Page 39 of Heartfelt Pain (Ruling Love #3)

Ren

A be, as expected, is the first to get annoyed.

“You can’t be serious?” he asks, being absolutely rubbish at helping me move a long table into the center of the empty warehouse. Isolde uses her hip to help me push the thing.

“What?” I ask, tripping on my heel as I get the desk positioned. Trevino and Ben add chairs.

“What?” Abe’s voice echoes in the airy warehouse. “What is this? Are we about to host an audition to be the next greatest pop star?”

Isolde plops into a seat, crossing an ankle over her knee. She pulls a joint out.

I wave at her to put it away. Slightly put out, she stuffs it back in her hoodie pocket. If Abe continues on, I might have her break it out again.

“It’s a good old fashioned meet and greet,” I explain. “A little mingle, some networking you know.”

“No, I don’t know.” Abe glares at Ben when he sits down in the chair next to me. “All these people made you an offer to buy the business. You’re seriously going to line them up and do an interview. These are high powered people.”

“Are they here yet?” I ask Trevino. He’s looking good in a suit, the tailored jacket highlighting his broad shoulders. Isolde didn’t say it, but I know she’s thinking the same thing.

“Mr. Chin is pulling up. Some Stuart twat is here too, and the guy with the weird looking mustache.”

“Weird looking mustache?” Abe is momentarily pulled away from his original complaint as he turns toward a window.

“Come sit down.” I wave him over.

“I understand interviews,” Abe says. “But this is a bit weird. And you don’t like taking interviews outside of Fujimori’s.”

“I don’t want potential owners trotting in and out of the place.” I pull a cigarette out. “Acting like they already own the place.”

“If I can’t smoke, you can’t smoke,” Isolde chides.

“I need you sharp, not high.” I click Aunt Macy’s silver lighter. Trevino snatches the cigarette in my hand before I can take an inhale.

I’m so fucking ready to lose the bodyguard.

“Why am I here, if you don’t want Fujimori’s involved?” Abe asks.

“You invited yourself along,” I remind. He pouted, just like he had before we agreed he could come find my ex-boyfriend’s dead body. “But at least you’ll get an opportunity to get a feel for the potential new owner. Pick up on the vibe.”

He’s muttering something under his breath when he lowers into a seat next to his boyfriend.

“So like—”Isolde drags her words out—“when they gonna actually come into the building?”

I shush her, not having to answer when the first outline of a human being appears in the doorway .

“Hi!” I greet. Isolde nods at Mr. Chin.

He’s got a lot of experience like Aunt Macy and is looking to expand. I personally don’t think he’ll be able to manage such different territories, but he’s very friendly in all his correspondence.

The first bullet whizzes by Abe’s ear.

Trevino flips the table and we all hit the ground. Isolde’s already got a gun in her hand and Ben tries to peek up. Abe, understandably, might’ve pissed his pants.

“That started way earlier than I thought,” I say.

Ben’s jaw sets. “You thought there’d be shooting?”

Trevino and Isolde are watchful, but make no move to return fire. If all goes to plan, we won’t be the targets anyway.

There’s a smattering of Chinese and Italian and then one guy is yelling “Take that you motherfucking cock sucker!”

Flame erupts and I grimace. Full disclosure—I wasn’t expecting the Molotov cocktails.

“That could be a problem,” I mutter.

Ben is all but seething as he takes cover behind the flipped table. “Why the fuck are they shooting?”

I try to peek up. Trevino grabs me by the collar, forcing me to stay down.

“The Italians hate Mr. Chin.”

“What?” Ben places a hand around Abe, who’s curling in on himself.

“They’ve always hated him,” I explain. “Even way back in the 80s.”

“He’s from Shanghai.”

“Yeah, but he and Aunt Macy had this whole thing. Eventually she won the territory and you know the rest.” I wave my hand lazily.

There’s renewed gunfire.

“You knew the Italians were going to make a move,” Ben hisses.

I try again to see what’s happening. Trevino pulls me back.

“That’s the Irish,” he says. “We got to move.”

“Move?” Abe shouts, hands over his ears.

“And who the fuck do the Irish want to kill?” Ben asks. He’s an angry type of calm meaning he’s handling the environment very well.

“The Stuart’s,” I, Trevino, and Isolde answer as one.

Ben sighs. A grumbly, annoyed huff of breath. Then he digs out a gun from his waistband. “If Russo brought Molotov cocktails there’s no telling what the Irish brought.”

He’s not wrong about that.

Trevino and Isolde, the best of our gunmen, share a calculated look. His jaw clenches like he doesn’t like whatever Isolde’s silently relayed but he nods. Isolde scoots forward, standing in a swift move. Trevino snatches me up, running while she provides cover.

“You let my best friend provide cover,” I yell as I’m pulled around. I pray Ben and Abe are following.

