Spiders in the Grove (In the Company of Killers #7)(40)
“Ten. Nine. Eight.”
Joaquin’s voice, although very much a centerpiece in my mind, is softened by the man named Dante. He is sweating profusely; he’s also not looking for Leo Moreno to make an appearance, but unlike Iosif, Dante is very affected by what’s going on in the theatre. He can hardly sit still on his chair; he slides his index finger back and forth behind the collar of his shirt; he looks like he’s about to vomit, or pass out.
“Six. Five. Four.”
Frances Lockhart is crying; two of the girls sitting at her feet are doing their best to console her without being seen; they lay their heads on her thighs, and one is holding her hand. Frances dabs her cheeks with a cloth napkin, and tries desperately to control herself, but like Dante, she’s going to completely unravel any moment now. She looks at me from across the room; our eyes lock, and something passes between us—an understanding, perhaps; a kinship of some kind that I doubt either of us will ever truly know—before we look away from one another, toward the main entrance, and at a figure moving down the aisle.
“Ah, so wonderful of you to join us, Se?or Moreno,” Joaquin says, victoriously.
The crowd gasps.
Every head in the room—even Iosif this time—looks in the same direction; a dense spell of silence stretches over the crowd, and not even the sound of breathing breaks it.
And then: “LEO!” pierces the silence like a bullet cutting through a glass window. Naeva struggles against Joaquin, but he presses the gun deeper into her throat. “Leo! Please! Don’t let them take you!” Tears barrel from her eyes.
The legendary fighter, the love of Naeva’s life, makes his way toward the stage with awed faces at his front and guns at his back. But he sees none of it—the only thing he sees is Naeva and the man threatening to kill her. His dark eyes churn with retribution; his fists are like iron hammers down at his sides, held in place by muscled arms and shoulders that appear to have been carved from stone; his face, filled with violence and fury, somehow appears soft, and young, with finely-chiseled cheekbones and perfectly-shaped lips. For a moment, I mourn him—what a waste it will be to see such a creature killed by such a beast.
Without a word, Leo Moreno makes it to the first set of tables next to the stage, and in a flash, before any trigger behind him can be pulled, he rounds on the guard closest to him, drives a sharp elbow into his face with a crack! and grabs the gun from his hands. Another one-second flash and Jorge Ramirez, sitting at the table nearest Leo, is now pressed against Leo’s chest, the barrel of the gun shoved against Jorge’s temple—it all happened so fast I’m still trying to grasp it.
“Let Naeva go, or I kill this one…first,” Leo speaks in accented English, and a wave of excited whispers blankets the theatre.
“Leo—”
Joaquin shoves the barrel of his gun deeper into Naeva’s throat, cutting off her cries; his smile is menacing as he looks down at Leo from atop the stage.
“You won’t kill him,” Joaquin taunts; he moves his head to indicate the crowd. “You’re outnumbered.”
Leo cocks his head to one side, and the subtle movement is enough that Joaquin knows this man is more than capable of pulling it off. Joaquin swallows nervously, and tries to maintain his undaunted act, that he has the upper-hand. And although technically he does—because Leo is outnumbered—the line between his hand and Leo’s is very thin.
I glance over at Cesara, witness the familiar hunger in her eyes—past-tense, my ass; she’d still bend over for Leo Moreno in a heartbeat.
“You know what,” Joaquin begins with a dismissive shrug, “you picked the wrong buyer to threaten me with—kill him, I don’t care.”
The buyers sitting in the crowd all turn and look at one another, shocked, and likely reconsidering their future visits to this place. Unsurprising, Iosif appears unfazed, but he is watching, nonetheless.
Joaquin, noticing the error of his decision, remedies it quickly. “That’s the only buyer in the room who owes me,” he says.
“Joaquin,” Jorge pleads, his voice cracking, “I thought we had an agreement. Why do you—”
Leo shuts Jorge up the same way Joaquin had silenced Naeva moments earlier.
“You have three seconds,” Leo warns in Spanish.
Visibly nervous, Joaquin squeezes Naeva tightly within his arms, indicating his unwillingness to let her go, no matter what.
Three seconds flies by in what feels like one, and a shot rings out, echoing off the tall walls; Jorge’s body falls to the carpeted floor in a bloody, slow-motion spectacle. In the same moment, Leo rushes toward the stage, gun in-hand. Another shot rings out, and another—buyers scream and duck underneath tables—but before either bullet can strike him, Leo leaps onto the stage, rolls two-feet before coming to a stop in a crouched position.
“NOO!” Naeva screams as Joaquin’s gun moves in front of her face, and fires at Leo, striking him in the shoulder.
Leo goes down; his gun crashes against the stage, and slides out of his reach.
The gasps from the crowd pull all of the air out of the room—even Iosif has risen into a stand, unable to tear his gaze away from the scene.
I don’t even remember when I stood up; but here I am, my hands pressed to the table, my body a solid mass of muscle and bone; my eyes and mouth open wide, looking more like Izabel Seyfried than Izel Ruiz.