Angel Face

Where's The Girl, Valencio?

LXI

Duncan's POV

I gave one last look to the window, hoping to hell that Eva would listen to me, for this once.

I was supposed to have more time. But, it's no use now. I smoothen my features and turn around to see how many of Severino's men had showed up first. I was slightly disappointed to see only three had showed up.

They certainly knew that I would show up to get Eva. So, either they had greatly underestimated me or, they wanted to come off as non-threatening. Geremiah had given me the exact number of men that Severino had brought along, so there would be definitely more men en-route.

I took in three men who had showed. Two of them I didn't recognize, but the third one I surely did. And judging by the scowl on his face, he did too. "Where's the girl, Valencio?" He asked, and by the looks of it, he would be the only one talking, from their end.

"Definitely not here." Strolling over to the chair, where they had kept Eva bound. I pulled my gun out of its holster, and froze when I sensed movement. The three men had stiffened and had reached for their own weapons. I huffed a laugh and sat down on the chair. "How's your brother, Cedro?" I asked, knowing that it would piss him off.

His lips curled into a sneer as he directed his heated glare at me. "Missing. Your 'papa' labelled him a betrayer because he thinks he helped you escape. But my brother would never do that. You did something to him. I know it." I stared at him blankly, while he threw accusations at me. Which were true.

"And you would be right to assume that." I watched him, fume in anger. "It's kill or be killed in our world. He was in my way. He had to die."

"You could've just knocked him out." He raged, but we both knew that was out of question. "And then what, Cedro? He would've only been tortured and killed by Severino later. You know he isn't kind to failures. I was much kinder."

"But we don't appreciate kindness, do we, figlio?" We watched Severino walk in, followed by his entourage. It took a lot of effort to maintain my indifferent mask when I saw Giovanni walk in too. Clearly, it was too much to ask for him to have died in these past thirteen years.

"I see you freed the bird." My eyes followed his moves as he took the center like always. Always wanting the first-row view to everything. "Once again, it was a woman." He spoke with so much disgust, it almost made me smile.

"For that, I would've called you sexist. But, then again, you trained Nadia." I stood up and took in every person in the room. The way they stood looked off balance and they had left the archway unblocked. A mistake too big to make consciously.

"Does your little wife know about you and Nadia?" The old geezer really thought that I'm like him. "Yes, and they get along quite well too." Well, there goes my inside woman. But, if everything goes as per plan, then I won't need an inside person. The answer was clearly not that he had expected, seeing that his ticks were showing.

"Where's Geremiah?" He demanded, lowly.

"Gone." I allowed a ghost of a smile to appear on my lips, when his eyes snapped back to me. "You see, I try to protect my people. Unlike you, who sends them on suicide missions."

"Like you protected your mother and sister?" He mocked, but I was distracted and more focused on the soft click of a gun's safety coming off. "We learn from our mistakes." I made a show of lowering my gaze in shame, as I perused the men in the room, to see who had cocked their gun. "There is no room for mistakes in our lives."

More clicks. More than one person in this room was ready to break famiglia's code. Someone in this room wanted me dead, and I knew who.

I met Giovanni's eyes and scoffed. "Looks like we've a rat." Guns were raised, but none fired as the men crumbled to the ground, with identical bullet holes adorning their forehead. My gun smoked in my outstretched hand, while adrenaline buzzed through me.