The Slayer (Untamed Hearts #2)(129)

Junior turned and looked at Nova in surprise. “You sound Boricua.”

“Yeah, I’m awesome like that,” Nova agreed.

Chuito finally lifted his gun off Junior, because Nova had a point. He had other motherf*ckers to deal with. He turned Alaine in his arms and asked, “Are you okay, mami?”

“I just shot someone,” she whispered, her voice quivering. “But I’m not hurt. Are you okay? I heard the gunshots downstairs, and I thought—” She swallowed hard. “Junior told me to wait, but—” She shook her head as tears rolled down her cheeks. “I thought you were dead. No, I don’t think I’m okay. I’m definitely not okay.”

He hugged, her because she was shaking and in shock, but he was too, and he didn’t trust himself to be around her just yet. “Get dressed.” He pulled back and looked down at her bare legs, though the hoodie hung almost to her knees. “Where are your shorts?”

“He’s bleeding on them,” Alaine said as she pointed to the dead Russian behind them. “I could only save the hoodie and—”

“Fuck it.” Chuito turned back to Marcos and said in Spanish, “Take her to my mother. Don’t let her see what happened downstairs.”

“I can’t leave you,” Marcos argued. “I’ve got Luis, Miguel, and Neto with me. Let them take her and—”

Chuito raised his eyebrows pointedly. “I want you to leave.”

“But—”

“Leave, Marc,” Chuito cut him off as he continued to speak in Spanish, because he didn’t want Alaine to hear. “Protect her. You’re the only one I’d trust to get her home. Please do this for me. I protected your chica. Now it’s your turn. Get her out of this house.”

“Let me take Junior,” Marcos argued.

“I don’t want him in the car with her,” Chuito said as he shook his head. “No. Junior stays.”

“I need to talk to Junior,” Nova agreed. “Preferably after he gets dressed. I’ll make sure Chuito doesn’t hurt him.”

“And why the f*ck should I trust you?” Marcos countered. “You’re not my favorite person, cabrón.”

“Wow, that’s some shit.” Nova snorted. “I’m the one who got you out, motherf*cker.”

“Yeah, I’m feeling really out right now.”

Chuito put his gun into the back of his jeans and swept up Alaine in his arms, because he didn’t want her standing in this room with arguing gangsters and dead and maimed Russians for one more second.

There had been a lot of gunfire.

A lot of f*cking screaming.

He didn’t rule out the heat pulling up at any second, and he wanted Alaine gone.

He wanted Marcos gone too.

“Don’t look, okay?” Chuito said as he stepped over the dead Russian. “Marcos is going to take you to my mother’s.”

“You’re not coming?” Alaine sounded frantic, because she hadn’t understood them discussing Marcos leaving and Chuito staying. “You have to come!”

He pulled her tighter against him when he got to the top of the stairs. “Hide your face. Do that for me, mami.”

Alaine did it without arguing. She buried her face against his chest as she tightened her hold on his shirt. He could feel that her body was shaking, and he suspected she was in shock.

He was shaking too, physically quaking in rage and horror and a whole host of other things he couldn’t sort through because all he could think about was getting Alaine out of this house.

The scene downstairs, on second glance, was much more horrific than he had taken in the first time. Dead bodies and blood everywhere. The Puerto Ricans standing off to one side, in jeans and T-shirts, their arms folded over their chests as they eyed the Italians on the other side of the room, in their expensive tailored suits, with their guns out.

In the middle was the Russian that Tino shot in the kneecap, now writhing on the floor but oddly silent. Next to him was Angel, on his knees with his hands laced behind his head, and the motherf*cker was crying.

Actually crying as he begged Tino to spare him.

Which looked sort of pointless, because Tino was just sitting on the stairs, filming Angel and the Russian with his phone in an act of wild vindictiveness Chuito knew Nova would lose his mind over the second he saw it.

Luis, Neto, and Miguel all looked to the top of the stairs, their eyes wide in silent communication, because Tino sitting there filming this massacre was clearly freaking them the hell out.

“I don’t know who his informant was, man. Please, just—” Angel stopped and lifted his head, looking at Chuito at the top of the stairs. “Ay Dios mio, no. Don’t—”

“Shut up, motherf*cker,” Chuito said in Spanish, because this idiot was speaking in English, and he didn’t want Alaine to hear his begging. “Or I will make it twenty times worse.”

He walked down the stairs. He had to step past Tino, who glanced up at him. The look on Tino’s face transformed from hard and terrifying to anguished and concerned as he asked, “Is she—”

“Don’t f*cking talk to me, Tino,” Chuito growled as he left Tino there, ignoring his look of hurt. Chuito glanced to his old crew, who were now staring at Alaine in his arms, and said in Spanish, “Come on.”