Page 53 of Mafia Obsession

Before Quinlan starts, I get in one good punch and love the crunch of his nose. “That is forher.”

Sinclair only looks remotely surprised that I took my obsession over his wife to this extreme. But my comment throws Quinlan off. Not that I care.

“You gonna just stand there?” I push him, wiping blood from my hands.

“Hardly.” The assassin ups the game and takes out a knife. Licking the blade, he says, “Tell me when I can start cutting off fingers.”

“You won’t get away with this,” Sinclair snarls.

“I already have, mate.”

What follows isn’t a fight. It’s an execution delayed for entertainment. Quinlan sinks his knife into Sinclair’s thigh, smashes his nose again, then delivers such a vicious punch to the chest that I swear I heard a few ribs break.

Sinclair is a wheezing mess on the floor. I consider filming this to show Lourdes. But Quinlan’s beating is gruesome.

He crouches and grips Sinclair’s jaw. “You done now, or do you want me to drag this out?”

He spits blood in Rhys’s face. Whoa, that was a mistake.Quinlan smiles, but then shit starts going wrong.

With a burst of desperation that surprises us all, Sinclair rips the knife from his own leg and lunges. On instinct, I jump in and knock the blade away. Growling, David lifts the metal chair and swings it at Rhys, catching him on the back.

My assassin hits the floor, and this controlled beating erupts into fucking chaos. I pull my gun and want to end this myself, but with Quinlan and Sinclair rolling around on the floor, I don’t want to kill Rhys by mistake.

I’m even attacked with guilt that I didn’t tell Quinlan that he was up against a professional hitman like himself. Getting him help, I back up to the door and open it.

“Greed,” I call out to the closest guard in the hallway. “Get in here.”

But glass explodes behind me. One of the windows is shattered, and Sinclair is gone.

Quinlan slowly rises from the floor, wiping blood from his mouth. “He was supposed to be just a drug dealer.”

“Well, he’s not.” I straighten.

“Who the fuck was that?” Quinlan grabs me by the suit jacket.

Greed immediately puts a gun to the assassin’s head, but I hiss my dissent, “Wrong person to shoot.”

My guard holsters his weapon and looks out the window. “He climbed the chain-link fence. He’s gone, boss.”

Quinlan pulls himself together. To him, this was a missed opportunity. For me, this was an epic failure with deadly consequences.

“He’s in bad shape, limped to the street and got into a cab,” Greed reports further.

I leave the night demon to lick his wounds and rush into the hallway.

Grabbing Wrath, I say, “I need all of you right now. Follow me to Hell’s Kitchen. I have to get Lourdes.”

Chapter 19

Lourdes

The soft click of a door lifts my head out of a deep sleep. Bleary-eyed, I peer into the hazy outline of the bedroom. I’ve not seen David at all today, but I’m seized by the cold realization that I might not be alone in the apartment.

“David?” I call out.

The lack of response and the footsteps toward the bedroom that don’t match David’s gait have me bolting straight up in bed.

Pulse thundering in my ears, I see the shape of a man detaching himself from the shadows near the doorway. He’s tall, too tall for David, broad-shouldered, and has a large skull.