Shielded Wrongs (Bellandi Crime Syndicate 4)

We'd burn it to the ground until nothing remained.

"That's the third one we grabbed this week." I chewed on my left thumbnail, thinking over the escalation and what it could mean. Either Murphy thought we'd decided his human trafficking wasn't worth the effort to dismantle, or he'd finally caught on to what we were doing.

If he was sacrificing men to us, there had to be a reason, and the only one that made sense was to serve as a distraction.

But a distraction from what?

"It's an alarming escalation," Matteo echoed my unvoiced thought. "Any word from your guys?"

"After the shooting at the new bar on Broadway, they agreed they'd be here sooner. End of next month," I told him. It wasn't soon enough, not if I was right in my hunch that the girls were just a distraction, but it would have to do.

Matteo sighed. "The same as Rafael's men from Ibiza, then?" he asked.

I nodded in agreement. We'd have others trickling in from here and there before then, but it wouldn't be enough without those two groups.

"The cloak and dagger shit kills me. I just want to kill something," Simon growled, pacing through the room. I understood the need and the desire, no matter how much I tried to push it down and bury it. It waited just beneath my skin, slithering around like something insidious and waiting to be unleashed.

I was a killer all the same, and my conscience became more and more diluted with every day that passed.

I just had to hope I would never reach the point where something pushed me over the edge and I found myself beyond redemption.

5

Sadie

No air.

There was nearly no air in my lungs. No breath in my body. I flung my eyes open, fighting through the haze to see the figure looming above me.

My bedroom was dark. Not a trickle of light shining in through my curtains.

The sound of his ragged breathing filled the silence. “Keep quiet, and I won’t need to hurt you. We’re just going for a little ride.” I couldn’t see his face, could only barely make out the size of his body above mine and the pressure of his hands on my throat.

I could take him. I’d taken bigger men down, but there was something so distinctly different about the reality of being attacked in my bed while I slept.

The realness of thumbs crossed over the front of my throat like a vice. Of the way my lungs rattled in my chest as they fought for air.

I nodded my head, playing complacent as I considered my options. As I studied the lines of his body, the placement of his limbs and his weight.

As I took stock of his weak points that I could exploit.

“Are you going to be a good girl?” he asked, the slime of his voice coating my skin in goosebumps.

I nodded again, discreetly tucking my elbows into my sides. With his hips between my legs, I didn’t want to contemplate the fact that he’d somehow snuck into my house and gotten on top of me while I slept.

All that mattered in that moment was breaking every bone in his body.

I hooked my right hand around his left forearm, giving him the widest eyes I could, and shuddered out a whimper. “Please,” I rasped.

When a smirk dragged over his mouth, I knew I had him right where I wanted him. Believing me weak. Desperate. Small and defenseless.

“What will you give me, sugar tits?” he asked, and I didn’t stop the way my face contorted into a grimace at the feel of his hot, rancid breath on my face.

Gross.

I thrust my left arm up, catching him around the right side of his neck. My left foot went to his hip, using it to pivot my body in the bed beneath him until I could kick my right leg into his armpit and hold him there with a locked knee.

I twisted my left leg over his head, wrapping his shoulder up as I crossed my legs around it. With my body contorted beneath him, I ignored his squirming attempts to push off me. Grabbing his wrist with both hands, I shoved my legs down until he rolled off me to thump onto the mattress next to me.