The Slayer (Untamed Hearts #2) (44 page)

“Is there a gringo option?” Alaine asked, because she had a headache too. “Like, I dunno, just regular coffee?”

“I can get you
café Americano
,” Nova offered. “Milk, right?”

“Please.” Alaine smiled. “And sugar.”

Tino pointed at his brother. “I need sugar too.”

“You think I don’t know how you take your coffee?” Nova gave him a harsh look before he turned back to Alaine. “Text me what else you need. We could be here for a few days, and we don’t know if we’re getting out of this house again. Really think about what you might need.”

Alaine frowned at him for a moment. “Are you asking me if I need feminine products?”

“I’m telling you to plan ahead,” Nova said with a deliberate look at her. “Anything you think you’re gonna need, I’ll pick up.”

“Wow”—Alaine pulled back in surprise—“I’m sort of impressed right now. You
are
a progressive gangster.”

“Just text me,” Nova said as he threw up his hand. “I’m leaving.”

“She’s not gonna need feminine products,” Tino said with a bark of laughter. “I guarantee you she’s pregnant after last night.”

“Motherfucker—” Chuito started with a glare.

“I’m just saying,” Tino said with another laugh. “It sounded like she got pregnant.”

“I’m on birth control. I have the implant, and I just finished my period last week. Is there anything else you’d like to know?” Alaine asked sharply.

“Yeah.” Tino stared at her, taking in Chuito’s hoodie and a pair of shorts she had picked up at the outlets as part of her emergency Florida supplies. “I wanna know what he was doing to make you scream like that. I got a good imagination, but details are better.”

“You should take your brother with you,” Chuito said to Nova. “Before I kill him.”

“My brother can take care of himself,” Nova said dismissively as he opened the door to the laundry room.

“Oh, hey,” Tino called out. “If we’re really going to be stuck in this house for days, and you’re not going out again, we need lotsa energy drinks, or
I’m
gonna have a period.”

“I was gonna get energy shots since you don’t have to refrigerate them.”

“Ugh,” Tino groaned.

“We’re in survival mode. You’ll live.” Nova disappeared out the door before anyone could argue.

“You’re gonna start a period if you keep drinking macchiatos with sugar. It sounds like a woman’s drink.”

“Madonn’,” Tino snapped at Chuito. “You should go with my brother, because the only one in danger of being murdered is you.”

“My mother drinks cortaditos with sugar.”

“Yeah, I know. She made me one after I got done letting her suck it.”

“Listen, cabrón—”

“Is this what you two do all those nights when Chuito sleeps at your place?” Alaine asked Tino curiously. “Just insult each other’s cultures and generally irritate each other?”

Chuito and Tino exchanged looks, before Tino shrugged. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“Okay.” Alaine nodded. “Have fun with that. I’m going back to bed.”

She left them to their debate and walked back upstairs, grateful for the daylight. Tino had obviously started cleaning when he woke up. She and Chuito had found him on the stairs when they came down earlier, using another old shirt to wipe down the cracked wood.

The whole house showed the signs of a family who’d packed quick and moved out, leaving behind everything but the essentials. There was something sad about the abandoned toys, clothes, and papers shoved into the corners, things that had once been bought with love and given joy, just tossed aside in the haste of life taking its toll.

She stopped at the entrance to the room she was sharing with Chuito, spying a small brown gecko that dashed underneath the door. She’d never seen such a tiny lizard, and it was odd to see it running free in the house.

Alaine wasn’t sure if lizards fell under the same umbrella as rats to Tino, but she didn’t want to test it. She glanced back to the hallway, seeing a shoe box lying among the other trash in the corner. She opened it, found a bunch of old receipts, and she dumped them out and went lizard hunting.

It took her a while to find him, now hiding in the door hinge. She used the lid of the box to knock him down and then chased the gecko around the room for a good five minutes, which meant she was sorely in need of a distraction.

Finally she caught him by triumphantly slapping the box down. She ripped apart the lid by pulling the sides down and then slid it underneath the box. Once she had her prey, she took him downstairs and cracked the front door open.

“Mami, no!”

