The sound of someone screaming obscenities had me bolting awake while the bedroom was still shrouded in the darkness of night.

“Fuck!” The sound came from the floor below me. “I said get down, you lazy shits, unless you want a hole where your third eye is.” I waited another five minutes or so, but there were no more angry expletives. I remembered what Angel had said before, about Gary downstairs having nightmares from PTSD.

Jesus, what the hell had happened to him? War was a bitch. I’d never been through it, but Gabe had. I couldn’t imagine how he dealt with his demons, he had to have some. There was no way I was going back to sleep after that though, and I couldn’t believe that it hadn’t woken up Jeanette the yelling had been so loud. But no, she lay sprawled out on her stomach, sleeping with her face smashed into a pillow and her reddish-brown hair spilling over the sheets. I touched a few strands gently, careful not to wake her, and wondered what it would feel like when it was curly.

I dug around on the side of the bed and pulled my phone out of the pocket of my jeans from where they lay crumpled on the floor. Two things made me groan. One, it was only four-thirty in the morning, and two, the green light was blinking, and I had a text message from Eddie.

Meeting with the boss and the new guys at the office at eight am.

What the hell kind of crime boss had meetings at eight in the morning? That was what was criminal. Ugh. That meant I had a few hours to get it together before I had to be in Detroit. I didn’t want Chaz or that asshole David Ashley to even get a sniff of Jeanette, so I figured I would go back to the hotel to shower and clean up before I grabbed some coffee and made the forty-five-minute trip to Chaz’s warehouse. I also needed to get my story straight if I was going to convince those guys that she was not the droid they were looking for. I also needed to figure out how to find out why Chaz okayed the attack on the restaurant yesterday without blowing my cover and wrapping my hands around his fucking neck in the process. If I even took a step towards Chaz with murder on my mind, Eddie would take me out. If Eddie didn’t get the job done, then Gordon would happily pull the trigger. That was their job. Eddie protected the boss. Gordon just killed people when told to kill them. If I made a move on Chaz, all he would have to do is look at Gordon and I would be dead. I was more concerned about him than Eddie actually. In a one-on-one fight I could take him. Gordon was one scary Mr. Rogers sweater-wearing motherfucker.

I didn’t want to leave Jeanette. We’d shared so much with each other in such a small window of time, and after what she’d said last night… I knew she was embarrassed. I knew she had shocked herself with her own words, but I wouldn’t let her pull away. I wouldn’t let her take them back. I was blunt and honest and told her my secrets. And her first thought was to love me. She didn’t get to change her mind, I was keeping that. I would do whatever I had to today with those assholes in Detroit, to make sure she only got more and more comfortable saying those words to me.

I dressed as quickly and as quietly as I could, and making sure her ringer was on silent, I texted a message from my phone to Jeannette’s, confident she would see it as soon as she woke up. In this day and age, the first thing people did when they woke up was check their phones. I wanted her to wake up and know that I would be back, not wonder where I had gone. Leaning down close, I pressed a soft kiss to the back of her head since the rest of her face was completely submerged in her pillow, and whispered something softly over her. Then I crept out of the apartment like a thief, making sure to lock the apartment door behind me.

That hotel shower didn’t do shit to wake me up, but the coffee I picked up at the gas station right before I jumped on I75 was like molten lava, hot and strong just how I liked it. Despite the heaviness of the atmosphere, and the somber shit I had to deal with once I got to Detroit, I was in a good fucking mood. The love of a good woman was some powerful medicine. Shit, I could carry the world on my shoulders if I needed to, I was Superman.

That feeling faded a little bit as I walked into the office with the stubby brown carpet in the back of Chaz’s warehouse at seven fifty-five.

Every single one of those fuckers was already sitting around the damned table, except for Eddie, who was standing next to Chaz and Gordon, who was waiting at the door. Not outside the room like he normally was. Nope, everybody was inside the meeting room, looking at me as I walked through the doorway like I had been called to the principal’s office at school. Except in this office it was absolutely not against the rules to use violence. And instead of a paddle hanging on the wall there were dudes with guns and shit.

“The meeting was at eight, correct?” I asked softly as I took my position against the wall behind the table like I always did.

“Oh, your meeting was at eight, Dino,” Chaz said smoothly, as he left his seat and started walking across the room. “Please sit down.”

Chaz Malone didn’t ask people to sit down. I didn’t want to sit down. Based on the cold and calculated look in his eyes, refusing was not an option. For lack of a better idea at the moment, I sat down.

“Do you have information for David on Gabriella?” Chaz asked, and I relaxed a bit. He wanted my report, this was normal. I was prepared for this.

