and moving in ahead as Nico and I followed him at a distance on either side.

Keeping low and sticking to the shadows, we cleared the twenty-foot distance easily, without alerting our targets to our presence.

Once we neared the door, Nico and I flattened ourselves on either side of the wall beside it as Emilio readied himself.

I tapped my earpiece to communicate with Julian and whispered down the line, “Breach on three.”

“Received, Cat.”

I flinched, thinking that had been a one-off when he’d called me that before. Clearly not.

I focused and gestured for Nico to make his move.

He gave a nod, then fired at the lock, blowing it to shit.

And then Emilio barreled in, ripping the door off its hinges in the process.

Nico and I rushed in after him.

Several hostiles had been gathered around two ugly beige couches and an armchair watching TV, and they all jumped to their feet and spun.

They didn’t get enough of a warning before Emilio slammed into them like a human wrecking ball, downing three in one go with all that powerhouse muscle of his.

As a couple moved to pull their pieces, Nico and me were there covering.

I got off a headshot, dropping one of them like a creepy rag doll back on the couch he’d just risen from, while Nico tore a hole right through the carotid artery of another. The guy choked terribly and clutched at his spurting throat, staggering into a column inside the house.

Nico was there in the next moment, driving his hand into the guy’s wound and smashing his head against the hard surface over and over, succumbing to the brutal violence of it. As the guy crumpled in his hold, Nico was done with that, just as three guys barreled into the room from the kitchen.

As another two rushed up from the basement stairs, I launched myself at them, delivering a sweeping kick to the one closest that ripped his legs out from under him. As he went down hard, the other tried to grab hold of me, and I jerked back, then snagged his arm and used the hold to haul him around and slam him into the wall.

While he jarred against it, Nico was suddenly there before I could finish it myself, wailing on him with fists of fury, making the guy’s face a bloodied mess within moments. I didn’t even get to deal with the guy I’d knocked to the ground who was getting to his feet, because Nico thrust his boot into his face, blowing him right back down.

I swung my head toward the stairs over to the far right just before the kitchen at a thunderous rumble to see a dead target crashing down them.

Julian followed a moment later, battling another guy down the stairs and roundhousing him onto the bottom landing. “Motherfucker, this is how we do it!” he cried. He leapt up and followed it through with an impressive spinning kick that knocked the guy out cold, dropping him hard.

The moment the guy hit the ground, I fired off a kill shot.

No survivors.

My father’s men couldn’t know of our involvement in this.

As another target went for Julian and I saw he had it handled, I spun back to Emilio, who was taking on four at once.

With Nico now battling another two and bringing a knife into play and literally carving a guy open until his guts spilled out, while he fired a bullet into his other opponent’s kneecap, I deflected a blow from an opponent coming at me, then snagged their arm and used the hold and momentum to haul them into one of the guys attacking Emilio.

It downed the two of them and enabled Emilio to break from the circle of them that had been surrounding him. He smashed his fist into the gut of one of them and as the guy doubled over, he hauled him right off his feet and tossed him into two others.

But while he was doing that, another moved so quickly, it was hard to catch.

Fortunately, I was there just as I saw the glint of a blade as he drew it from his belt.

I launched myself forward just as he went to bring the blade down to literally stab Emilio in the back, but I was kicked from behind by another opponent.

It knocked me right into the path of the blade and I hissed as I felt it bury in my right side, piercing through my tactical jacket and right through into my flesh.

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