Alaine went to throw the box and set the gecko free before Chuito had a meltdown, but something caught her eye, and she looked down on instinct, seeing a glowing dot on Chuito’s hoodie. The crack in the door was only a foot wide, nothing in comparison to Nova driving out of the garage in broad daylight for one quick supply run before they locked down and figured out what to do.

But as she stood there, more red dots danced across the gray sleeve, as if opening the door had given her a contagious disease.

“Close the door and die.” The voice was icy with warning.

Alaine dropped the box and looked to the side, seeing a thickly muscled, blond-haired man in the overgrown bushes of the dilapidated house next door. She turned her head, seeing that Chuito was standing behind the door, his gun drawn, his eyes wide and horrified.

“What do I do?” she asked him in a whisper as all the breath left her, and her heart thumped hard.

“We’ll kill her. Try to close the door, and she dies,” someone else called, and she saw another blond in the driveway across the street with a gun in his hand, its beam of red light decorating her hoodie. “Come out, or you’ll
all
die.”

“How many are there?” Tino asked, making Alaine notice for the first time he was standing behind Chuito, the glint of his gun sparkling in the sunshine coming in through the window. “Can you see?”

Alaine glanced back outside, seeing someone else in one of the other driveways across the street. “I see three, but—”

“Two seconds, she dies,” the first man said in harsh, heavily accented warning.

“Coño.” Chuito stepped forward, pulling the door open and looking outside just as more Russians came out from what seemed like everywhere, all with their guns drawn, those deadly red beams still lighting up Alaine like a Christmas tree. Chuito didn’t turn back, but he did whisper, “Nine,” making it obvious he was quicker at counting enemies under pressure.

“Merda,” Tino cursed behind the door.

“Drop it!” the Russian who was clearly the voice of the masses shouted as he got to the driveway. “Lose the gun, or the woman dies.”

Alaine winced at the sound of the gun hitting cement when Chuito tossed it. He shoved Alaine behind him, the red dots now dancing over his blue T-shirt as he held up his hands.

Tino turned and ran up the stairs. For once she noticed that impressive speed of his worked to his favor. She could hear his footsteps echoing from upstairs by the time the Russian grabbed Chuito.

“Where’s your Italian friend?” he asked, shoving his gun under Chuito’s chin.

“
No hablo inglés
,” Chuito said in response, his dark eyes hooded, his features a mask of anger.

“Yeah?” The Russian tilted his head, and one of his companions grabbed Alaine, making her shout when he shoved his gun under her chin hard enough to make her bite her tongue. “Maybe the woman speaks English? She seemed to do fine with it last night. I recognize her now. Did you think you’d spy on us? You thought you could win?”

Chuito and Alaine ended up in the house again, this time with nine Russians. Alaine could hear her heart thundering in her ears as an icy-cold shiver of fear washed over her so potently she didn’t think she had taken a clear breath since she opened the door.

“Come out, Italian,” the Russian holding Chuito called, his voice echoing through the empty house. “Or the woman dies.”

Alaine looked at Chuito, who was still completely unreadable. His body seemed tight, like he was ready to spring, but what could he do with so many guns pointed at them?

“Kill the spic,” one of the other Russians suggested. “He’s useless. Fuck the Puerto Ricans. We owe them nothing.”

“No!” Alaine shouted. “Please—”

Her words were cut off when the Russian holding her slammed his hand down hard on her shoulder, making a scream burst out of her.

Her legs gave out, and at the same time, Chuito shouted, “
¡No la toques hijo de la gran puta!
” and then grunted when the man holding him caught him in the back of the head with his gun.

Alaine watched him fall, his knees giving out like hers had, and for one terrible second, she thought he was going to pass out, because the sound that gun made against his skull was horrific, but Chuito just grabbed the back of his head, his fingers coming away bloody.

Then he tilted his head and looked at the man who had hit him, holding his gaze as if daring him to shoot him. There was something so profoundly scary about Chuito being willing to look death straight in the eye.

“Okay, okay, okay.” Tino appeared at the top of the stairway, his hands held high. “Look, maybe we can negotiate. I’m rich as hell and—” Tino stopped talking and looked down at his chest that was now decorated with red dots, as all the Russians but the two guarding Chuito and Alaine pointed their weapons at him. He stared down at the red dots and mumbled, “Wow, this feels like overkill.”

