Chapter 58

LEO

Two days later, Luca and I were standing in the streets of Seattle.

The last forty-eight hours had been enough to drive anyone over the edge. Five of my commanders had been attacked, one shot in the shoulder, but none killed.

Between attacks, no one had any idea where he was or what he was doing, and we still weren’t entirely sure what game he was playing.

But at long last, he’d been seen leaving the territory toward Seattle, presumably to head back to Mexico.

Our objective now: stop the motherfucker from ever leaving the country.

I had men all over the city, all armed with guns. As far as we knew, there were only two of them: Andrea and the big gunman everybody unfortunate enough to receive a home invasion had described.

Taking him down shouldn’t be difficult, but finding him was an issue. He was a slimy thing with a habit of disappearing, and in a city as large and busy as Seattle, it was a nearly impossible task.

“How’s Ella?” Luca asked me as we leaned against a wall on a street that led to the docks, scanning every passerby.

“She’s been better,” I replied. “And I’m angry because I should be there to comfort her, but I’m not because of this Mexicunt wreaking havoc on my pack.”

“Hey, enough with the racist slurs! My grandmother was half Cuban,” Luca said. “A cunt will suffice in future.”

“How is that at all relevant?” I asked.

“They speak Spanish there,” he replied. “You know where else they speak Spanish? Mexico.”

“They speak English in Australia. Does that mean calling Australians ‘kangaroo-fucking digeridoos’ is offensive to the French grandson of an English man?” I asked.

Luca paused in thought.

“I see your point, Alpha,” he said finally. “Kangaroo-fucking digeridoos?”

“It was just an example.”

“Did you know that there are twice as many kangaroos in Australia as humans, meaning that there are four times as many kangaroos as women, meaning that you could either fuck four kangaroos or one woman?” Luca said.

Before I even had a chance to decide how on earth I was meant to respond to myself, he’d carried on with his own conversation.

“Although that’s assuming you wouldn’t mind fucking a male kangaroo, which realistically if you’re willing to fuck a kangaroo, you’re probably not gonna be concerned about its gender.

“Some believe homosexuality is a sin, but if you’re already gonna commit bestiality, surely no one would worry about throwing in some dick-on-dick action?

“And by no means do I have anything against LGBTQ+. Dick away for all I care. But the whole kangaroo thing? Not for me. Although I wonder whether you’d get less STDs from a kangaroo’s anus than a human’s—”

“Do you see that man over there?” I said, fortunately interrupting Luca.

Across the street and a few buildings down walked a man. He was tall, in a black suit with black hair and tanned skin. He wore sunglasses, but it was certainly him.

“Martinez,” Luca confirmed. “For sure. He’s inhumanely tall.”

I pulled Luca down behind a parked car and pulled my radio to my lips.

“Spotted Martinez walking west along Twenty-eighth Avenue toward the docks,” I said. “Prepare to shoot. I want him dead. Do not let him get away.”

I then shuffled to the edge of the car and positioned my gun, aiming at a spot on the street I knew Andrea would walk into any second now.

“Alpha, these streets are so busy. Start a shootout, and an innocent could get killed,” Luca pointed out.

“And if he survives, my family and my pack members could get shot. I’m willing to take the risk of losing a few humans. There’s far too many of them anyway,” I replied.

Luca nodded. “Whatever you say, Alpha.”

A few seconds later, Martinez stepped into my aim, and I shot.

“Fuck,” I cursed. The bullet had just missed him, but obviously he had heard.

He pulled out his gun and sent a shower of bullets our way, not taking as much care as I had to avoid the other users of the street.

I shot back, and the big man with him dropped straight to the floor, gasping as blood gushed from his throat.

Andrea looked down and examined the body with his dark eyes, completely emotionlessly before taking one more look over to us and turning on his heel.

“Go, go, go,” I said to Luca, and we both raced across the street after him.

He was fast, but the people on the streets were in his way. He growled and shoved them out of the way, but as Luca and I ran along the road where it was much less busy, we were quickly gaining distance on him.

That was until he ducked into a side street, and we had to bustle across the sidewalk to follow him.

When we reached the street, he was still in sight. He turned around, pulling two guns from his belt and shot at us, forcing us to take cover behind a parked van.

“Martinez is heading north down Barley Street,” I barked into my radio. “Unit twenty-four, stay vigilant and prepare to shoot.”

I then peeked around the van to see that he had continued running and signaled to Luca for us to carry on.

A few minutes later, I heard the bullets of unit twenty-four as we reached the end of Barley Street where they were stationed.

“Do you see him?” I asked Luca, taking a moment to pause and catch my breath as I reloaded my gun.

“No,” he said, scanning the area. “Fuck. Have we lost him?”

“How could he have survived the shots from twelve of my men?” I asked.

“That man is immortal, I swear,” Luca replied.

“Alpha,” the voice of one of my men said on my radio. “We see him. Heading straight for the docks.”

“Surround the perimeter. He cannot be allowed to get on a boat,” I ordered. “And I want a unit on every boat due to depart for the next hour in case the slimy thing slips through.”

“Yes, Alpha,” the voice replied, before Luca and I turned around and headed to the docks ourselves.

It was a ten-minute run, but I could do it in five. I’d have to leave Luca behind and sacrifice his cover, but it was worth it for minimizing Martinez’s chance of escaping me…again.

So I raced through the streets, and five minutes later, I spotted him from across the docks. He was handing a worker in a boiler suit a wad of cash as he pointed to a large boat at the end of the harbor.

I was far too far away for an accurate shot. It would just be a waste of ammunition, and before I could creep any closer, he looked up and saw me.

His lips curled into a smile before he waved and began to run toward the boat the worker had pointed to.

None of my men were here yet. It was just me against him.

So I chased after him, shooting and shooting. But I’d only been using guns for a few months, and I had not perfected my shot. For me, hitting a moving target that far away as I ran was practically impossible.

But I was gaining on him. I was taller, older, and as we had established in our last fight, stronger too. Had the distance to the boat been longer, I would have caught him.

But it wasn’t.

And the boat was already reversing out. The gap between land and the boat was ever-increasing.

Martinez began to sprint even faster than before, and he was still at least a hundred meters ahead of me.

He reached the edge of the harbor and leaped toward the boat over a good ten meters of space, narrowly avoiding the high drop down into the gray, rough water below.

Considering he only made it by a couple of inches, by the time I reached the platform ten seconds later, it was too late.

He had landed on his front on the deck but quickly scrambled behind a crate on the boat. But it wasn’t big enough to completely cover him, so I shot once and missed.

Then when I tried again, having adjusted my grip, taken a moment to breathe, and aimed properly, no bang sounded.

My gun was out of bullets, and I didn’t even have any more rounds to reload with.

I angrily smashed the gun down onto the concrete floor, and it cracked into three pieces before I looked up to the boat, still moving away to see him waving and smiling.

“See you soon, Loren!” he called. “Tell your bitch I’m coming for her!”

I let out a growl and just glared back at him as he laughed more.

Half a minute later, Luca caught up with me and immediately began shooting out to sea.

“There’s no point,” I said. “He’s too far away. We lost him…again.”