Maid for the Mafia

**TINY**

We've been geared up and ready to breach Santos' mansion from the moment we got to this place. Camped out in the trees on the hillside, half a mile from the estate, my mind circles.

A notification lights up my phone and after I read it I almost want to crush the thing in my hand.

The cold hand of death creeps up my back like an old friend, the feeling much like the one I felt when my sister died.

"Damien," I coo softly, my eyes darting to where he sits on a boulder watching Santos' place through a pair of twenty thousand dollar night goggles.noveldrama

He climbs down from the rock before answering me, "What is it?"

"We need to leave."

Damien rears back, ripping the goggles from his face without responding and whipping his phone out of his back pocket. I know the moment he reads the text because it is likely exactly the same one as mine and without another word the pair of us gather our gear and begin the two mile hike back to the spot we parked our motorcycles.

"This mission has been a big fucking waste of time," Damien growls, shaking his head. "I should have known Ruby wasn't here the moment we saw that guard fucking that maid in Santos' bathroom."

"Right. They're too relaxed. Like they're on vacation or some shit," I agree, breaking into a jog at the same time he does. "Mickey says we should head back to the Urgent Care and check this 'nurse's' story as fast as the bikes will carry us. But...”

Damien gazes over at me, his face bobbing up and down in the darkness as we pick up our speed and begin to stomp through these woods almost angrily. "But what?"

I shake my head, a sudden niggling in my brain pushing me to move faster. "I don't know. I can't help but feel like she's a distraction. Like she's a decoy."

"You don't think she's really there?" Damien mumbles, as we both maneuver over a particularly steep ledge.

"I didn't say that. I'm pretty sure that she *is there*. It's the *why* she is there that's bothering me. It doesn't make sense that Ruby would be returned alive unless there was something in it for him and I have to wonder what that something might be."

"Keep talking," Damien rasps as we close in on the final half mile.

"Something is different. Something feels off. But either way, I don't think Urgent Care is where we should be heading."

"Where then?" Damien asks as our steps begin to slow and we use the next few hundred feet to catch our collective breaths.

"We're too far away from the house to be there in time to make a difference but..." I trail off as we reach the bikes and the pair of us begin to roll them toward the dirt path that leads to the highway. "We can make it to the airport in three hours."

"The airport??" Damien snorts. "Why in the fuck would we head there?"

I glance at him as we hedge the end of the path and I don my helmet. "Because I have

a feeling we are going to want to know exactly what flights went out tonight and exactly where they were headed."

**ALEX**

An alert buzzes across my phone when we are still an hour from my home and when I read it my entire body goes cold.

"Goddamn it!" I snap, hitting the intercom button and ignoring my cousin when he shouts at me-

"What's wrong? What is it?"

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"Vincenzo?" I snarl into the mic.

"Sir?"

"What part of 'step on it' do you not understand? Do I need to take your place behind that wheel? Because if I do, you will lose your pathetic excuse for a foot and will have quite the time walking home without it."

The engine revs immediately and I begin to tap my feet anxiously. My heart begins to pump erratically and I'm forced to take a few deep breaths to school my control. "Alex," Mickey growls. "What is - wrong?"

I close my eyes laughing like a maniac before I answer. "The security system just shut down."

"WHAT?" He roars.

My gaze shifts over to watch him as he whips out his phone to make a phone call. I don't tell him what I already know. That it's too late. She's gone. I can feel it. I can *feel* that we are not going to make it in time.

Mickey holds the phone to his ear for a mere ten seconds before his entire face turns red with fury and he hisses, "It went straight to voicemail."

"Romany?"

"Yes."

"Calm yourself," I tell him, knowing it will only infuriate him further but not giving a damn.

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His eyes blaze when he looks at me. "Do not tell me what the fuck to do! I'll be calm when I have Santos' head on the end of a goddamned stick and not a moment sooner. Call your fucking men!"

My jaw clenches, the grind of my teeth the only thing keeping me in my seat. Suddenly I am overcome with the urge to slap the shit out of my cousin, so fist my hands at my sides and remind myself that we are stronger together than apart and we will need to

be thinking clearly in order to retrieve my angel from whatever hell Santos is taking her

to.

"Call your men!" He hisses again.

"What for?" I snap. "Who do you think shut the goddamn thing down? They are no longer *my men!"*

Mickey shakes his head, then snarls at the roof of the car, "FUCK!"

Again, my jaw tics. The horrendous truth of the situation attempting to chew past my resolve has me spiraling toward a cavern of hate. Every single man in my house... I'm done with them. I'm going to need a bullet for every single one.

"There are thirty men on the property right now," I say as calmly as I'm able. "I have fifteen shots in my right hand, nine in my spare. You?"

Mickey tilts his head back, eyeing me warily. "Same."

"Good," I tell him. "We are not going to call. They expect me too, so we won't. Let those fucking traitors shake in their boots for the last forty-five minutes that they have left on this earth. Because when we arrive, I won't be asking questions. I won't be awaiting answers. Each and every one of them has just been fired."

"Are you sure?" Mickey whispers and I almost can't believe he's asking.

"Don't miss," is all I say.