14. Georgia
14
GEORGIA
Now
“ G irl, I swear, you don’t do things by halves. Your life was totally boring, and instead of joining a book club or something, you go and get kidnapped by some criminal and held at gunpoint.” I didn’t bother correcting her. “Spoonpoint” didn’t have quite the same ring to it.
“Yes, it was all my choice,” I sighed, downing a large gulp of coffee.
Erica perched on the barstool next to me. “What was the police station like? Did they bring out a hard-boiled detective to interrogate you?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know… just some tired guy and his partner asking all about Jackson and the loan. I guess they’re used to dealing with this kind of thing. I mean, gangs fighting among each other and loan sharks threatening people.”
Erica watched me. “Are you sure your mystery man was really Mafia?”
“I’m sure. Believe me… I know Mafia. The man he works for is a big deal on the East Coast. If they can find him.” As long as they did that, I’d be safe . I didn’t bother saying the last part, because the stark truth was that until they did, I wasn’t safe. I wasn’t safe at all.
“Are you sure you’re okay to go to work today?”
I nodded. I needed to go. I wouldn’t make rent if I didn’t. I’d been given two days off for my trauma, and it was all I could afford to miss.
“I’ll be fine.”
“What about going back to your place? Can you really sleep there after what happened?”
I forced a smile. “It’s fine. I’m tougher than I look, and I’m going to find a new place anyway, like you said, in a better neighborhood.”
Erica brightened. “Maybe near me?”
“Maybe.”
There was no way I could afford to live near Erica. She had a good deal on a studio because the owner was friends with her aunt. But the studio was truly tiny, and I couldn’t impose on her any longer. I knew it was hard for her to have someone stay, even if she’d never say so directly.
I left Erica’s. I had no idea if my De Sanctis stalker was sticking around to find me. The LAPD said they’d put a security detail on me. I didn’t see a single sign of them, so I wasn’t sure if that meant they were just very good at their jobs or that they hadn’t really bothered.
Could they truly stop a man like my mercenary?
On the way, I stopped by the post office and finally got the package my father had sent me. I sat in the little lobby and stared at the envelope with trepidation. Did he have what my mercenary was looking for? Would it save me or damn me?
I reached inside and withdrew a flash drive. It was small, tiny enough to tuck into my bra. I went to the bathroom and did just that, throwing the envelope in the trash on the way out, and then stopped. The flash drive felt like a neon sign over my head.
Incriminating Evidence Here!
I couldn’t leave it there. It felt too obvious and easy to lose. I opened my bag and rummaged through it. The other week my cheap lipstick had fallen out of my purse and smacked onto a tile floor. The entire inner tube had slid out, separating from the larger case. I’d forced it back in at the time. Now, I dropped the shiny black case on the floor and broke it again. Tossing the inner tube of lipstick in the trash, I slipped the tiny flash drive into the empty lipstick container and snapped the lid on. It wasn’t a bad little disguise. Not at all.
I tucked the lipstick into my bag and headed to work.
I needed to see what was on the drive. And then what? Then I’d lose plausible deniability. Like my mercenary cared about that. He’d already deemed me guilty by association with my father and sentenced me to whatever it was he was taking me to.
A headache pressed at my temples, but I got to work and got settled, while Eddie made a pile of the work I’d missed out on.
My eyes glazed over as I looked at it. I’d be here a week at least, trying to catch up.
So, in addition to getting on the LAPD’s radar, sitting through an interrogation, and having nightmares of seeing a man get shot in the head, I had another thing to thank the black-clad asshole who’d dragged me around all day for.
I worked steadily through the day, grateful for a distraction from my worries.
While it was comforting that the LAPD was searching for my captor, I didn’t have high hopes for them finding him. He seemed like a man with skills, and he’d been confident that he’d get to me again.
It was all because of my father. Clearly, there was a lot I didn’t know about how he’d lived his life, and it had been far from the squeaky-clean image he’d projected. He’d been best friends with Salvatore De Sanctis, of course, I’d always known that, but I’d been naive.
Willful ignorance. The man in black’s voice echoed through my mind. His disdainful tone had made it clear how little he believed my protests of innocence.
Before I knew it, it was time to go home, and my coworkers were on their way out. It was the weekend, and they had places to go. I had nowhere to go and nothing to do that was more important than catching up on my missed work.
