“Ohmygod, ohmygod,” I repeated over and over despite the fact that moving my mouth made me nauseous.
I rolled off him, pulling my knees into my chest. Sal’s black tasseled shoes clipped over the concrete, and he kicked the man’s gun away. Their bodies collided, pounding each other with bone splitting punches. Sweat and blood flew through the air like a boxing match.
Finally the man fell to his knees and Sal grabbed him by his collar, dragging him inside the building. Within seconds, he had the man’s hands and feet bound in a maze of zip ties. I clambered to my feet and headed toward the car.
Sal waved his gun at me. “Hey, Em, whattaya think you’re doin’? Get your ass back here.”
“No.” I swung my head from side to side, the motion making me even dizzier than I already was. “I don’t want anything to do with this. I’m gonna get in the car and drive it home. You can find your own way outta here.”
“Oh, yeah? You don’t want to get mixed up in the family business now that you’ve seen it firsthand? Well too fucking bad. You should’ve driven away after twenty minutes like I told you. Now c’mere before someone gets a hair up their ass and comes to investigate.”
I wobbled into the warehouse, my knees like jelly and my breathing erratic. The second I stepped foot inside, he pulled the metal garage door shut, the ungreased sound of metal scraping against metal making me jump.
Unruffled, Sal whipped out his phone.
“Tony,” he clipped out, “I need a spring cleaner.” He paused for a second, listening. “Not an hour from now. I need back up right fucking now. It was an ambush.” His gaze met mine and he wiped the blood from his face with the sleeve of his suit jacket. “She’s here. Yeah, I know. It’s piss poor timing, but I’ve got it under control.” He disconnected the phone and stuffed it in his pocket.
“Who sent you here, Frank?” Sal aimed the gun at his head, enunciating each word with a stony cool that sent a chill down my spine.
“Fuck you. I’m not a snitch.”
Sal cocked his gun and grinned. He had an unearthly beauty to him, almost like an avenging angel, only not angelic at all.
“What’s wrong? You don’t want a clean conscience when you meet your maker?”
“What use do I have for a clean conscience? Just get this over with and go back to your ass kissing. God knows you’ll never be anything more than a puppet dancing to the Trassatos’ tune, exactly like your father. I can’t believe you’re willing to die for them, much less Dominick’s spoiled brat.”
“You don’t know shit.”
Frank chuckled. “You wanna know what’s funny?”
“No. I want you to shut the hell up. Your thoughts don’t interest me.”
“I gotta know though. Are you dumb as fuck or are you a brilliant schemer like they say?”
“Since you’re the one tied up and about to die, I don’t need to answer you, do I?”
“Instead of playing this little game of footsie with the Trassatos, you should come over to the dark side with me. Be your own man.” He raised his bound hands and pointed at me, then continued talking, his tone agitated. “Kill her and let’s get outta here. I’ll tell you everything you wanna know about your dad. Isn’t that why you’re here? Or does it have something to do with Pietro’s bitch? He suspects something’s up. Heck, I even have dirt on Dominick. The guys from the old world are itching to take him down if he doesn’t keep his end of the bargain this time around. Name what you want. It’s yours for the asking.”
My mind reeled, attempting to cobble together Frank’s words into something that made sense. Names. Places. Faces. All of them flew through my mind with lightning speed. My wayward musings came to a standstill the second my gaze cut to Sal. He whipped a black metal cylinder out of the inside of his black suit jacket, screwed it on the end of his gun, and fired. I jerked back with shock and rammed into the wall. Frank’s body slumped to the side, inky blood leaking from the center of his forehead, his eyes fixed and unblinking.
“What’d you do that for?”
“I was tired of listening to him.”
“But he knew stuff about your dad and Pietro.” My high-pitched voice sounded borderline hysterical even to my own ears.
He shrugged. “He was bluffing.”
I blinked rapidly and my vision turned muddy. “You don’t know—”
Tony rolled up the metal garage, the rusty metal like nails on a chalkboard. He was flanked by two beefy men I didn’t recognize carrying black duffle bags.