Laughing Eyes: Bittersweet Familia (3) by Melissa Jane Read Free Book Online Page B

rounding the cab to the passenger side door. With his gun pointed through the open window, we watched as Eduardo and Samuel set foot on the ground, their pale bloodied faces reflecting the stress of capture, both with their hands bound.
    “Game changer,” Aiden said quietly.
    By now more men had filtered out from the building, gathering around the two aid workers. There was a mix of anticipation and tension in the air as the taunting began.
    “Clearly we’re not leaving this place without spilling some blood and our lead has been shot to shit.” While I was worried for Eduardo and Samuel, my main fear was now for the rest of the aid workers and the repercussions that would follow after today.
    The man who had come out for a cigarette earlier broke his way through the loitering men positioning himself in front of the duo.
    With a Glock by his side, he mouthed an instruction. The captives, wisely cooperating, fell to their knees.
    “Cover me!” Aiden instructed. “They’re all yours. I’m going around their left to flank.”
    The group began to circle the aid workers blocking the cigarette man from view.
    Lining up my first target, I fired a clean shot into the neck of a man directly in front. Blood splattered on the men either side of him as he fell to his knees, then face down on the ground. There was a moment of confusion as there always is in a silent attack, but within seconds the fear set in as all the men yelled and scrambled out of the firing line.
    It didn’t matter.
    They weren’t quick enough.
    Soon enough eight of the twelve men were dead, the other four now crouching behind trucks and crates. They still had no idea where the attack was coming from, but that didn’t stop them from shooting at random targets, their rapid fire exploding through the valley gorge we were positioned in. The aid workers did the right thing and fell to the ground to avoid any stray bullets. Aiden would collect them when the others were dead. What I couldn’t see though was cigarette man.
    “Do you have a view of the four fuckers left?” I asked, through the ear piece.
    “All except one. I’m gonna shoot the side of the truck and send him your way.”
    “Got it.”
    Half a second passed before I heard the familiar sound of bullets piercing metal, followed by the shots of a desperate man trying to flee. Rounding the truck, he fired in Aiden’s direction, leaving him completely exposed on my end. Shooting him in the side of the knee, I watched as his body twisted with the sudden force, his gun firing into the sky. His sickening screams echoed, his agonized cries falling on the deaf ears of his remaining comrades.
    “You are a brutal man, Danny Peters!” I could detect the smile coming through Aiden’s voice.
    “Someone had to be the example.”
    From somewhere in the tree line, more shots rang out as another two men fell to their deaths.
    “And then there was one.”
    “And guess who that one is?” Aiden quipped, as he emerged from the left, his rifle now replaced by his Glock, pointed directly at our last target.
    Cigarette man rose to his feet, arms raised in surrender, his upper half now in my line of view. Aiden made his way across the clearing as I skirted the back.
    We closed in on him around the same time, his worried face flicking to me and back to Aiden, knowing he had nowhere to run.
    Using the tip of the Glock, I edged him to the middle of the clearing.
    “Move!” I demanded when he displayed some resistance.
    The grateful, if not mortified looking aid workers, scrambled to their feet as we passed them.
    “On your knees,” Aiden instructed in his quiet, yet authoritative tone.
    “Who the fuck are you?” The heavily accented man spat, clearly pissed by the morning’s events.
    “It’s irrelevant who we are,” I said, meeting his angry gaze. “We don’t even care who you are. What we do want to know is where we can find El Leon.”
    He laughed.
    Throwing his head back as if it was the funniest