“He’s not the right one,” the one guarding Chuito said, knocking his gun into the back of Chuito’s skull as if he was talking to him. “They sent me the picture. This is the wrong Italian. This is the fool from the night before.”

“Man, I got money,” Tino argued, still standing at the top of the stairs. “You want money, motherfuckers? You can disappear with the amount of cash I got. I’ll pay you twice as much as your boss. Just”—Tino’s voice caught in a way that was surprising—“don’t whack me.”

“He is spineless.” The man holding Alaine turned back to the other Russian standing with Chuito, because it was apparent he was in charge. “These two make better hostages than him.”

With his gun still to Chuito’s head, the boss used his other hand to fish his phone out of his pocket. For one tense moment, they all just stood there as he took Tino’s picture at the top of the hallway.

“Are you a soldier?” the Russian in charge asked as he did something on his phone, likely texting Tino’s picture to someone. “You don’t stand like a man who has power with the Italians. You’re weak.”

“Yeah, man, I’m not looking to die for the friggin’ organization,” Tino assured them. “Fuck them.”

“We’ll wait,” the boss said and used his phone to wave Tino down. “Come down here, soldier.”

“Why don’t you let the girl go?” Tino argued as he walked down the stairs, his hands still held up. “You got me. You got my bro. What the fuck else—” One of the Russian’s grabbed Tino and yanked the gun out of the back of his jeans. He pointed it at Tino’s forehead, and Tino winced. “Cazzo, why—”

“Kneel.”

Tino dropped to his knees, lowering his head, and Alaine saw something in his gaze that was very different from his outwardly terrified demeanor. His eyes were narrowed in fury, but he didn’t argue when his captor said, “Hands behind your head.”

Tino laced his hands behind his head.

Then they made Alaine and Chuito do the same. The Russians had a quick conversation Alaine couldn’t understand as she sat there, kneeling on the dirty wooden floor, knowing this was likely how she was going to die.

She got the impression the Russians were discussing their fate.

The boss who still stood over Chuito lifted his gun and made a phone call, saying to the person on the other end, “We have one of yours.” Then he kicked Chuito. “What’s your name?”

Chuito quirked an eyebrow but didn’t answer.

“Name,” the Russian repeated.

Chuito tilted his head, looking at the Russian, and seemed to decide he didn’t have a choice. “Chuito.”

The Russian repeated it to whoever he was talking to and then asked, “The Slayer?”

“Sí,” Chuito confirmed.

Then the Russian hung up and said something curt to his Russian companions, before he turned to Tino. “Where’s your friend? The other Italian?”

Tino snorted. “Man, he’s not my friend. He’s just—”

“Where is he?” the Russian repeated.

Tino shrugged. “He went to get coffee.”

“Is he your boss?” the Russian asked and then looked at his phone when it beeped. He stared at the screen for a while and then lifted his head to study Tino with a look of bemusement on his face. “An enforcer? You? How old are you?”

“I’m twenty-four. Check my driver’s license if you don’t believe me. Your sources must be mixing me up.” Tino snorted in disbelief. “You got the wrong friggin’ guido.”

“Why do they say to beware?”

Tino shrugged again. “Maybe your source thinks we all look alike.”

“My source is Italian,” he said with a glare. “He would know an enforcer in your organization.”

“Yeah, why? Who’s your source?” Tino asked but never got an answer, because someone knocked and then opened the door.

Alaine couldn’t help but turn her head to look. It was the man from the club, Angel. He had another young man standing at his back as the two of them walked over. Angel looked down at Chuito, with a big, pleased smile on his face.

“Ay Dios mio.” Angel shook his head, laughing. “
Mira esto. Diablo, ahora sí que se jodieron ustedes
.”

Chuito actually had the gall to flip him off, while still keeping his hands behind his head.

“What are we doing?” Angel asked the Russians.

“We caught the wrong Italian,” the Russian explained. “We’ll wait until the one we need gets back. I guess the boss gets the coffee in their organization; good thing we didn’t kill him when he pulled out. He has information we need.”

“You gonna smoke his friend?” Angel asked as he lifted his chin toward Tino. “This is the motherfucker from last night. The drunk with the Ferrari.”

“He set you up,” the Russian confirmed. “And you fell for it. They found you. They could’ve killed you last night.”