His Juliet: An Age Gap Hurt Comfort Mafia Romance (Empire of Royals Book 2)

“On my signal. Three, two, one, go.”

Matteo’s voice reached me through my earpiece and I slipped through the balcony window. I grinned at the silence. Franco had been successful in turning off the alarm system.

It had taken too many days, but we finally found the apartment building housing the Albanians. Once the rest of Ivanov’s men arrived, we had enough to enter every single apartment in pairs to take them out simultaneously.

We were ending this.

Enzo covered my back as I headed further into the penthouse apartment. My fingers curled around my gun. I had a bullet with the Butcher’s name on it.

It was two in the morning and the apartment was dark. I crept down the hallway, recognizing the layout from the blueprints I’d studied. I stopped in front of the bedroom door. At Enzo’s nod, I kicked it open and was greeted by a gyrating wrinkled ass. I couldn’t see the face of the man it belonged to, but I certainly heard his constipated groans as he thrust into a woman, both leaning over the bed.

Fuck, now I needed to burn my eyeballs.

We couldn’t risk hurting the woman, so Enzo and I moved forward together and pulled him off her. My heart sank as I immediately recognized the fucker as one of the Butcher’s top generals, but not the man himself. Still, he needed to die. He didn’t have a moment to process what was happening before I put a bullet in his head.

The bastard landed with a thud on the floor. Blood pooled underneath him.

Enzo jerked his chin at the woman still lying on the bed. She was still and silent, even after the commotion and gunshot. A sick feeling rose in my stomach. I stepped forward while Enzo photographed the general’s prone corpse.

Terrified eyes met me as I crouched down. “Hi, there.” I kept my voice as gentle as possible, even as rage threatened to burst from me. She didn’t even look eighteen. “I know you have no reason to trust us, but if you come with us, we’ll take you somewhere safe.” Her pupils were dilated, eyes glassy, as she blinked at me. I spoke to her more, trying to get a response, but her eyes fluttered shut.

“Shit. She’s been drugged with something.” I kept my finger on her pulse to make sure it was steady. We’d bring her with us and get her to one of the safe houses where Aria could take care of her. I wished I had more time to devote to making sure she was okay, but I needed to get a status report from my soldiers and we needed to get the fuck out of here.

One by one, their reports came in through my bluetooth. There were thirty-five apartments, twenty-seven dead Albanians, nine trafficked girls, and no sign of the Butcher.noveldrama

“They’re posted.” Franco sat back in his computer chair, a rare smile on his face.

I peered over his shoulder with a matching smirk. Franco had posted our pictures of every Albanian corpse on the dark web forum used by assassins. The world now understood what happened to those who took out hits against us.

This had been a victory—we’d eliminated the bulk of the Albanian soldiers in our city without sustaining any losses. But the absence of the Butcher built my frustration until it was a burning, visceral thing.