“Rinaldo!” I both yelled and whispered all at the same time, which had the desired effect, even if the action was an oxymoron.
Rinaldo turned quickly, and the gun in his hand pointed in my direction.
“Don’t shoot!” I called out in that same voice. “You gotta listen to me. You gotta get out of here.”
“Arden, you son of a bitch,” Rinaldo growled.
“I’ll save a lot of money just killing you myself!”
I raised the Barrett up to my shoulder.
“You have to listen to me!”
“You weren’t interested in talking, Arden,” Rinaldo said. “And I am now no longer interested in listening.”
He leveled the gun at me, and I had no idea what I should do. I couldn’t shoot him with the Barrett from this distance without making a huge mess. If I had the Beretta instead, I might have at least tried to shoot his gun out of his hand.
I was out of options.
“The feds are on their way!” I finally said. “They wanted you, and I couldn’t let them do that, so I gave them Greco! They’ve got me for Ashton’s murder, and it was the only way to keep you out of it!”
“You working with feds?” Rinaldo hissed. “You hate the fucking government.”
“They have my DNA from Ashton’s body,” I told him. “There wasn’t any getting out of that one. They were going to use it against me and against Lia. He wanted me to turn over enough information to take you out, but I wouldn’t do that, sir. I couldn’t. We made a deal to bring Greco down, and that’s exactly what’s about to happen here.”
Rinaldo’s eyes scanned my face for a moment, and he dropped his gun slightly.
“They threatened your girl, this Lia Antonio, and you still wouldn’t turn me over?”
“No, sir. I couldn’t do that.”
Rinaldo’s hand went up to the top of his head and ran over the length of his receding hairline. He looked at me intently, lowered his gun completely, and let out a huge sigh.
“Why didn’t you fucking tell me?”
“I couldn’t,” I said as I lowered my weapon and walked to him cautiously. “If Greco had any suspicions about my loyalty, it wouldn’t have worked. It had to look like you were after me, too. It was the only way I could protect you.”
“But now you tell me?”
“That’s why I came over here,” I explained. “The feds are coming to pick him up right now. You have to get out of the area before they show up. You aren’t supposed to be here at all.”
Rinaldo nodded.
“They have my caviar in there,” Rinaldo said as he nodded toward the truck. “They are stealing from me again. I can’t let Greco continue to make me out as the fool. I could give up the shipment to see him picked up with it, though.”
“Caviar?” I questioned. “There’s no caviar—just human cargo.”
“I have it on good authority,” Rinaldo said. “My caviar is in the back of that truck.”
“Who told you that?”
“A man who has been working with us since I lost you,” Rinaldo said, and then his eyes widened. “Shit, Evan—he’s going after your woman right now.”
He might as well have punched me in the gut.
“What?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“Double-crossing little shit!” Gavino Greco marched around the corner with Craig, Andrey, Jenna, and Jenna’s goons. “Rurik warned me not to trust you, and I should have listened!”