Page 36 of The Collector's Temptation

I broke every speeding law in the book as I raced to the location the sniveling rat had given us. When we got there, I parked, and we checked our weapons again.

“What’s the plan?” Damiano asked.

“We take them out,” I replied in a stony voice.

“Everyone?”

“Every single fucker who dared to keep Kerrigan from me is going into the ground today.”

Damiano smiled sinisterly. “Excellent.”

Luckily, the door was unlocked, so nothing announced our arrival.

As we made our way into each room, Damiano or I slit the throat of anyone close enough and put a bullet in everyone else.

We cleared the main floor and then the second.

“What now?” Damiano grunted.

“There has to be a basement.”

He nodded, and we searched for the door, finally locating it in the back of a storage closet.

Quietly, we snuck down the stairs, stopping a few steps from the ground when I spotted a guy lounging against a wall just to our right. If he’d been paying attention, he would have been able to see us. But the asshole was absorbed by something else, the TV from the sounds of it.

While silencers did a great job at muffling a gunshot, there was still a sound when it was fired. But with the television and low murmur of voices, no one picked up on the danger when I shot the man in the back of the head.

I didn’t bother being stealthy as I descended the last steps. Several eyes turned to look at me in surprise, but before they could reach for a weapon, one by one, in quick succession, they fell to the ground or slumped over a table.

With that room cleared, I jerked my head toward another door. Damiano nodded, moving so that we were flanking it.

The knob creaked when I turned it, so I prepared to face someone with a gun. There were four of them in the room, but there seemed to be a trend of hiring stupid these days because none of them were able to reach their weapons before Damiano and I were inside and pointing our guns at them.

My gaze swept around, and that was when I spotted Kerrigan. She was huddled on the ground on the opposite side of the room, looking scared and tired. Rage like I’d never experienced flashed through me like a wildfire, leaving roaring flames in its wake.

One of them shouted, “You can’t?—”

Damiano fired, shutting the man up. One of the others charged me, but he paused when my shot hit him right between the eyes, then he fell forward.

The last two stared at us nervously, but I could tell they were trying to form a plan.

“Forget it,” I grunted dispassionately. “You signed your fucking death warrant the second you fucked with a DeLuca.”

Damiano sighed dramatically. “And taking his woman…wrong move, motherfuckers.”

The smaller of the two men looked at his companion with panic on his face. “You said Sterling wouldn’t?—”

“Shut up, John,” the taller guy spat.

“Sterling Ellis?” I asked casually.

“Yeah,” John stuttered. “He?—”

“Shut the fuck up!”

Scowling, I decided to shut the man up for his friend and fired two bullets into his chest.

“I’m not gonna tell you shit, Couillens,” the last man snarled.

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