Chapter 451: You Can Take Him Down
Use what is near you. Balance. Elbow. Knee. Hard surfaces are your friends. Vee thought remembering everything her instructor had taught her.
One of the men reached for her arm. She twisted sharply, grabbing his sleeve and using his momentum against him. He cursed, surprised by the resistance, but surprise was all she needed. She slammed him sideways against the edge of the open car door with everything she had.
The impact rang through the metal. The man dropped. Tony shouted her name again in fear and disbelief.
She turned immediately, aiming for the next one, breath ragged, cheek burning, heart pounding. An arm locked around her from behind.
A gun appeared in front of her face. Vee went still, breathing hard, every muscle in her body screaming to fight and every instinct warning her that one wrong move would end badly.
The man behind her tightened his grip. "Enough," he growled.
Vee’s eyes lifted, even with her vision still swimming. She swallowed, tasting blood.
"You make a move, you die, you bitch!" the man snarled.
The barrel of the gun pressed hard against Veronica’s neck, cold enough to bite through the heat rushing under her skin. His arm was locked around her from behind.
Veronica went still. Her cheek throbbed from the punch, one eye watering as the world came in ugly little flashes: Tony frozen at the pizza parlour door, his hands raised; her guard bleeding on the ground; the second man groaning beside the car where she had smashed him into the door frame hard enough to dent both metal and ego.
"What do you want?" she asked.
The man behind her laughed near her ear. "Hmmm....what do we want?" he mocked.
"You either want something, or you’re too just being plain stupid."
Tony made a strangled sound. "Vee, maybe don’t insult the man with the gun."
Across the street, tucked in the dim shadow of his shop window, David watched the entire scene unfold and found the performance unexpectedly entertaining. One hand rested lazily in his pocket.
He raised an impressed brow when Veronica had taken one of the men down.
Not bad.
Messy, loud but effective.
Apparently, Veronica Scalese had enemies. Bianca had not even needed to try very hard. The world seemed eager to do the work for her.
Still, Bianca’s theory about breaking Veronica was nowhere close. David’s gaze narrowed slightly. The woman intrigued him, honestly. She had no background as a mafia wife, no childhood built around blood feuds. Yet there she stood, cornered, and somehow still looking like the most dangerous person on that street.
There was something powerful in the way she held herself. The man pressed the gun harder against her neck, and Veronica’s shoulders stiffened.
David clicked his tongue softly. "Come on," he muttered under his breath. "You can take him down."
She was at the perfect angle. A shift of weight, a twist of the wrist, elbow into the ribs, chin tucked, step out and strike. Luca was a fool if he had not taught her how to disarm a man. She possessed the grace and the charisma.
"Where is Inferi?!" the man holding the gun against Veronica’s neck barked.
Veronica frowned. The street around them had gone horribly quiet. Even the usual evening noise outside the pizza parlour seemed to have pulled back. Everything narrowed to the gun digging into her skin and the man’s rough breathing at her ear. "What?" she snapped. "Inferi? I haven’t seen the fool in months."
The man tightened his grip, dragging her back against him. "You better tell me what I need to know."
"I just did."
"Did you bury him in your backyard too?"
Her lip curled. "You’re insane," Vee snarled.
"You’re going to tell me where Inferi is, or I will send your precious body to your boyfriend in pieces."
Tony looked like his soul had left his body, gone to heaven. Veronica, however, laughed. She laughed like he had told the funniest joke she had heard all week.
"You have a death wish," she said, her voice low and almost delighted. "No, honestly. That’s impressive. Most people just make bad life choices. You woke up and decided to audition for your own funeral."
The man jerked the gun harder against her. "Shut up!"
"You should know, Luca hates receiving damaged gifts. So if you’re planning to send me to him in pieces, you should at least include a note explaining why your entire bloodline suddenly became extinct."
Tony made a choking sound. "Madonna..."
Across the street, David squinted through the windows.
Did she just laugh?
His eyebrows rose slowly.
Oh, the woman was crazy.
Maybe even as crazy as Luca.
David felt admiration tug at his chest.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
The men had clearly expected tears, begging, maybe a pretty little mafia wife trembling for her prince. Instead, they had found a woman with rage in her bones and absolutely no survival instinct when it came to her mouth.
"Get her in the car," the leader growled.
Veronica fought the moment they moved her, twisting hard enough to make one of them curse. A palm shoved into her shoulder, another hand grabbed her hair, and the gun stayed close enough to keep her from doing anything stupidly heroic. Still, she made them work for every step.
They shoved her into the backseat of her own car. David sighed. The fun seemed to be over. He watched as Tony rushed back inside, probably to call the boss.
How was Luca supposed to know where they were taking her? David stood in the silence of his shop, watching the street settle after the violence like nothing had happened.
He wondered what Luca would do to those men. The idiots who had taken Veronica had not merely offended him; they had stepped on the tail of the tiger and they had no idea what was coming. David smiled thinking about the blood, the chaos. He wished he could be there to watch he could almost taste the blood.
They wouldn’t get the chance to learn if it was him, they’d be dead at the drop of a hat.
(Brought to you by Mar King 1/3)
