“I thought you already knew who sent him,” Geno said, as the man turned and began firing at them.
They took cover behind a car and Geno returned fire until the driver’s gun was empty, and he ran in the building. Geno came out from behind the car and went in after him. When he stepped inside, Geno pressed his back against the wall and looked around the room before moving out.
Just then, the driver seemed to come out of nowhere, rushed at Geno and he dropped his gun. They wrestled for a while and then Geno hit him with blow after blow until the driver went down. Geno pulled him up and rammed him face first into the wall.
“Who sent you?” Geno shouted, and slammed the driver’s face into the wall over and over again.
“Who sent you?” he shouted again and hit him several times in the face.
As his body slumped to the floor, Geno looked around and saw where his gun was. He kicked the man in the face and went to pick it up. He grabbed the man by the shirt collar and pulled him to his feet. Geno put the barrel of his gun in the man’s eye just as Valencia came through the door.
“Who sent you?”
“Fuck you,” he said, and spit blood in Geno’s face.
He pulled the trigger and blew a hole out the back of his head. With her eyes opened wide, Valencia watched her protector stand over the man and shoot him twice more in the chest. He walked quickly to Valencia and took her by the hand.
“Come on. We gotta go.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Geno opened the door and stepped outside. He took a quick look around before he and Valencia rushed to his car, got in and drove away from the scene.
Valencia reached in her purse and took out some tissue. Her hands shook a bit as she wiped the blood from Geno’s face. He looked at her soft features and he could tell that she was bothered by what she had just witnessed.
“I hate that you had to see that.”
Valencia didn’t say anything. She had never been around anything like this, seen anybody die before her eyes, never seen so much blood.
“Did he say who sent him?
“No,” he said softly, and Valencia looked away.
They had driven in silence for a while with Valencia wondering what she was going to do and Geno wondering what he was going to do with her. Somebody had just raised the stakes. This wasn’t just somebody poisoning her food, somebody had taken a shot at her and if he weren’t there, she’d be dead now.
It was then that Valencia noticed that they weren’t heading for her house.
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t think that it safe for you to go home.” He turned toward her. “At least not tonight.”
“So where are you taking me?”
“Someplace where you’ll be safe.”
“Where is that?”
“I’m taking you to a hotel.”
“Okay.”
“And then I’m gonna call some friends of mine to watch out for you.”
“Okay.”
“I know that you said that you wanted to be alone tonight, but I’m going to stay with you to make sure you’re safe.”
“You’ll get no argument from me,” Valencia said, and settled into her seat. She was glad that he wanted to stay because after being shot at, she had no intention of leaving his side until this was over.