Page 102 of Capuleto

She pulled me down by my neck to envelop me in lips and tongue.

Someone should have warned me before I fell into her trap that what expelled man from paradise was not a serpent, or an apple, but the betrayal of the woman you love.

Before Adriano came home from school, we had time for a complete demonstration and a shower. We had a family lunch, and in the afternoon Andrey came to visit Nikita. I left them alone at home and went to the hospital to see my men. In the rush, I didn’t realize that I had left my mobile phone at home. I wanted to spend some quality time with them, and seeing that it was getting late, I borrowed one of the boys' phones and called my wife from it, telling her to have Adri have dinner and go to bed, that I would arrive as soon as I could.

Nikita reminded me that Andrea had invited us to dinner, I had completely forgotten. I told her to reschedule for another day with them, or if she wanted, she could go on the condition that one of my men guard her. She mentioned she preferred to cancel, that we would dine another time with the Arasagastis, that she would wait to do it with me.

It was the first time she said goodbye to me with an "I love you," and my heart did a somersault. Naturally, I responded in kind before hanging up and my man, who was listening to the conversation, burst out laughing.

"Don't you dare tell the others that I'm a softie when it comes to my wife." He laughed heartily again, at least his laughter was soothing.

"Don’t worry, boss, your telenovela hero side stays between us." I winked at him and we both laughed.

Fortunately, the next day he was to be discharged along with another one of my men, only one would remain hospitalized. I wished him a good night and told him not to rush back. The priority was for all of them to recover.

I walked down to the parking lot with that little smile that only love-struck fools wear.

I was eager to get home and do something as cheesy as having dinner with my wife, cuddling on the couch, and watching a movie. We hadn't done something as mundane as that yet, and I was looking forward to it.

A screech of tires put me on alert, a car was heading towards me, head-on and at full speed.

The lights flashed in my eyes.

I drew my weapon, ready to blow the brains out of whoever dared to threaten my life.

40

Tell me you've seen it

Iwas close to shooting, dazzled by the lights, if it hadn't been for recognizing the face on the other side of the glass and then the license plate.

But what the hell?! It was one of my cars, riddled with bullet holes, the windows shattered, and Aleksa behind the wheel.

He braked hard, stopping just a meter from hitting me.

I ran without hesitation to open the door and check on my man, who was paler than Casper's ass, bleeding from various holes, with a cloudy look in his eyes. I counted two bullet holes, besides a wound on his hand.

I opened the door and looked at him horrified.

"What happened to you?!"

"Tell me you've seen the video... and that I've thrown them off," he muttered on the edge of unconsciousness. I looked around, no one seemed to be following him.

"Nobody's following you. What video are you talking about?"

"The bastard on WhatsApp."

"Are you delirious? Or is this a damn joke of yours when this situation is not fucking funny at all?" Aleksa usually called the WhatsApp bastard the black guy with the big dick who had his moment of glory.

"No," he panted. "I called you and you didn’t answer."

"I left my phone at home. Did Nikita tell you where I was?" He shook his head.

"Your watch’s tracker. Since you didn't answer, I activated the tracking in case something had happened to you."

"It’s you they’ve done something to, look at yourself, you look like a fucking sieve. I'm going to take you to get seen and treated. Let me help you out. Who did this? Cheng? Huang?" His scream of pain as I pulled his body upward was chilling. Then, I saw the amount of blood soaking his half-torn shirt. "Fuck! I'm going to kill whoever did this."

"Get the phone, the video. Talk to Piero, ask him what I asked him to do, he'll tell you..." I decided to grab it before arguing further with him. I leaned Aleksa against the car body and put the phone in my back pocket.