Page 95 of Only Fools Rush

Murder passed over Obi’s face.Damn. “Get in the car. We have to go.”

Motherfucker was going to die now. He must have told Volpe, and Volpe hired assassins to come after us. Kofler betrayed us and now he’d pay the fucking price.

People did not betray us and live.

The three of us piled back inside the G-Wagon.

“Thank fuck,” I breathed as Obi pulled away from the wreckage of this intersection. At least the behemoth still worked.

We’d have to deal with damage control later. There was a rat to find. I reloaded my guns and wiped my knives down before tucking them back away.

Obi pulled out his phone. “Ciel? We were ambushed. Wipe whatever footage there is, and then find Kofler.Now. I want his exact location. I want to know where he sleeps at night. I want to know where he shits and where he fucks. Drop everything else.” He paused for a few moments to listen to Ciel speak on the other side. “Then make arrangements with the LAPD. They need to be on our payroll immediately. Use our contacts from the governor’s office.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot we did that job,” I murmured. Leona raised an eyebrow, but I shrugged. The governor needed our help a few years ago. It was easy money, and now they owed us.

“Find Kofler. Text me coordinates.” He hung up the phone without another word. He didn’t even glance in the rearview mirror. “Time to hunt.”

28

OBI

By midnight, Ryuji and I had killed over a dozen of Kofler’s men.

He thought he could hide. He thought he could hole up and get away with betraying us. The audacity.

Breaking into his home, hunting him down, and hog-tying him like an animal was easy, even for just Ryuji and me. He had no idea we were coming, obviously believing we wouldn’t survive the ambush. Foolish. Stupid.

Leona waited in the G-Wagon while we acted, and it took less than fifteen minutes to kill all his guards, capture a few of the higher-ups hiding out with him, and then drag his squealing body to his basement.

She had joined us inside after, standing in the back of the room with her arms crossed over her chest.

Rage simmered in my veins as I studied him, currently tied to a chair and stripped naked.

We had offered the man a fair deal, and he had betrayed us. There was no doubt in my mind that Volpe knew exactly what we were doing now, and that was why those mercenaries went after us. It was more than enough reason to kill this bastard.

But then he had put Leona in danger.

Andthatdeserved pain. Long, drawn-out pain.

Sweat rolled down the man’s forehead despite the cold air of the basement and his lack of clothing.

“It was just business—” he pleaded at Leona, eyes wide.

“Do not look at her,” I hissed. His mouth snapped shut. He whimpered liked a coward.

“Kofler, Kofler, Kofler,” Ryuji said with a click of his tongue. He had re-attached his sheaths on top of his clothes so Kofler could see each of his knives. “You know, we made you a very specific promise when we warned you not to betray us. Do you remember what that was?”

The man gulped down a breath, opening his mouth to respond, but nothing came out. He practically stank of fear. My nose curled up in disgust as he looked back and forth between me and Ryu.

“I believe I promised to flay you alive,” I replied, voice hard. A quick death would be easy. This should not be easy. This should be exceedingly painful. My hands closed into fists at my side as I tried to reel in my wrath.

This was the kind of violence we needed to send a message. This was the kind of violence I specialized in.

He strained against the ropes around his arms, wiggling fruitlessly in the chair. “No, please, no. It was just business! It wasn’t personal!”

“You had more than fair warning. And you made a poor choice,” I said through clenched teeth. “This will be personal.”

From underneath my shirt, strapped to my body against my lower back, I withdrew a short, thick, and slightly curved blade.