Smoke (The Carelli Family Saga #1) - Eden Butler Page 0,62

you here…I…I got you here.” But he didn’t look at me when he said that. In fact, he didn’t look at either of us. He moved back, his limbs shaking like the onslaught of a fit was beginning and he tried to play it off. “I want the gringo gone so you…you can…”

“She’s not staying here,” Dimitri said, pulling me back. Alejandro opened his mouth, his anger seeming to ease some of the shaking as he glared at Dimitri again, but he wasn’t scared or impressed by my ex’s attitude. Dimitri was in front of me, tilting his head, and he crossed his arms, looking relaxed, but still guarded. “Maggie’s right. This is shit. The whole situation. You show up after a year ready to get your family back now? Why?”

“I don’t owe you…shit. I’m not explaining anything to you.” His laugh was humorless, bitter but to my ears it just sounded sad.

“But you owe me.”

“Exactly,” Dimitri said, ignoring Alejandro when he waved the gun at him. “Your fucking arms are so skinny it’s amazing you can lift that thing.” Teflon calm, he continued. “You get us here, stalk her, spy on me and mine, hack my data and here you are looking like a crackhead. There’s no way you pulled all this shit on your own.” He glanced at me, shrugging. “No matter how smart or talented you say he is, this isn’t the guy. No way is this the guy you told me about.”

“He’s…different,” I explained, not bothering to worry over Alejandro’s grunting protests or how he moved closer. “All I care about is getting my son back.”

“You’ll get him, baby, don’t worry,” Dimitri said, dropping his hands to his sides. “Just as soon as this asshole tells me who the hell has been helping him and why.”

“Nobody. I…I don’t need anybody...” He spoke with a bravado he couldn’t back up.

Alejandro was stubborn. Always had been and he forced Dimitri’s hand, charging forward, the gun lifted.

His reaction was instinctive. He blocked the hand and the gun, knocking it to the floor and clocking Alejandro in a move that was so quick I wasn’t sure I’d seen it right.

“Fuck!” my ex screamed, stumbling back until he landed on the floor. “You mother fuck…”

“I wouldn’t say that if I was you,” I warned him.

Dimitri kicked the gun out of Alejandro’s reach, kneeling in front of him as the skinny man lay on the floor, covering his bloody nose with the hem of his shirt.

“Bella…” he said, motioning toward the gun.

I picked it up, hating the weight of it, uncomfortable with how it felt in my hand, but Dimitri nodded, telling me in one gesture I’d be okay. He grabbed it from me, pulling back the slide to check to see if there was a bullet in the chamber before he turned it around and offered it to me. “Point this at him. If he gets twitchy, fucking shoot that asshole.”

I moved into Dimitri’s spot, standing with the gun between my hands, pointing it right at Alejandro’s chest. He looked so tiny and weak. I wouldn’t let any pity I felt for him make me lower that gun. This bastard beat up Vi and he took my baby. I didn’t care what he’d done to himself or what happened to him after this night.

“Maggie,” he tried, his voice craggy and broken. “Please don’t let him…”

“Shut up, hijo de las mil putas!” He jerked at the insult, lying flat on his back, one hand covering his face.

“She said you were a bitch.”

“Who said?” I asked, knowing he was trying to bait me, so I curled my grip on the gun.

“That waitress…the blonde. Paris.”

The laugh when it came shot from my throat without me realizing it. I clicked my tongue, my face heating just at the mention of her name. Toni had told me that Dimitri had turned her down. Then, Mrs. C. fired her for being so obvious around him and for being a nosey bully about me. But this? This was news. Unsurprising but still news to me.

“Paris helped you?”

“Reynolds…saw a picture of you at that restaurant. With the owners and a baby he said looked just like me. I’m not a stupid man. No matter what you think of me. I’ve been looking for you since you left me. When he asked the waitress about the girl in the picture, she called you the owner’s favorite bitch. Said you’d showed up a few months before with your baby begging for