Shielding You ("The Shadows" Series: Book II)

2.

'You need to fucking leave!!!' His ears almost bled when the voice screamed from the other end in his earpieces.

'Angelo!!! Get him the fuck out of there for fuck's sake!!!'

'You are distracting us Matteo.' Angelo whispered, knowing that the message will reach even if he had given an ASMR version of the reply. Their gadgets were latest, updated, and way better than everything else they had invested in buying in the last year or so. He loaded another round in his gun and glanced at his boss.

Another gunshot sound from the opposite end of the alleyway had his boss gripping his gun tighter with bloodied hands before ducking out of the way of the trashbin they were hiding behind. He followed suite and they open-fired blindly to get to another hiding spot, killing a few with their shots.

'Exit at four o'clock. You'll have higher ground.' Matteo communicated through the earpieces and they obliged. Running while firing was bound to hit blank, but fortunately they heard another body crashing with a yelling of being hit and knew the bullet had hit another mark.

The two exited the place from the direction they were told and saw what Matteo meant by 'higher ground'. There was a staircase which led to a floor above from where they were able to see the amount of people ready to kill them in the alleyway.

Matteo was literal with the metaphorical phrase.

As soon as they got in positions, they started taking out their enemies left, right, and centre. The gang went into a state of disarray and couldn't last long. It was impossible to last so long in front of such assassins.

They were feared for a reason.

Being Ruthless.

After only a minute of continuous swoosh sounds from both sides, everything stilled. No one had survived the ambush that was planned against the two.

'Signs of life - Negative. Good job boys!' Matteo delivered his message before he started sipping on his coffee with content. This noise was heard in the earpieces too, leading Angelo to remove one of his earpieces in irritation.

The two left the scene without catching anyone's attention and joined the crowd a few streets down the encounter place. After a ten minutes walk, they reached their parked car and left for their warehouse, with Angelo driving.

He rolled down the windows as usual for his boss, knowing he would like to breathe in fresh air after that face-off. His boss pulled out a pack of mint and shared one with him before putting one in his own mouth. They kept silent for the rest of the one hour drive, getting occasional updates and useless details of random Italian recipes from Matteo on their earpiece.

Pulling up in front of the warehouse after making sure they weren't being followed, the two left the car in the parking and went inside. The expensive cream colored floor started acquiring red shoes' marks on them as the two walked in the direction of the office.

'I'm not going to clean those floors anymore!' They were greeted by Matteo who was sitting with his legs on the table, besides his whole computer and surveying system.

'You've never done that anyway. The housekeeper does that job...and every other household chores that needs to be done in this house.' Angelo countered as he claimed the bean bag near the door and adjusted himself to a comfortable position. Matteo threw him a can of soda and a wrapped up burger, getting a nod of appreciation in return.

'Were the bodies collected?'

'And he speaks!!!' Matteo shouted, his hands facing the sky as if in gratitude. Angelo rolled his eyes at his fake enthusiasm before biting into his food.