Taking The Fall(the Complete Series)(25)

“You got the information I need?” I grunt, getting right to the point. It’s not my problem he’s using. In fact, he can fucking drop dead for all I care, but only after I get the info I need.

“Sorry, boss, I tried my best but…”

I don’t let him finish. First off I’m not his fucking boss. No way I’d have left a little weasel piss ant like that on one of my crews. Standing, I drop five bills on the table to ensure no one calls the cops on me, and then I grab him by the throat, pick him up off the ground with one arm and walk him outside.

There’s an alley out back and I plan on taking my frustrations out on this snitch. A nice ass-beating may help pull me back from this edge I feel like I’m on at the moment.

Glancing around the alley to make sure it’s all clear, I drop him to the ground and kick his side. I’m pretty sure I feel a rib crack. “The only thing I needed from you was a location, and you couldn’t give me that. Who the fuck are you really working for, Frankie?” No way he doesn’t have something for me. If that was the case he wouldn’t have showed. So someone else must have made him.

I kick him a few more times before he feels like talking.

“I was told to keep you on the chase. I swear that’s all I know,” he coughs out.

There it is. Never takes much for men like him to crack. Another thing I don’t get about these bosses. Never have a man on your crew who can’t take a good old beating. Just makes them an easy mark. “Who told you that?” I ask and reach down to pick him up. I haul his double-crossing ass off the ground and throw him against the wall, hearing his head give a hard crack against the brick wall. Before he falls I grab his chest and keep him held there. “I’m at the short end of my fuse, Frankie, and you’ll do well to remember what happens when I don’t get what I want. You think I don’t know you’re Richie’s cousin? Yeah, I took that motherfucker out fast after he betrayed me. You wanna learn from his example or repeat his mistake? Your call,” I toss out letting him know I’m okay with either outcome.

He struggles for breath, trying to fill his lungs around some presumably broken ribs. I use the hand that’s not holding him against the wall to punch the places I kicked. He spits up some blood, but he is finally trying to talk.

“Okay, okay, okay. O’Leary sent me. He knows you’re looking for him, and he knows why.” I loosen the grip on his chest and let him breathe a little easier. Just hearing his name makes my blood boil. “He heard you got out, and he’s been further underground ever since. I never even saw him. Just used burner phones for texts. Carter, man, you gotta believe me. He’s got a hold of my family. I had to do it.” He’s crying now and I try not to roll my eyes.

“Today’s your lucky day, Frankie. I’m gonna let you live long enough to tell him payback’s coming. You do what you gotta do to contact him, but when that happens, you tell him he better be ready. Hell’s coming.” I drop Frankie to the ground and walk away.

It’s night out and as I walk to my car I look at my phone to see if I’ve gotten my daily text from Saint. He’s late with his update and it’s pissing me off. He fucking knows better than to keep me waiting when it comes to her. He hasn’t ever been late before and I’ve got a sick feeling in my stomach that something is wrong.

When I check the screen it shows I’ve got a missed call from his number. I’m guessing Frankie was bleeding too loud for me to hear it ring.

I call it back immediately and he answers on the first ring. I’m already yelling at him when I hear it connect, “About fucking time you called me, I was…”

Saint cuts me off with the sentence I’ve been both waiting for and dreading to hear, “Carter. Get here. Now.”





LAYLA

“Think he knows?” I ask, trying to adjust to a more comfortable position in this damn hospital bed. It’s like they try to make them as uncomfortable as possible.

Jeanette nods her head and takes a sip of her coffee. “Yeah, I saw Saint in the hall when I was talking to the cops.”

Then Carter must know. It’s all I can think of. I wonder if he’ll come. Probably not. I’m sure Saint told him he’d knocked me up over a month ago, and if that didn’t bring him back, some stupid car accident won’t. Why would he care that I’m laid up in a hospital bed when he doesn’t even care that I’m having his baby. I’m ashamed that I had this ridiculous fantasy of him storming into the hospital room, picking me up and begging me to let him back into my life. He’d tell me we’d be a perfect family and he’d never leave me again. My daydreams are even more ridiculous because I don’t think Carter has ever begged for anything in his life.