Page 47 of Brazen Being It

Yesenia doesn’t freeze. Not for a damn second. She steps forward, like a goddamn lioness, her arms stretched wide like she’s claiming the space.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” she says, voice like smoke and steel. “Turn around and walk away, no harm, no foul, buddy.”

Frankie grins. “Oh, I’m anything but your buddy.” His eyes slide to me, full of venom. “You think you’re safe with her? You’re not.” Then he locks his gaze to Yesnia, and he puts my past out in front of me. “She’s a killer. A whore. Go ahead, Cambria. Tell her what you did. Tell her what you are.”

My throat closes. The words get caught behind my teeth.

But not for long.

I step forward, put myself right in his space, chest to chest. “Do your worst,” I growl. “I know what I did. And I know why I did it. You don’t scare me.”

His hand is a blur. The slap cracks across my face, loud as a gunshot. Pain explodes in my cheek, white-hot and searing. My knees buckle. Yesenia catches me before I hit the ground. Her fingers dig into my shoulders, keeping me upright. My vision swims but I see the fury burning in her eyes, and it lights something in me too.

“You just declared war,” she snarls. “Tell Salentino that.”

Frankie laughs. Like this is all a game. “The Hellions don’t bother me.”

She smiles, and it’s the coldest thing I’ve ever seen. “It’s not just the Hellions, sweetheart. You’ve got Almanza after you now.”

Something changes in his expression. A flicker of doubt. Of fear.

Yesenia steps closer, her lips curling around the words like poison-tipped knives. “I’m Javier Almanza’s daughter. You came for the wrong one.”

Silence. Thick. Heavy.

There is a screech of tires. A bike roars into the alley, dust and gravel spinning behind it. Toon. He doesn’t even stop the bike all the way before he’s off, walking toward us with a gun in his hand like it’s just another part of him. Calm. Controlled. Lethal.

His voice is a growl as he guides me to stand behind him and Yesnia moves as if it’s second nature. “Your goons are laid out. Their bodies are stacked in your SUV.” Frankie blinks, disoriented. “You got no one motherfucker.”

Axel approaches behind Toon, yanking Yesnia close to his side. “You get to live long enough to tell Salentino to back the fuck off,” Axel finishes, leveling the barrel at Frankie’s chest. “I don’t know what shit you spewed to him, but Salentino will want no part of what you just started.”

For the first time, Frankie looks unsure. His gaze darts between the three of us—me with a split lip, Yesenia with fire in her eyes, and two Hellions with a loaded weapons staring at him with fury.

He calculates. You can see it in the twitch of his jaw. He’s realizing this didn’t go the way he thought it would. We aren’t uncovered and he’s now outmatched.

Still, he tries to smile. “This isn’t over.”

“No,” I say, tasting blood on my tongue. “It’s just beginning.”

He backs away slowly, hands up, eyes never leaving Axel’s gun. Then he disappears around the corner, boots crunching gravel.

We wait until we hear the SUV start and peel away, tires screaming into the distance.

Only then do I let myself breathe.

I sag into Yesenia, and she holds me tighter.

Axel holsters the gun and walks over, brushing a strand of hair from Yesnia’s face before his lips crash to hers.

Toon comes over to me. “Little Foot is gonna be pissed. Wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” he mutters. “He didn’t want him to touch you ever again.”

“He didn’t win,” I whisper. “He never will.”

“What now?” I ask.

Axel looks down the alley, where the SUV vanished. “First, I get you to my brother before he loses his fucking mind. Then we bring this to their doorstep.”

Toon meets my eyes. “Then we burn it down.”

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