Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 116875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 584(@200wpm)___ 468(@250wpm)___ 390(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 584(@200wpm)___ 468(@250wpm)___ 390(@300wpm)
“I’ve got Bella. We’re headed to the saferoom.”
“Backup’s en route. Stay on the line.”
“Copy.” I enter the safe room and hit the code to secure it. Only after the steel locks set with a muffled click do I set Bella down.
“We’re under attack,” I tell her.
She backs away, straightening her gown. “I can tell. They didn’t take long, did they?”
“You think it’s the Vesuvios.”
“I know it.” Her smile is pure evil.
Chills run up and down my arms. My heart speeds up, knowing I’m in close contact with a deadly predator. “You planned it this way.”
“I did,” she giggles. She’s giddy. “I wanted them to come for me.”
Panic flares through me. I can’t let her face the Vesuvios alone. They only understand brute force.
Fortunately, I’m an expert in brute force.
I turn to the screen on the wall. It looks like Argos has gotten the security system back online. On screen, shadowy figures approach the house. “You need to stay here in the safe room.”
“Excuse me?” She looks outraged.
“I need you to stay safe. I can’t focus on fighting if I’m worried about you.”
“But—”
“You can obey me, or I can tie you up. Those are your options.”
“Fine,” she mutters, seething. Her dark eyes glitter with dangerous light. “But it’s not fair. This is my fight. I’m going to kill them all.”
“Not if I kill them first.”
35
Kaiser
* * *
In the underground fighting rings, anything goes. Above ground, in legit fights, there’s a referee to make sure there’s no foul play. No hitting the groin. No gouging out eyes.
In the underworld, no one cares if a fighter lives or dies.
I learned to keep moving. To be fast. To figure out my opponent quickly. No one bet on Jaeger and me in the beginning. But that was okay; Maestro rigged the fights. He had a few of his more seasoned fighters train us, and I learned every move I could so Jaeger and I could survive.
When I first started fighting, I was the underdog. By the end, I was the reigning champ.
The Vesuvios have forgotten that. They’ve come for my woman. It’ll be the last thing they ever do.
Finally, I get to kill someone.
I wait until the machine guns go silent. There are a few isolated shots here and there. The Vesuvios are executing our security guards one by one. That’s our first layer of defenses gone.
The first wave of the Vesuvio army hits the door. There’s a heavy thudding sound, too loud and rhythmic to be a fist. They’ve brought a fucking battering ram.
I race through the house, grabbing supplies, setting up a few distractions. Then I head back to the front of the house to greet them because that’s what a good host does. I wait for them at the top of the stairs, out of their line of sight.
They march in wearing goggles and body armor. Pretty good tech for mafia thugs. And they’re well trained—they clear the room expertly before filing in.
“Clear.” The leader radios the boss. “We’re in.”
“Get the girl.”
“Copy. She’ll be in the safe room,” the leader says to his men. “Let’s go.” I’ve set up a few bottles of wine in the hall, so I hear when they knock a few of them over.
“Hit the lights.”
I already told Argos to kill the lights for good. There’s a pause during which I’m sure they all turn on their night vision goggles.
Below me, a few men are standing in the foyer. I toss a flashbang grenade down and cover my eyes. Light flashes, blazing bright between my fingers. A few men scream as the light stabs their eyes.
I take a running leap, vault over the stair railing, and land on an unlucky soldier. I roll and slam my fist into the closest bystander. He sags, and I send his body flying into two more of his buddies. I keep it moving. Chop a jugular. Kick out a knee.
Somebody recovers enough to fire at me, but I’m moving too fast. I take out as many of them as I can and haul one up to use as a body shield to head down the hall.
Gunfire greets me. I toss my human shield one way and dive the other. I get clear of the line of fire, then reach into my pocket and hit a button that triggers a few small devices I’ve fixed around the house. Random alarms start blaring to cover up the sound of the bombs beeping. The gunmen get distracted by all the new noise. Then the tiny bombs explode. They’re not that dangerous, but the explosion ignites the gasoline I splashed around.
Fire blazes. The flames tear down the trail I’ve left for it and turn a few rugs into an inferno. One gunman wheels past me, screaming, his whole body on fire. Smoke fills the air. The safe room has a special air supply and oxygen masks, so Bella will be okay. I pull out my skull bandana and cover my face, then turn on another fun device Argos invented. I still need to deal with the rest of the gunmen.