Page 61 of Deception & Desire

It must register on my face because his face splits into a cruel smile. “You were careless, Leon, killing Ivan like that. We were on to your precious Mia before, but you were the one that made us really look. Why else would the don of the Prince’s Guild dispatch Ivan personally?”

He leans in closer. “What was it you said? ‘Tell Amos Rubio this is because you fucked with my family’?”

He’d heard everything. Probably had cameras all over that damn building, and I’d just waltzed in without thinking.

This is all my fault. Mia is in danger because ofme.

I need to get out of this. I need backup. My eyes dart around us. The crowd is beginning to thin. But there are too many men in black surrounding us now, monitoring the conversation.

Teo will be here soon. I just need a bit more time.

“Where is Mia?”

The man chuckles and pulls away. “You know, I don’t think I’m going to tell you that. I want you to panic the way I did when I learned that you’d lured Carmen out here.”

“Carmen came here herself.” Something darts through my peripheral vision, and I do my best to keep staring at the man before me.

Amos shakes his head. “Carmen is a good girl. She knows what’s expected of her. She would never come to a place like this where she could be…so easily tarnished.”

Before I have time to grimace, there’s an almighty crash, and suddenly, men are bursting into the room from all sides.

Amos’ temporary distraction is the opening I need to smack his arm up. His gun goes off—as if he instinctively pulled the trigger—and the bullet narrowly misses me as it blasts into the air.

I pull back to lift up my own gun, but Amos is already there, faster than I could have anticipated. He slams down on my arm, making me drop it, and I narrowly manage to dodge a second attack by throwing myself to the floor.

Amos is on me before I can fully recover, his weight slamming into me like a freight train. I helplessly watch my gun skitter across the ground as we crash into each other, blow meeting blow as I try to get back on my feet.

He’s strong, his fists relentless as he drives me to defend over and over. But I’m faster.

I twist, using his momentum against him, and land a hard punch to his ribs. He grunts, stumbling back, but recovers quickly. His knife flashes in the dim light, and I barely dodge the blade, feeling the rush of air as it slices past my cheek.

I catch his wrist, twisting until the knife drops from his grasp, and slam him against the floor.

“Where is she?” I snarl, my forearm pressed against his throat.

Amos laughs, blood staining his teeth. “You’re too late, Moretti. She’s already mine.”

17

MIA

Getting ambushed in a bathroom stall hadn’t really been on my agenda for the day. Serves me right for thinking that a woman's bathroom in a club was some kind of sacred space.

I let my guard down for thirty seconds, and now I’m being half-wrestled, half-dragged out of the room and into the chaos of the dance floor.

My heels skid against the sticky floor as I thrash, but my captor’s grip is ironclad.

“Let go of me!” I shout, clawing at the stranger’s arm.

He doesn’t answer, his face shadowed by the erratic strobe lights.

It’s hard to get a read on him; there’s nothing about their dark clothes that identifies their affiliation, but I’m not an idiot, either. I don’t have many enemies that would accost me in a bathroom.

And if the Cartel are here…

… does that mean Carmen set me up?

The potential betrayal stings with bitter irony, and I try not to dwell on it. I’d betrayed her first, right? I had this coming.

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