“Jeanette Clary cannot be Gabriella Hensley. Their biological structures don’t match, Jeanette has no tattoos, and I know because I checked very carefully,” I winked at David who did not look happy at what I was hinting at, “and I asked about her parents and they live in the area. We have a date to meet them for lunch next week.” Chaz raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything else.

I had to keep it cool, make it not a big deal. It’s not her, no big deal moving on. I had to focus on making my legs dead weights to keep them from jumping up and down in nervousness. I was fucking Dino, I did not get nervous. I was fucking Dino, I got shit done.

“What happened yesterday at Affini’s?” I asked. I shouldn’t have pushed, and I hoped the question came out casually, instead of accusatory like I meant it.

“Why are you concerned about it?” Chaz didn’t sound offended that I asked, which was good. The question was asked out of simple curiosity, like he couldn’t understand why I would even care.

“I ended up at Nasta’s last night and saw all the yellow tape and a burned-out dumpster. I just wondered because you told me to lay off of them for a while. I assumed you had gotten what you wanted from them.”

“Well,” Chaz said as he started to walk up one side of the room, pacing back and forth and causing Eddie to have to pace with him to stay close. “I pulled you away from the Affini’s, Dino, that doesn’t mean I didn’t have business with them.” Chaz smiled, a friendly smile on the outside, but his eyes were flat and dark. My heart started beating double-time in my chest. He was playing with me. “Since I was having you do a favor for David here, I had him do me one in return.” I looked across the table where David and Justin sat next to each other. David had a triumphant look in his ice blue eyes, while Justin squirmed in his chair, looking slightly sick and uncomfortable. He wasn’t happy with the current state of affairs I could tell.

“Does that bother you, Dino?” Chaz called my attention again, as he stopped pacing the room about five feet away from me and pinned me with his sharp, dead-eyed stare.

“Not in the slightest,” I lied through my teeth. Something was very, very wrong here, and I had the feeling I was the only person in the room that did not know what was going on. Eddie stood next to Chaz, stone-faced and silent, but Gordon looked sad at his post over by the door. Like he was just so disappointed with everyone in the room.

The sound of clapping drew my attention back to the table. Clap. Smile. Clap. Smile. Clap. It was the douchiest most cheesy bad guy move I had ever seen, and I had met a shit ton of bad guys in my life.

“You are right, Chaz, he is a very good liar.” David Ashley was gloating. I may have been wrong, but all signs pointed to my cover being blown. The question was how? “So tell me, Dino, now that we know how good of a liar you are, why don’t you tell me the truth about my Gabriella?”

“We’ll get to it, David, but right now I think Dino has some questions for me.” Chaz actually snapped his fingers at me to get me to look at him again, which pissed me off beyond words, but it worked. He had my attention, and so did Eddie, who had his gun out and trained on me. His bright green eyes flashed an apology, but that was the only indication I had that he wasn’t happy about pointing his trigger finger at me. It was his job.

“Why?” I asked through clenched teeth, my hands balled into fists on my thighs. It didn’t make any sense to keep playing dumb, Chaz and David were both baiting me, and it would only make them happier if I kept acting the part.

“Why what?” mocked Chaz as he cocked his head and sneered in my direction. “Why act like I didn’t know who you were, Dino Affini? Why did I make you point man on all those trips to the restaurant to hassle the old lady and the girl? Why do I hate your family so much?” He was getting worked up, his voice was getting louder with each question. I could tell he really wanted to tell me the whole story, like all villains did, but he was waiting for the right response from me before he busted into his monologue.

“Look, I had Justin rig the dumpster for you yesterday, Malone, I want to know about Gabriella first.” David was emphatic. Clearly, he had no time for the evil villain’s theatrics. Chaz waved him off.

“We’ll get to your girl, David, wait your turn. Dino and I have important family matters to discuss.” Chaz snapped at David, but that creepy smile was back on his face when he spoke to me again.

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice what a pussy you were when I told you to do some damage and all you did was break the outside light fixtures on one side of the building by the parking lot? Come on, Dino, it’s like you weren’t even trying. Hard enough to pretend to be a bad guy, but not hard enough to wreck your grandma’s restaurant?”

“If you knew they were my family, then why did you try to get me to sleep with Vanessa?” That didn’t make sense. I didn’t even know what he hoped to accomplish by asking me to do that.

“I just thought it was funny and wanted to see how far you would go to play the part,” Chaz was openly laughing now, and Justin laughed nervously with him like he didn’t know what he was supposed to do so he was just going with the flow. David looked like he was getting very impatient, Eddie’s gun hand never wavered, and Gordon just stared at the floor, like he didn’t even want to watch what was happening in front of him.

