Page 40 of His Juliet

Do you not like it?

Juliet

It’s nice

Romeo

I can tell you’re overwhelmed by my crocheting prowess

Juliet

22

ROMEO

I grinneddown at my phone. Maybe I could convince Juliet to send me a picture of her reading… naked. I couldn’t stop thinking about her, and not just imagining what she would look like underneath me, bare and screaming with pleasure, but justher. The excitement in her eyes when she talked about her favorite books. The way her voice went all soft when we spoke in the middle of the night. The pink flush to her cheeks.

A knock at the door pulled me out of my fantasy.

“You ready?” Angelo asked when I opened it.

Franco had gotten intel that the Albanians were getting a shipment of girls into Liberty Port tomorrow night, and we were meeting to plan how to intercept them. I hoped the Butcher would be there. I was ready to take the bastard down.

* * *

My fingers werenumb with the cold as I waited behind a shipping container for the Albanians. Uneasiness filled me the longer we were here. Something didn’t feel right, but I couldn’t pinpoint why.

I glanced over at Angelo, who looked unconcerned. I shook out my shoulders. I was being paranoid. Our intel said the Albanians were getting a shipment of girls after midnight and were transporting them across the bay to a storage facility near Newark.

We had men stationed on the other side of the water to intercept them in case we missed them on this side, but I was determined not to let that happen.

I would end this tonight.

A rumbling noise put me on high alert, but it was coming from the road, not the water. Suddenly, a huge spotlight almost blinded me as it lit up our section of the port.

“Get down!” I shouted. I hit the ground, my heart pounding wildly as shots ripped through the air.

We’d walked into a fucking ambush.

The spotlight gave away our location but also illuminated the Albanian soldiers. It made picking them off strangely easy, especially as all their shots went wide, pinging off the metal shipping containers.

I rolled, gesturing for my men to turn down another row still cast in shadow. I peered out behind the corner and took out two Albanian soldiers before taking cover again. Angelo was leading a group of men to surround them from behind.

“Vedi qualche ragazza?” I murmured into my bluetooth.Do you see any girls?

“No,” came Angelo’s response, confirming my suspicion that we’d gotten bad intel. They were never getting a shipment in tonight.

I ran through an alley between two long rows of containers. I ducked, narrowly avoiding a bullet, before returning fire. I was enraged that we’d been tricked, but fighting like this gave my inner monster a cool sense of pleasure.

This was what I was made for.

I crouched down as I reloaded, distracted only by my phone vibrating in my pocket. I fished it out and saw it was Juliet. Shit. We’d been talking around midnight every night this week. She was probably wondering why I hadn’t called her.

I took a deep breath, forcing my darkness to recede before I answered, making sure to mute my mission comms first.

“Hey, baby. You doing okay? Sorry I haven’t been able to call yet.”

I kept my voice low so the Albanians wouldn’t overhear.

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