the PaLargio in my Camaro. They’d be on me like white on rice, is what I told him.”
“You’re saying you have one of his SUVs?” Reno asked.
“Yes. And his guards saw me leave in it.”
“Smart move,” said Reno. “Unless your ass playing us for fools. Which, if that’s the case, would make you the fool.”
“The biggest ever created,” said Sal.
“Bigger than that,” said Dommi.
“Every word I’m saying to you is the truth,” said Von. Then he looked at Sophia. “Ask Sophie. She knows me.”
They all looked at Sophia. Was she ready to leap right back into it with him after he admitted to her face what he did to her? Was she that weak for him already, they all wondered?
“After what happened, no,” she said. “I can’t just hear you and believe you,” Sophia said to Von. “You’ve got to show me now. You’ve got to help my family get my baby brother back. Then they can ask me. Then maybe you’ll become again the man I thought you were.”
Reno and Trina both exhaled. The entire family did. They didn’t raise a fool.
“Big Daddy and Tommy,” Reno said, “I need you and Dom to stay here with the family in case this guy is full of shit and setting us up. Because like Lexie said, he’s going to have to definitely show my ass too. Mick,” Reno added, “me, you, and Sal will go with Giovanni.”
“I already knew I was going,” said Mick. “I don’t know about anybody else.”
They all would have smiled because that was so like Mick to say such an arrogant thing, but there was no time for smiles. Already suited up and armed through the teeth, they began heading out. But Von kept turning around as they led him out, taking peeps at Sophia.
But Sophia wasn’t peeping. She was outright staring at him. And her facial expression was clear: fuck it up, and he didn’t stand a chance with her. Never again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
So far, so good, Reno thought, as Von drove his father’s Dodge Durango up to the security gate at the Dorsey family home. Two guards, just as Von had said, were on the gate, and they didn’t hesitate opening it for him and letting him pass through. Reno, Sal, and Mick were seated on the third row of the SUV, and their men had triple-tinted the tint that was already on the back end of the SUV to prevent those guards from seeing them back there – even by accident.
And it seemed to have worked. Von was keeping his cool as the SUV drove through the gates. But all three men looked back as Von drove through that gate, just to gauge the facial expressions of the guards. Were they suspicious, or was it as it appeared to be on the surface?
It wasn’t anything like it appeared to be. Because as soon as those gates were closing them in, the guards moved inside the gate, aimed the assault rifles they carried, and was just about to fire.
“Get down!” Mick yelled from the top of his lungs and all three hit the deck as the bullets scattered the back glass and ripped through that SUV. Even Von was taken off guard. He had to swerve to avoid getting hit himself because the bullets were coming fast and furious. The guards were running toward the SUV as they were firing on it.
But if they thought they had compliant targets, they were wrong.
Mick, Sal, and Reno had their weapons already drawn, too, and they began firing back. And unlike those guards, they weren’t shooting in the dark hoping to hit a target. They didn’t waste bullets like that. Mick fired once, hitting one guard in the forehead, and Sal and Reno took out the second guard with minimum shots too.
And then Reno put a gun to Von’s head. “Your ass set us up?” he yelled. “Your ass set us up?!”
“No!” Von yelled. “They were trying to kill me too!”
“Reno,” said Sal, looking straight ahead.
“Your ass set us up?” Reno asked Von again.
“I didn’t!” Von yelled. “I didn’t see that shit coming either!”
“Reno, look!” Sal yelled, and Reno and Von finally looked up, too, where Sal was looking. And Reno’s heart dropped. “Jesus,” he said. Because when he looked he saw them: an army of men, at least forty strong, with assault rifles aimed straight for that SUV again. It was one thing to take two guards out. It was another story altogether to take out forty!
“How are