Page 89 of Empire of Carnage

And if she was, then I guess I deserved to die for being stupid enough to trust her.

“Ronan,” she chirped, her eyes lighting up, making me turn around to see him with a purpling eye and his wrists bound tightly.

The gun pressed to the back of his head was held by a bald man. I could only assume he was working for the Russians. There was one more Bratva on his other side, because clearly it would take two men to outmatch Ronan Zerkos. His green eyes were raging with anger, and just as he opened his mouth to speak the Bratva grunt bashed the butt of his gun to the back of Ronan’s head. He dropped down to the ground unconscious with a hard thud.

I screamed, but before I could run to him Carolina had a gun cocked and the sound of the safety coming off forced a chill up my spine.

“Tie her up, Adrik.” She nudged her chin at me and the same grunt who’d knocked Ronan out pulled my arms in front of me with little to no effort despite my best attempt to fight against him.

He pulled a zip tie from his pocket, closing it around my wrists too tight before walking over to Ronan and doing the same to him.

“You’re going to sit right here hermanita. We’re going to play a little game,” she said, using her gun to gesture to the Victorian style red, velvet couch with two matching chairs across from it.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I sat down, doing my best to hide the creeping panic that came with the thought of how many men might be hiding in my home right at this moment.

“You said you didn’t have to choose between them. Let’s up the stakes shall we?”

Mateo and Santos came in next, both looking worse for wear than Ronan had, not a shocker considering their size compared to his. Three grunts surrounded them, all with guns pointed at their backs as they pushed them further into the room. That’s when I realized one thing was not like the others.

Among her ‘soldiers’ was Fernando Garcia.

Traitor to the Flores Cártel.

Mateo’s eyes registered Ronan before looking my way, the worry etched deeply into his expression.

“Celia.” Santos rushed to me, but a shot rang out, the bullet hitting a framed piece of art causing the glass to shatter and spray onto the floor.

I screamed, trying to get up once more but Carolina pressed the gun harder against my temple.

“Everyone sit,” Carolina commanded, eyeing Santos with a hateful stare. “Away fromher,” she clarified.

They both took a seat on opposite chairs from me, Ronan was still on the ground knocked out next to us.

“Wake him up.” She gestured to her Bratva lackeys.

Which begged the question, where were her cártel men?

Loyalty must have been hard to buy these days. I didn’t need to blackmail for it, I had earned it.

“Where are your men?” I asked with a smirk.

“Thesearemy men,” she gritted out.

I laughed, forcing her upper lip to curl up.

“Fine, then where are Ignacio’s men?” I clarified.

“Dead.”

I didn’t press any further.

I didn’t need to.

They were dead because she killed them. Because they refused to bow to her and her deranged plans of washing away everything the cártel was by merging it with Bratva bullshit. We didn’t deal in the sale of flesh, and we never would. There were many fucked up things I was willing to be blind to for the sake of money and power.

Human trafficking was not one of those things.

They slapped Ronan’s face a few times until he finally woke up, roaring, and readying himself for a fight before the gun in front of his face reminded him of our situation. We were outmatched, and worse yet we were outgunned.