Page 98 of Vendetta

Nico was over me in an instant with his gun trained on his father. “Don’t fucking move. You don’t deserve a quick death, but I swear on my mother’s grave if you touch her again it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”

Francisco stilled, an air of shocked surprise shone from his wide, unblinking eyes.

One of the three last standing masked guards tossed Nico a set of handcuffs and pulled down his balaclava. Based on what I recalled of the Moreno family, this had to be the youngest brother Luca smiling back at me. “You okay, Rosa?”

Nico grabbed his father by his injured shoulder and tossed him onto his stomach, jerking his arms behind his back and securing them with the cuffs.

Francisco shrieked in pain and called out to Luca. “You’re not even my real son. I disown you.”

Nico cracked him over the head with the butt of his revolver, and he went limp.

Ignoring the rude interruption, I pushed myself to my shaking feet, and waved away the offered hand to stand. “Uh, yeah. I think so.”

In my frantic bid to escape Francisco, I’d missed most of the fight, but the aftermath littered the marble floor.

Five guards lay dead by the door. Oliver sat, pale-faced, against the wall with Cruz hovering over him as two identical-looking men studied Ollie’s bleeding leg.

I wobbled my way over to him and slumped to the floor, utterly wrung out. “What happened? Are you okay?”

A tiny grin tugged at the corner of his lips before he winced as one of the twins put pressure on his wound. “Much better now that you’re here.”

“Don’t be stupid.” I battled the smile his words brought out in me. “What happened?”

Oliver grunted and grit his teeth at something the twins were doing.

One of the doppelgangers turned to me with a cheeky smile. “I’m Roman, and that’s my asshole brother Dom. And Luca, the nice one, is over there. When my—” he stopped himself. “I mean, Francisco raised the alarm, all the guards on the property ran to the house, so we just sort of tagged along. Everyone else is either dead or detained. No need to worry about that.”

Oliver groaned beside me, and my attention whipped back to him, worry creasing my brow.

He pressed a gentle hand to my cheek, cupping my jaw. “Don’t worry, babe. It’s just a flesh wound.” He coughed out a laugh, wincing.

I turned an accusatory look on Dom, who was disinfecting a hole in Oliver’s thigh. “I have to get the bullet out. Get him on the desk.”

Cruz shouldered past the brothers, scooping Ollie up and carrying him to the table.

Roman cleared the random papers off with a swipe of his arm, but paused at the head. “Uh, friend of yours?”

I nudged it with the barrel of my gun until it tumbled to the floor. “No.”

Francisco roused as a stack of papers fell on him, and he yelped from the ground. “Those are important documents.”

His grumbled tirade stopped short when Nico kicked him in the ribs.

Once the surface was clear, Cruz laid Oliver down.

Dom dug through his backpack, pulled out a set of forceps, and doused it with a bottle of alcohol. “Hold him down. This is going to hurt.”

Nico, Cruz, and Roman surrounded Ollie, each holding a limb.

Just as Dom was about to dig into Oliver’s thigh, a clatter of footsteps drummed down the hallway, and a female voice rang out. “Hello?”

Chapter 62

Rosalina

We all spun around to face the door as Claudia shuffled past.

“Claudia?” I said in disbelief.