“What is your game, why do you hate my family so much?” Nothing was making sense, so I just came out with the real question. Asking why are you such a fucking crazy dickhead? would have been my next move.

“This is bullshit, I want to see my Gabriella,” I could hear David’s aggravation and he pushed his chair back away from the table and stood.

“Sit the fuck down, you shit stain,” Chaz yelled while pointing. Eddie looked like he didn’t know whether he was supposed to keep the gun trained on me or point it at David because Chaz sounded pissed off at both of us. “We will get to you and your little bitch in a minute. I am assuming Dino had his dick down her throat all night. Trust me, she’s not going anywhere, more than likely she’s sleeping it off.”

David sat, but I could see murder in his eyes. It was the look of a man who wasn’t used to other people telling him what to do. He would obey, but I didn’t know how many more orders he would take from Chaz Malone.

I didn’t know how much more I would be able to take from Chaz Malone. I didn’t know how much longer I had before he had Eddie pull that trigger and took me out. Chaz was pacing like a madman now, hair sticking up after he ran his hands through it, and as he caught me staring at him, he laughed. It was the high-pitched laugh of a man about to have a breakdown. Chaz Malone was going nuts in front of me, and I had no idea why.

“Why do I hate your family, Dino? Why do I hate your family?”

I mean, yeah, that’s what I just fucking asked. Chaz was losing his shit and even Eddie was giving him the side eye, wondering what the hell was making him go apeshit.

“Because I was born first, you asshole. Anthony Affini knocked up my mom in high school, but not only did he tell her to get an abortion, but he also refused to acknowledge her again afterward. My mother didn’t kill me, obviously, but her parents sent her to a relative out of state to keep her shame from being known. I was born a bastard in Michigan, when my father was just a couple of hours away, still sticking his dick in anything the right shape.” Spit was flying out of Chaz’s mouth as he ranted, and it took me a minute to process what he was saying because it was so wild I couldn’t follow right away.

I had a brother.

“Imagine my surprise when I was old enough to try to find dear old Dad, that I found out just a couple of years after he tried to have me killed off,” Chaz emphasized that part to make sure everyone knew how he felt about his dad, “I found out he knocked up two more women, but both kids had the Affini name and were living like one big happy family.”

I was going to get shot no matter what, so I couldn’t let that slide. “One big happy family, are you nuts?” I yelled back. Probably a poor choice of words but the guy was certifiable. “The only reason I have that piece of shit’s last name is because of my Nonna. I was a one-night knock-up too. And our sister got abandoned just like the rest of us. She was barely two when the old man took off. He left us all, Chaz. He was nobody’s father. You want to be mad at that asshole, then be my guest. But why Nonna?”

“Because she kept you!”

He was full-on screaming now, his face mottled and red with anger. Eddie was still holding the gun on me, but he looked uncertain, like he wasn’t sure Chaz was in his right mind to be giving orders. Gordon has pulled a chair up to the door and was sitting in it, clearly settling in for the long haul. I didn’t turn to look at Justin or David, I just assumed they were watching the same shit show I was. Now that the truth was out, Chaz Malone was free to lose his mind about it.

“Yeah, and if she had known about you she would have kept you too,” I countered, equally pissed off on Nonna’s behalf. There was nothing more important to her than family, even piece of shit douchebags counted. Case in point, her asshole son. “You can’t blame her or our sister for things they didn’t know about. Was your mom this psycho about Tony?” I didn’t want to refer to that man as my dad, and I preferred not to talk about him ever, but Chaz Malone needed some sense knocked into him. Chaz’s face burned a deeper shade of maroon and he exploded.

“Don’t you talk about my mother, you piece of shit Affini, my mother is a saint. It’s not her fault that we had such a hard life. She had to do it all on her own, you know. We didn’t have things handed to us because the family owned a business like you.”

“Oh, can that whiny bullshit. Don’t blame you growing up to be a crime boss on growing up without your grandma’s love.” Rage caused me to punch the words out with enthusiasm. “You started out an asshole and stayed one because you wanted to be an asshole. And if your mom was such a saint she would have made better choices in her life than to spread her legs for Anthony Affini.” That last part hurt, and I meant it to. Fuck this guy and fuck his piddly ass agenda. I was less surprised that I had a long-lost brother and more angry that he would turn out to be such a dumb fuck as Chaz Malone. He didn’t like anything like me, which wasn’t surprising because Vanessa didn’t either. I assumed he favored his mother, like the rest of us did.

That last dig was about all Chaz could take. Eddie actually backed up a bit as Chaz got a running head start and launched himself at me. I didn’t really have time to move, but if it was a good old-fashioned punch out, Chaz Malone had nothing on me.