I chewed on my lip and thought of my half-sewn designs. I’d been dumb enough to stuff them into that hastily packed go bag, along with my most precious possession. The box of my mementos.
Now, they were at the mercy of that man. He’d probably tossed them in trash the first chance he got, ridding himself of the dead weight and any vestiges of mercy for me. I focused on sewing to drown out the hopelessness I felt when I thought about my belongings abandoned somewhere in LA.
When I lifted my head up again, it was dark outside, and my lamp was the only pool of light in the workshop.
I checked my watch and was shocked at the time. Eleven p.m.? How?
Something had jolted me out of my work-focused delirium. I listened for it — the soft sound of rain falling. It had started raining? That was pretty unusual for this time of year in LA. I didn’t normally hear it in the workshop, underground as we were.
I listened to it, enjoying the sound before it stopped.
Wait, it stopped? I stood and stretched, walking to the sliver of window that ran along the top of the wall, and glanced up. Raindrops streaked down the glass. So, why had the sound stopped?
It was like a window had been open and someone had closed it.
Or… a door.
Fear blew through me in a sudden rush, setting my nerves on high alert. I strained my ears, trying to hear something, anything, from whoever else was still in the building.
Maybe it was just a coworker upstairs in the showroom. That seemed doubtful, though; it was late. Really late.
I hurried back to my desk and clicked my lamp off, plunging the room into semidarkness. After a few moments, my eyes started to adjust to the gloom, and the meager amount of streetlight falling through the small window.
Outside on the street, legs passed by the window, walking quickly. There was only one thing in the direction that they were going, and it was the emergency exit to the showroom.
Panic hit me hard. There were men creeping in here… for me.
I had to get out of here. If the men were coming in through the back, then I had to make a break for the front.
I crept along the row of desks and sewing machines, past the heavy-duty iron we used to press the designs and the cutting table. My legs cramped at the position I was rolled into, but I pushed the discomfort out of my mind. This was serious, and there was a good chance I wasn’t going to be leaving here under my own control.
I nearly made it to the stairs. I was so close. Whether I’d have really gotten out, typed in the security code, and pushed the metal grate up in time, I’d never know.
I never got the chance to find out.
Hard arms wrapped around me from behind, and a hand clamped over my mouth, sealing in my sound of surprise.
I wriggled and fought, but the grip was too damn strong.
“You might want to cut it out, unless you want to die here tonight,” a deep, familiar voice murmured in my ear.
My mercenary. He pulled me against him, holding us flush against a wall near the coffee maker about five feet from the stairs.
“Who are they?” I whispered when he finally removed his hand from my mouth.
“Friends of your father, or I should say former friends. They might be under the impression that he sent you the information that would sink their boss, should your father meet an untimely end in prison.”
“What? They think my father made me his insurance?” I could have laughed. “I told you we don’t really talk.”
“Still, who else does Alfredo Bellisario have in this world, other than his precious only daughter? Are you trying to lie to me that he hasn’t sent you anything? I see you, Georgia… I’m always watching.”
The man was just as tall and broad as I remembered. Being pressed against his chest, the promise of his protection, shouldn’t have been a comfort. But it was. It felt like gaining an unexpected ally. Get real. I had given the police this man’s description and tried to get him arrested for murder. There weren’t any warm and fuzzy feelings from his side.
“That’s why Renato wants me, too, isn’t it? My father could expose everything Salvatore has been up to in Napoli for decades… He could cut a deal and fuck the De Sanctis family in return.” I knew in my bones I was right. My father had never really cared much about anyone but himself. Of course he’d cut a deal and hang me out to dry.
“What if I told you that your father wants Renato to protect you?”
I scoffed softly. “Protect me? So they sent you? The Terminator? You just want to use me to scare him, right?”
The man was staring down at me, and for a second, I thought he might answer. It was an obvious one. I knew I was right. It was just the way things worked in our world.
“Would you rather I handed you over to the other guys? I can do it right now. The gang’s all here… I could hand you over and be back in New Jersey tomorrow and forget you ever existed.”
“Then you’d fail your little mission, and I have a feeling that’s important to men like you,” I said, raking my gaze over him. He had to be former military; there was no mistaking his upright carriage and the precision of his movements.
“Men like me?”
“Rule followers. Mercenaries. I’ve met toasters with more empathy,” I blurted out before I could stop myself.