“I’m not the one who came up with this stupid idea!” he growls back.

We make it behind a thick pillar.

“I’m going to fucking kill you,” Abe repeats over and over.

I pat his shoulder.

Ben pants. “Isolde!”

Her back hits the cement pillar. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Do we have a way out of this?” Ben asks.

“Honestly, I think we’ll be fine,” I tell him.

I don’t have time to properly note Ben’s exasperation when a bullet skids off the pillar.

“Who are they trying to kill?” Ben asks

“Oh, wow,” I say. Paublino who runs one of the biggest street gangs rocks in with a group of his best soldiers. “That’s really nice. I didn’t think they’d show. ”

“What do they want?” Abe asks. Ben is basically holding him up at this point.

Paublino aims at one of the Stuarts. The British elite weren’t stupid. They brought an army with them, but this is turning out to be more than a skirmish.

“We got to move,” Trevino shouts when there’s an excessive spray of gunfire.

This time Trevino takes the lead, Ben and Abe at my back.

You should always look forward in these types of situations. It’s never good, to waste time looking over your shoulder. But my head turns, an electric sense of warning tingling down my spine. My neck cranes, spotting Isolde spinning on her heel. She wouldn’t go down unless she’d been hit.

Her back presses to the ground and everything I’m fearing is reflected on Abe’s face as he yells.

A man steps up, gun pointed at Isolde. “This is from Cade.”

He’s dead before he can shoot Isolde.

Trevino’s heat is at my side, smoke curling from his gun.

Isolde leans back on her elbows. Her shirt is torn apart at the side.

I drop to the ground. “Are you hit?”

“Nah, it’s fine.” She stops my hand from touching her.

“Isolde!”

“It’s fine.”

In all the years I’ve looked into her brilliant blue eyes I’ve never once spotted fury. Now it blazes despite her rather mellow posture considering we’re in the storm of a gun battle.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Roma yells. He grabs my waist pulling me up. My hands clasp to his arm.

“This is how you fucking operate?” Dimitri asks Trevino. The Russians fan out, taking orders from their boss in Russian. I notice Russo step closer to Boris, an alliance of some sort. Which only grows when Donovan from the Irish fraction shows up.

“A shoot out? You organized a fucking shoot out,” my boyfriend says.

Oh, it’s angry Roman. He rarely lets his beast out, but rage crackles. Max is right behind him, blank as ever while he covers his brother's back.

Trevino hauls Isolde up, the Brit hissing as the movement aggravates her wound.

“What was the plan?” Roma asks, moving through the room.

“What do you mean?” I bat my eyelashes, my shoulders jumping at a loud blast.

“The building’s on fire, hellcat.”

“Should we be worried about smoke inhalation?” Abe gulps.

Ben tightens his hold on him. His gaze may as well be a bullet. He’ll never forgive me for scaring his boyfriend this badly.

“Somebody stop Boris from taking out Cain,” Isolde yells from the back.

I didn’t think Lev was one to take orders but he appears by his best friend's side, keeping a watchful eye over the situation. It’s almost comical how Boris side-eyes him, annoyed.

By the time we make it outside it’s over. The dust settles.

The Stuarts are shot up. Mr. Chin is dead. I don’t spot the weird mustache man so I assume he managed to slip away. And there’s a huddle happening between the different syndicate heads.

“Can I have my cigarettes back now?” I ask, pacing back and forth on the dock.

“No!” the group tells me.

After another few minutes, Dimitri comes out. “We did not like the prospects of the Stuarts coming over here and doing business.”

I pick lint off my blazer.

“And unfortunately Russo made good on his threat back in the 80s to off Mr. Chin if he ever showed back up here.”

“Then why did he try to come here in the first place?” Abe asks, genuinely confused.

Because he still wanted to piss on Aunt Macy's grave due to events almost forty years ago. And he may or may not have thought Russo had softened in his old age.

Paublino and his men sweep out of the building heading back to their cars.

“The city has spoken,” Dima says. “We like working with you.”

I hum under my breath. “I mean sometimes this place is okay.”

Roma crosses his arm. He’s stayed two inches away from me this whole time.

“Boris is getting a bit too close again,” I nod over Dimitri’s shoulder. Cursing under his breath he marches toward the man, who’s making no moves to hide his dislike of Cain Murray.

“So all of this?” Abe asks. “It was all a set up?”

I pull my blazer closed, crossing my arms. “Did you fucks actually think I’d sell the business I fought, blood sweat, and tears for?”

Based on the way they hang their heads, it’s a yes.

With a huff, I turn on my heel.

Trevino is already crouched near the man he shot. The one who came on Cade’s behalf, whoever that is. It’s a young guy, blue eyes still wide open. They’ll forever be empty now.

“You made a good shot,” I murmur.