Two more bodies lay on the floor. The bodyguard was partially nude. His pants were down around his ankles and he had every indication that he’d died hard. Alonzo knew he was looking at Timur’s leopard’s kill. The cat had ripped apart the body below the waist, broken the neck and killed with a suffocating bite before the man had time to bleed out.

Gorya had shifted to his human form, hadn’t bothered with clothes and was rigging the gas to blow. Timur had also shifted. He was dressed and carrying an unconscious woman out of the house straight into the garage. He placed her into the backseat of a car.

Alonzo quickly aided Gorya in rigging the house, utilizing every gas fireplace, including the one in Patrizio’s bedroom. They wanted the explosion to be spectacular and the fire to burn hot, fast and wild. They needed to destroy all evidence of leopard DNA, which was never easy.

Gorya poured accelerant over each of the bodies and then indicated to Alonzo to leave. He would start the fire and then join Timur in the car. They’d drive out with the woman the moment the explosion brought all the outside guards to the house. Alonzo would kill any guard trying to stop them. It wasn’t the best idea, but they couldn’t leave the woman behind to be killed by one of Amodeo’s men or die in the fire.

“Being one of the good guys has definite drawbacks,” Gorya pointed out with a small grin.

Alonzo shook his head. “Fuckin’ Timur. Just has to be the white knight.” He wasn’t about to admit he would have done the same thing. They had vowed they were never going to be like their father, no matter what their leopards—or circumstances—demanded. They didn’t beat up or kill women, nor did they allow others to do it, not in their territory. Alonzo had made that clear to his soldiers when he took over. Any wife coming to him with a black eye meant swift and brutal punishment. Still, now they were in this mess. Gorya was right—being the good guys definitely had drawbacks.

It wasn’t difficult to make his way back toward the fence. He was leopard and leopards could go right into a room full of people watching a movie, kill one quietly, drag him outside and feast. They were that stealthy.

He waited for the explosion. When it came, it was spectacular, better than anything he could have hoped for. The house had four gas fireplaces, the central heater was gas and so was the kitchen stove. The building went up fast, flames shooting orange and red through windows, breaking glass, eating the structure from the inside out. Guards came running from every direction. Some raced to the garage, hoping to get in that way or at least save the vehicles from going up in flames.