“This is fucking boring, I’m over it.” I heard the words behind me a millisecond before I felt the air disturbed over my shoulder. I heard the whine of the bullet seconds before the scarlet stain bloomed directly in the center of Chaz’s forehead and he was flipped backward, then dropped like a stone. Eddie’s arm swung up, but he wasn’t fast enough. I didn’t hear the second bullet, but Eddie’s forehead got tattooed as well and he didn’t make a sound as he crumpled straight down in a puddle of his own blood.

Holy shit! David Ashley had shot them both where they stood without even a warning. One minute I was about to be murdered by a man I just found out was my brother, and the next he was no longer a threat. Just gone. David Ashley was a scary motherfucker.

Gordon was a crack shot with dead-on aim, but nobody called him Fast Gordon. He didn’t even get his weapon drawn before he was slumped over in his chair and slowly sliding to the ground, leaving a wet red stain on the wall as he fell.

Fuck me. The whole plan had gone sideways in a hot minute, and it hadn’t even been that great of a plan to begin with. But any guy who could just pop off three rounds because he wasn’t getting his questions answered fast enough was not someone I could use logic with. I was in some serious trouble. More trouble than just Chaz Malone finding out I was an Affini.

I knew David Ashley was a bad man, I knew from the moment I saw him, a cop, sitting in Chaz Malone’s office just as pretty as you please, making a deal with a crime boss like it wasn’t a complete breach of ethics. I was not prepared for him to go Billy the Kid and take out all three guys like it was the Battle of Lincoln. But instead of the Regulators he had Justin no last name, who was currently pissing his pants in his chair, having also not expected David to go lone gunman, I imagine. I felt bad for the guy. Almost.

David walked in front of me and checked out the bodies of Chaz and Eddie. Considering the size of the scarlet ring around both of their bodies, and the little bits of gray matter that littered the floor, I was pretty sure they were dead. His Glock still out and at the ready, and he may have been a bad guy, but he sure carried a cop’s gun.

I was one hundred percent sure I was going to die today, so I braced myself for the next shot that would end my life. Fucking garbage, right after I’d heard the words from her. He wouldn’t get her though. Once I didn’t show up to the apartment, Jeanette would get worried. She would call Gabe, and they would figure out the next step. She wasn’t alone, she had Gabe.

Gabe. Fuck that. She wasn’t alone, she had me. Fuck dying in this shitty hole. Fuck giving David Ashley the benefit of the doubt. I wouldn’t go easy, that was for sure.

I expected him to shoot me. I did not expect him to punch me in the face and then shoot me. The hit took me by surprise and knocked me clean out of the chair. I’m no slouch in the fists department, but I never got a chance to get back up and defend myself because the bullet hit me in the shoulder and I felt the fire explode all the way down my arm and the entire left side of my body. The nine millimeter in the holster tucked into the back of my jeans might as well have been body jewelry for the good it was doing me today. The agony ripped a scream from my throat, and I almost didn’t recognize the sound of my own voice. In all the jobs I had ever done, I had never been shot before.

I couldn’t move. I could only lay on the ground, stunned, with my arm fucking disintegrating, or at least it felt like it, and David Ashley standing above me shaking his head.

“I’m not going to kill you yet.” He made a tsk-tsk sound with his tongue on his teeth, like he was chastising me for being naughty. “You should have just given me the information that I wanted, Dino. But you had to touch her.” David’s eyes were bright, feverish almost. The eyes of a crazy person. Different crazy than Chaz Malone, because Chaz had completely lost his shit and had zero control of himself. No, David Ashley was a cold and calculated kind of crazy, and I didn’t like where this conversation was going.

“I knew you couldn’t be trusted before Chaz even said anything, that’s why I knew I had to take control of the situation immediately. I didn’t have to do much, just watch, and have Justin follow you when you left yesterday.”

Oh shit, no. I had thought Justin stayed behind with David in the meeting with Chaz. How fucking stupid could I have been?

“Not only do I know where Gabriella lives, but I also know the little hidey-hole you have her stashed in now,” David said as he licked his lips with a grin. “And now I’m going to go collect my poor, confused fiancé.” He leaned down close to my face and even though I tried to turn away from him, he used the barrel of the gun to keep me facing him. “I am going to erase every place that you touched her, by showing her who owns her over and over and over again. Right here, in front of you, so neither of you forget. Then I’ll kill you, in front of her, and everything will go back to normal.”