He studied me and then grinned. There was more warmth in an ice storm.
“In that case, why don’t you decide who you want to go with. Them, or me. Decide now. I’m happy to break the rules and give you up, if that’s what you choose.”
My throat tightened, swallowing the rush of words I wanted to spit at him. But in reality, what could I say?
“Come on, Signora Conti, choose. Them, or me.” His arms tightened around me.
“Don’t call me that,” I muttered, distracted by my impending doom. I had no idea what the other men wanted, but this one was taking me to Renato De Sanctis. At least that would buy me time… and I knew Renato. He’d never been a true monster.
“Fine, I choose you. Take me to Renato and let me plead my case. I know him. He won’t kill me.” I raised my chin and tried to feel as confident as I sounded.
My mystery man tilted his head to the side. “If you think that’s the worst he could do, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. Now, where do you keep the knives in this place?”
“Knives? Don’t you have a gun?” I was distracted from his ominous warning by his question. There were dangerous men sneaking into the building as we spoke, and he didn’t have his gun?
“Yeah, because I’m going to wander around LA while the cops are looking for me, carrying a murder weapon. Great idea. No, I don’t have a gun, but I don’t need one for these fuckers. Kindly direct me to something with a sharp edge.”
“There has to be at least ten of them,” I said.
“Your point being?” He raised an arrogant eyebrow at me.
Wow. Someone was confident in their killer moves. I just had to hope he had the skills to back it up.
We didn’t have actual knives in the workshop. Why would we? But there was something we had plenty of. I reached around the corner we were hiding behind and grabbed two shiny objects glinting on the cutting table.
I handed both pairs of fabric shears to him. He stared at them for a second, nodding.
“Now, get down and don’t make a sound.” His hand landed on my shoulder, and he pushed me toward the floor.
I hit it unceremoniously and shot a scowl at him, crawling under the nearest desk. My mystery man took a pair of fabric shears in each hand, melting into the darkness.
Silence fell, punctuated by the thump of the metal door at the top of the workshop stairs. They had entered our level.
Low male voices speaking in Italian filled the space. They moved down the stairs, their footsteps echoing around the dark room.
Sweat rolled down my neck. I felt sick. There were other men who wanted to get to me to threaten my father? I felt like there had been a huge, glowing bullseye on my back since I’d gotten that call from the lawyer. I was fucked. How was I going to get out of this mess?
As I thought furiously about how I could possibly get rid of the target on me, murky shapes moved at the other end of the workshop. My eyes had adjusted to the dark enough that I could make out the other guys. I knew they weren’t my very own personal robot/killing machine, because they weren’t nearly as big as him, nor as graceful.
They moved in a line, talking quietly among themselves. One from the back of the line disappeared and didn’t reappear.
One down.
The men continued on, while my mercenary picked them off one by one. The only sign he’d been there was a glint of metal every now and again.
Eventually, the men realized what was happening, and all hell broke loose. They started to shoot blindly behind them, hitting each other at times. My man in black glided through the middle, an avenging angel, sidestepping shots as if he were bulletproof. He swayed and ducked with perfect elegance. He made killing look like a dance. When someone landed a kick to his chest, he caught his leg and sliced his Achilles tendon with one hard snip. His shears flashed as he stabbed them into his opponents’ chests. Rapid cuts that sent them to their knees. He whirled and finished one off by slashing the side of his neck, releasing a great spray of arterial blood right across a roll of raw white silk.
I shuddered at the sight. Fuck, after this, I could never come back here.
Ever.
He worked his way through the group of men, and faster than I could believe, silence fell again. My mercenary dropped the shears into his pocket and surveyed the mess, shoving a hand through his hair. The motion triggered a flood of recollection. He was like someone ripped right from my memories at that moment. But he wasn’t him… the bloody carnage on the floor of the workshop was more proof of that, than even those dark brown eyes. Elio Santori had never wanted to become a man like his father… a gangster.
I stared, and he brought his bloodthirsty gaze to meet mine.
I held that blistering stare for a good while, then he glanced away.
“We’re leaving, and try to run away this time, and I’ll leave you to the next wave of these guys. Don’t be fooled that this is over. It’s just begun.”
With that, he turned on his heel and made for the door. I pushed myself from my paralysis and grabbed my bag, running after him.