Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 127201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
He must have gotten closer to the impromptu torture chamber, which was a blessing, but having to listen to Miguel’s suffering in more detail made thinking straight near impossible.
“I do know there is still something you care about,” Ramiro said. He must have stopped the torment, because Miguel’s wheezing breaths echoed somewhere in the bowels of the building. “I could free your sister, let her go home with you, and never bother the two of you again. You must have heard that when I give a promise, I always keep it. All I want in return is Moreno. I’ll extract what I need from him myself.”
Nero never stopped moving, but he’d be lying if he claimed that he didn’t hold his breath waiting for Miguel’s answer. While it was obvious now that Miguel had come here for personal revenge, even the few words he’d left to Nero had mentioned his lost sibling.
Nero listened on with his heart in his throat, but his senses were on high alert and he still spotted the tip of a shoe peeking out from behind the wall ahead. His next target.
“You’re not getting him. Why would I care for a girl I barely remember?” Miguel’s voice trembled. Fuck only knew what was going on in that torture chamber.
“You sure? You don’t want to take her home, to safety? For someone like Nero Moreno? You can’t be serious,” Ramiro said, prompting Nero to move despite him desperately wanting to know every nuance of Miguel’s answer. He rose, grabbed the next man, and shoved the knife in his temple. It was an instant kill.
By his count, he still had two to go apart from Ramiro, but there might have been a man inside the building before they arrived, so he couldn’t be certain. When Nero heard Miguel next, his feet grew into the floor when he realized how close he was. Wary of making a sound that might alert Ramiro or the other Caiman, he moved toward the voices.
“I am dead serious, I’m not giving him up, and you don’t need to understand it. No one needs to,” Miguel couldn’t have sounded more solid.
A prolonged silence followed, but when Ramiro spoke next, his voice was dull. He must have understood Miguel would not cave. “Suit yourself.”
Another person let out a gasp, but as Nero snuck into a broader corridor and faced a large door at its end, Miguel’s scream tore through the air and ripped into his flesh. He could see unsettling, shaky movement, through the gap between the two wings of the entrance as the scream turned into loud, pained wheezing, only to stop altogether, just like Nero’s heart.
His blood was ice.
Chapter 28
Nero
He shouldn’t have waited. He should have fucked safety and gone straight for this fucking room. The plan he’d considered solid had failed, and if Miguel was still breathing, Nero would make sure to never play it safe again.
Dropping the bloodstained knife, Nero pulled out his gun, grabbed the assault rifle while it still hung across his body, and stormed into a room with green walls and tall windows. Under a massive lamp reminiscent of a fly’s eye, Miguel was strapped to a medical chair with blood staining the front of his T-shirt and gauze filling his mouth so much its red threads peeked from between his lips.
Miguel’s ashen skin shone with sweat, but his head lolled to the side as blood dripped to the floor from his mutilated arm where a long strip of skin was peeled back to reveal the meat underneath.
Nero was too late.
The shock of it made his reflexes that much slower as he took in the blood-soaked scene in front of him.
A familiar figure in a white suit and hair that wasn’t much darker raised his hands at the sight of the rifle in Nero’s hands, but Ramiro made the one step needed to reach Miguel. He put a large knife to his throat, lifting his head in the process.
Nero’s brain glitched. Ramiro wouldn’t have done this to a dead body, which meant that Miguel still breathed.
“Don’t take another step,” Ramiro warned, pressing the blade to the neck, which was slick with blood dripping from Miguel’s mouth.
Doctor Zapata, the man who’d administered a hangover cocktail to Miguel and Nero on the day of Father’s death, hid behind his new master, hunching forward to make himself smaller. His beady eyes were pinned to the floor, and he shook so violently Nero suspected he might be about to piss his flawlessly ironed slacks.
The damn traitor.
“Mr. Moreno, they only need informat—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Nero snapped, breathing ever harder when spicy vapor filled his lungs, as if he were about to transform into a dragon and burn any bastard who laid a finger on Miguel.
He opened his mouth to speak on when the back of his neck tingled, and his ears picked up the slightest noise from beyond the door. He was turning when the heavy wood hit his side, sending him to the floor just as a Caiman burst in with a gun in hand.