The urge to vomit at what his words implicated was becoming stronger than the pain of the bullet wound in my shoulder. Or maybe adrenaline and shock were dulling the injury. I don’t know, but I did know I would rather die than let him have her again. He wouldn’t touch her, not while I lived.

David handed the gun to Justin, who took it from him with a look of horror painted on his face. That poor numbnuts had no idea what he signed up for when he called David to tell him he saw someone that looked like Gabriella. His hero worship had changed into a healthy case of “I didn’t sign up for this shit” fear.

“If he tries to get away, shoot his other arm. If he keeps trying, shoot his legs. Keep him alive long enough for me to break Gabriella in front of him. I don’t really care what kind of condition he's in otherwise. Oh, and Justin? If he dies, or if he escapes, I’ll kill you too. So try to man up and do this thing, okay?”

Justin was almost weeping, but he took the gun from David anyway and his hand was steady as he kept it pointed at me. David walked past me on his way to the door until he changed his mind and came back. “You should never have touched her,” he said as he bent low. I felt his hands at my waist for a brief moment before he pulled his leg back and kicked me in the ribs as hard as he could.

I tried not to give him the satisfaction of making a sound, but my ribs weren’t listening and at least one cracked under the pressure.

I saw something metallic swinging from David’s fingertips as he strolled by Gordon slumped in half by the door and I recognized the BMW logo tucked between his pinky and thumb.

That motherfucker had lifted my keys. He was going to roll up to that apartment in my car. Jeanette, no!

I squeezed my eyes shut to try and focus. Ten seconds went by, breathe, Dino. Twenty seconds, ignore the pain. Thirty seconds, “Justin,” I opened my eyes and pinned the nervous man with a look of desperation. “You gotta let me go, he’s going to hurt her really bad.”

“I didn’t want any of this,” he whined, but still had the gun trained on me with no sign of it wavering. “I didn’t know he was this messed up, no one did.”

“Well now you do, and he’s going to kill her if you don’t let me out of here. At least let me get my phone and call someone to help her. Can I do that?” I slowly started reaching into my pocket.

“No,” he shouted, and I froze before my hand could grab my phone. “If I let you do any of that, he’ll kill me too.”

“Look at all the bodies on the floor, man,” I shouted, all shreds of patience draining from my body like the blood from the wound in my arm. “He’s gonna kill us all anyway. We’re already dead. She doesn’t have to be. Fucking nut up and save a life, you dick.”

This time the gun that went off made a much louder boom, and a much bigger hole in the middle of Justin’s chest. He sank to the ground with a look of surprise on his face, dead before he hit the floor.

What the fuck is this shit with all the goddamn guns?

I couldn’t get up yet, just kind of rolled over to my side and looked across the floor. Gordon was sitting against the wall, his legs out in front of him and a large red stain on his side. His gun was in his hand, but it was pointed towards the floor as he lacked the strength to keep it lifted.

“Fucking-a Gordon,” the words came out on a wheeze, but I’d never been so grateful for an assist in all my life. I staggered to my knees, and then to my feet, my arm a deadweight against my side, but at least standing, the blood wasn’t pouring out of the wound anymore. Just kind of sluggishly oozing. Looking at it made my stomach turn so I just tried to ignore it. The smell of burned skin though, that was harder to ignore.

I stumbled over to where Gordon sat, bleeding out against the wall.

“Get the hell out of here, kid, take my car. The keys are under the visor.” Of course, they were. Criminals weren’t overly worried about their shit getting stolen apparently. I pulled out my phone to call an ambulance, he was living, he still had a chance.

“Put that away, Dino. I’ve only got a few minutes left, maybe. If I’m lucky I’ll be gone before you get to the parking lot. I’m an old, bad guy, Dino. Bad guys aren’t supposed to live to be old. I’m tired and I don’t want to do this anymore. Just leave me here and get going, this fits.”

I didn’t need to be told twice, that dick fuck had a head start on me and he could move a hell of a lot faster than I could, what with him having been the only one in the room not shot. Hurry hurry, I chanted as I dragged myself down the hall, get in the car. Which fucking one was Gordon’s car again? Oh yeah, the black Town Car. Old school gangster car with the tinted windows and everything. Last time I was in this car I was helping those dumbasses kidnap Angel. I had to laugh to myself at the memory, haha fun times.

Blood loss was making me stupid, even if I got to the apartment right behind David, I was in no condition to rescue her by myself. Fuck, I would be lucky if I was able to drive there without passing out. I got to the car and flipped the visor down, the keys falling directly into my lap as promised. My left arm was useless, so I had to make the phone call before I could even put the keys in the ignition.

“Gabe,” I said, as soon as the call connected. I didn’t even wait for him to say hello. “I need your help, man.”