Valentino

Judging from the size of the blast and where it came from... if I'd still been near the van, I'd have been caught in the middle of it.

If he'd still been where he was earlier, he would have been caught in the blast too.

"You're an idiot, huh," I say to him. "You would have blown yourself up too."

He scowls up at me, his hair falling into his face. "What? This isn't me. I don't do explosives. Did one of your men rig your van to blow?"

And destroy the product? Like hell. Not unless one of them is a traitor, too, which... This isn't the time or place to worry about that. I need to get out of here and find safety before I put this bastard through the wringer.

I grunt and drag him up, and he uses the opportunity to land a perfectly placed chop to my wrist that has my gun dropping to the floor beneath us. Fuck!

I grab my secondary weapon from its holster, but right as I'm about to aim for his knee, the warehouse rocks with the force of another explosion right in front of us. I scramble back, the wave of heat and ash and dust making it difficult to breathe.

The hitman's eyes widen, and he stumbles into me. I instinctively lash out against him, and I'm surprised that my hand connects with his chest without him evading the blow. He grunts and collapses to the floor.

Smoke starts rising up around us. Something must have caught fire. I start coughing, and it takes me a moment to realize the would-be hitman isn't making any noise.

If he's gone and gotten himself killed—potentially with his own explosives—I will be royally annoyed.

I get down to the ground and grab his shoulder. He moans, which means he's still alive, but when I roll him onto his stomach, I grimace. His back is cut up bad from the flying debris.

I glance around to assess the situation. The fire appears to be coming from a few rows over. The shelves have toppled in a lot of places, but I think I can clear a path to the warehouse exit.

I pull off my jacket and shirt, then tie my shirt around my face as a makeshift mask. It would be better if it was wet, but it'll have to do for now. I get to work on moving boxes out of the way, gritting my teeth against the pain in my arm.

It would be easier with another pair of hands.

"Hey, kid," I say, grabbing him by the hair. "You awake enough to help out, or do you just want to die here?"

He groans again, and blinks hard. "I'm—I'm not dying here." He gets onto his elbows and tries to sit up. It takes him a few tries, and he's grimacing in pain the entire time. "F-fuck. How... how are we getting out?"

It's a good question, one I'm not entirely sure how to answer.

"Boss!" someone hollers from across the warehouse—Nico, I think—and I'm relieved to find that at least one of my men survived the blasts. At the same time, the idea of a traitor in our midst makes me hesitate. Should I call back to him and let him know where I am, or should I stay quiet?

Sometimes this is a lonely fucking business.

"C'mon, boy," I tell the redhead. "You can help me clear debris." Finally making my decision, I shout, "Up here. Can you clear a path from the other side?"

There's a moment of silence, then he yells back, "I can try, but it's pretty bad. And my left side is roasted, Boss." He sounds like he's biting down a lot of pain.

"I think we can climb over the boxes and shit," I muse, glancing again at the hitman. "Got a hostage here!" I call out. "If someone comes out without me, shoot."

The kid rolls his eyes at me before pulling his shirt over his nose. "I'll save my strength for getting out alive." He shuffles forward and grabs another box. He was wearing gloves, at least, but there's a rip in one of them where some shrapnel got through.

If he hadn't been between me and that second blast, I would have been the one who'd gotten hit.

Despite the pain I know he must be in, he helps me without complaint. I hear him hiss and grunt a few times, but he knows as well as I do that if we stay here too long, we're both going to die.

I can hear jostling noises from the other side, and it's a relief when I hear Nico's voice coming from several feet away, "Almost got it, Boss." His own voice is strained, but just like us, he knows we need to get out as fast as possible.

Nico deserves a raise, and potentially a promotion, for sticking around instead of only worrying about his own ass—of course, if he'd taken off and left me for dead, and I'd caught up with him, he'd have wished he'd died here.

Several long, grueling minutes later, the redhead and I manage to break our way through onto the other side.

Nico wasn't lying about his side. He looks like he's just been a marshmallow roast, except his side was the marshmallow with all the smoke and debris clinging to his wounds. Fuck. I really did get off easy from this compared to these two, with only minor injuries from the blast.

"We'll get you to a doctor," I tell him as I reach for him. Nico looks grateful, then confused, when I start fishing around his pockets.

I pull out the car keys for one of the cars we'd left outside.

"I'm... out of here," the redhead says, taking a few stumbling steps away from us. "Let's call it even."

I chuckle. It's a good try, really, but if he thinks I'm going to call that even, he has another thing coming to him. Really, he has several things coming to him, even if he doesn't know that yet. I grab his arm, twisting it behind his back. "Let's not. C'mon, boy. It wouldn't be polite if I didn't get you a doctor, too."

"Go... fuck yourself," he says, but he's not struggling. He must be a lot more injured than he's letting on.

A second later he goes slack, and I assume he's faking it at first, until he completely collapses. I have to catch him before he cracks his head open on the concrete floor. I curse, but yank him up, half-expecting the pain to jar him back into consciousness.

It doesn't.

"Let's get out of here," I tell Nico. I look around, grimacing at the sight. The fire is raging, and I don't see any of my other men. "You and the kid in the backseat. Make sure you hold a gun to his head if he wakes up. Fuck. Are we the only ones who survived?"

Nico nods, grimacing in pain. Realistically, he'll probably pass out as soon as we're in the car. "The explosion was centered right around where we were... and where you were."

Where the boy had been hiding.

Well, well, well.

It looks like I really do need to have a chat with my pretty little captive.