Page 108 of Vicious Little Princess

All of our soldiers were solid and loyal to the core. We’d made sure of that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

It was something to figure out after the fact.

That was made clear to me as I hauled another opponent over my shoulder and dropped him hard on the asphalt, only to be tackled by two more who slammed me into one of the transport trucks. One of the eight whose drivers and front seat passengers we’d killed with sniper shots when we’d first arrived to thin the herd. We’d also put every single one of the trucks out of commission, blowing out the tires, and thereby preventing the assholes from being able to send the hostages out of here to their buyers.

At that point, all hell had broken loose with Shawn directing his guys to move the hostages into the warehouses.

The fuck we were gonna let that happen.

So we’d run into the fray.

I had five soldiers laying down cover while several were leading the hostages away from the fight and into the lot a few blocks away behind an empty apartment building where we’d parked our vehicles when we’d arrived. Nico had reached out to one of Julian’s contacts and the guy was sending a team to take the hostages to safety. The rest of the soldiers were with me, including Tony Amato.

As I ripped one of my attackers off me by his fucking hoodie, and smashed his face into the side of the truck, wherein he dropped like a rag doll, Tony was there, shooting another running at me. A bullet ripped through his throat and he collapsed, spurting up his own blood. I blocked a hit from the other guy still trying to hold me, wrenched his arm until he screamed and a satisfying crack sounded, then I jerked him down to me as I slammed my knee up, shattering his nose and knocking him out cold in the process.

Tony was there in the next second, putting a bullet in his chest, along with the other one I’d put out of commission moments ago.

“You’re not going for the kill,” he commented.

“We haven’t laid eyes on Angelo yet.”

“You want to leave some alive for interrogation on that fucker’s whereabouts if we don’t find him cowering inside one of those three warehouses over there?” he asked, gesturing at the buildings a few feet away.

“Yeah,” I grunted. I couldn’t let him get away again.

“Our snipers are watching the warehouses, Emilio. There’s been no movement. Nobody’s gone in or out. If he’s here, we’ll get him.”

“If he’s here. These fuckers knew we were coming. As we were heading up here, they fucking knew.”

“You’ve ordered no kill shots against Shawn Price, so we’ll use him to find that fucker if he’s already slipped away. Leaving any of the rest alive is too messy, though. Nico won’t like it.”

“No,” I agreed. “He wouldn’t.”

And normally, neither would I.

I swung my head to see Price still bogged down under cover of one of the now out of commission trucks, four of his guys flanking him and protecting him. The guy was at least fifty, decked out in a cheap brown suit that barely fit, his curly gray hair all wild and in his face.

My earpiece buzzed, and I tapped it, opening a transmission from one of our soldiers.

“All hostages clear.”

“Copy that. Stay with them. The contact will be here in ten.”

“Got it.”

“Time to take this up a notch,” I told Tony.

His eyes gleamed with excitement, the kind that Julian got at the prospect of going all out and being able to revel in the dangerous thrill of it all.

We both jerked back as shots rang out near us, and we flattened our backs against the side of the truck.

I scanned the area, noting that our snipers were busy covering some of our soldiers forty feet away who were in the throes of a brutal fight with a dozen of Price’s guys who’d strategically convened over there during the battle to attack en masse.

I shot a look back around the corner just before another shot rang out to force me back and reported what I’d seen to Tony. “Six moving in.”

He readied his weapon. “I’ve only got two shots left. You?”

“One.”

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