I sat down in a chair. Vince got up and handed me a glass of whisky.
“The fuck were you thinking?” he asked.
“I wasn’t, honestly.”
“Arturo is having a fucking fit. I barely got out of the compound with my head on.”
“Sorry about that. I’ll give you a warning the next time I have to escape with my stepsister and her slutty mom.”
“Okay. Good.”
We drank in silence then for a few minutes. It was close to four in the morning and I was absolutely exhausted. I knew the car would be towed or found soon; I wasn’t sure which, and I didn’t much care.
All I knew was that I had to come up with a plan, and fast.
“They find the kid?” I asked Vince.
“Apparently not,” he said. “Someone must have warned him.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “Camille. She disappeared during our escape. Must have warned him.”
“Crazy bitch.”
“She came tearing across the west lawn like a fucking psycho. I almost didn’t stop.”
We laughed together. I felt like I was beginning to relax, loosen up.
“How dumb can they be?” Vince asked.
“I’m more surprised at the kid. He at least knows my father.”
“Yeah,” Vince said. “He’s lucky Camille is bat shit insane.”
We fell into another silence.
“So,” he asked me finally, “how the fuck do we get out of this one?”
“Not sure yet. Did you contact the other captains?”
“The loyal ones, yeah.”
“And?”
“Same answers. They’ll back your play.”
I nodded. That was the last resort. If I couldn’t reason or bargain with Arturo, I was going to have to go through with my plans for a coup.
And that wasn’t going to be clean. If I tried to take the mob by force, there were going to be bodies in the streets, and lots of them. I didn’t want to kill my own people, but I was willing to do what I had to do to survive this.
Arturo had a choice. He could pardon the girls, maybe in exchange for something useful, or I was going to cut him down at the knees. I was going to take the mob from him and slit his throat if I had to.
My own fucking father. I didn’t want to bring ruin down on him, but I would and I could. He’d been underestimating me for years, and now that may be about to bite him in the ass.
Louisa would back me too; I knew that. She had a lot more power than most people realized.
But this was all hypothetical. I didn’t want any of that to happen. One day I’d take over the mob, but I’d let the old man retire first. I didn’t want to murder my own father to make that happen.
I shot back the rest of my whisky and stood up. “Time to sleep,” I said.
“Night, boss,” Vince replied.
“Thanks for being here,” I said to him. “We’ll fix this shit.”
He grinned. “You know me, always down for a little action.”
I laughed and left, heading upstairs.
Plans were forming, dissolving, reforming, breaking, forming again. I was abuzz with possibility, timing, logistics. Vince was a huge asset, and I was a lucky man that I had a loyal number two like him.
Because I was going to need all the help that I could get in the coming days of violence.
Chapter Thirty-One: Natalie
I stared up at the unfamiliar ceiling, and for a moment I thought I might roll over and find Lucas in bed with me.
Instead, my bed was empty, and so was the room. It was totally sparse, with just one night stand and the bed filling the space.
I slowly got out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom. Camille’s door was still closed, but that was fine. I wasn’t really interested in any mother-daughter bonding, especially now that I felt like I was finished with her. I’d help her if I could, but I wasn’t letting her drag me down anymore.
I brushed my teeth and rinsed off my face, spending a long moment staring at my face in the mirror. I looked haggard, and for good reason. I had to remind myself that we were on the run from the mob and that scary, violent men wanted us dead.
It wasn’t exactly a reality that I was used to.
“Hello?” I heard a voice call from downstairs.
“Lucas?”
“Hey,” he said, walking up the steps. “Good morning.”
He looked tired, too, but at least he had changed his clothes. I was still wearing the same sweats from the night before.
“I’m really happy to see you,” I said. He made it up the steps and I threw my arms around him, hugging him close.
“Same to you, Nat,” he said. “I can’t stay long, though.”
“Why not?”
“I have to do some stuff. But I came with your phones.”