Page 163 of The Slayer
He wanted Marcos gone too.
“Don’t look, okay?” Chuito said as he stepped over the dead Russian. “Marcos is going to take you to my mother’s.”
“You’re not coming?” Alaine sounded frantic, because she hadn’t understood them discussing Marcos leaving and Chuito staying. “You have to come!”
He pulled her tighter against him when he got to the top of the stairs. “Hide your face. Do that for me, mami.”
Alaine did it without arguing. She buried her face against his chest as she tightened her hold on his shirt. He could feel that her body was shaking, and he suspected she was in shock.
He was shaking too, physically quaking in rage and horror and a whole host of other things he couldn’t sort through because all he could think about was getting Alaine out of this house.
The scene downstairs, on second glance, was much more horrific than he had taken in the first time. Dead bodies and blood everywhere. The Puerto Ricans standing off to one side, in jeans and T-shirts, their arms folded over their chests as they eyed the Italians on the other side of the room, in their expensive tailored suits, with their guns out.
In the middle was the Russian that Tino shot in the kneecap, now writhing on the floor but oddly silent. Next to him was Angel, on his knees with his hands laced behind his head, and the motherfucker was crying.
Actually crying as he begged Tino to spare him.
Which looked sort of pointless, because Tino was just sitting on the stairs, filming Angel and the Russian with his phone in an act of wild vindictiveness Chuito knew Nova would lose his mind over the second he saw it.
Luis, Neto, and Miguel all looked to the top of the stairs, their eyes wide in silent communication, because Tino sitting there filming this massacre was clearly freaking them the hell out.
“I don’t know who his informant was, man. Please, just—” Angel stopped and lifted his head, looking at Chuito at the top of the stairs. “Ay Dios mio, no. Don’t—”
“Shut up, motherfucker,” Chuito said in Spanish, because this idiot was speaking in English, and he didn’t want Alaine to hear his begging. “Or I will make it twenty times worse.”
He walked down the stairs. He had to step past Tino, who glanced up at him. The look on Tino’s face transformed from hard and terrifying to anguished and concerned as he asked, “Is she—”
“Don’t fucking talk to me, Tino,” Chuito growled as he left Tino there, ignoring his look of hurt. Chuito glanced to his old crew, who were now staring at Alaine in his arms, and said in Spanish, “Come on.”
He didn’t need to ask the Boricuas twice.
Neto opened the door for them as Chuito cautiously stepped around the dead bodies, trying not to slip on the pools of blood and gore, because that was the last thing he fucking needed.
Outside was just as shocking as inside.
A sea of black SUVs lined the road as Italians surrounded the house like they were protecting Fort Knox. There were cop cars too, three that Chuito counted. He practically ran into Neto at the door because he was stopped there with a look of horror on his face.
“They’re in the mafia’s pocket.” Chuito knew it without asking, because the guys leaning against the cop cars weren’t in uniform. They were clearly off duty and there to detract anyone from calling the heat. Not that there seemed to be anyone around. Angel clearly picked this street because it was mostly abandoned, likely due to massive crime and the warehouse on the corner. “It’s fine,” he assured his crew in Spanish. “They’re all dirty.”
Neto and Miguel still weren’t moving, because like Marcos, they also had records and weren’t too inclined to trust that three cop cars wasfinewhen they just walked out of the nightmare inside.
“Coño,” Miguel whispered as he gave Chuito a look of disbelief.
“Yeah,” Chuito agreed, because knowing how connected the mafia was and actually seeing it were two different things. The Russians were insane to try to take Nova down. That was beyond fearless—it was a death wish Chuito didn’t have a name for. “I want you all out of this mess. Protect my chica. That’s all I need from you.”
Luis was the one who ran ahead and opened the door to Marcos’s truck parked in the driveway next to Tino’s GL.
“Is she hurt?” Luis asked in Spanish as he eyed Alaine in his arms. “Do we need to take her somewhere?”
“Marc is taking her to my mother. You guys follow,” Chuito said as he got to the car. “Protect the house. Lock down the street. We’ll meet you there.”
“You’re not coming?”
“No.” Chuito gave Luis a hard look. “I got something to take care of first.”
Luis glanced away, because he knew exactly what that meant.
“Where’s Junior?” Neto asked from behind him.
