Chapter 22 #2
“Your brains will be all over this pillow before your finger even touches the trigger.” I informed him.
He froze, eyes rolling toward me. Then they widened until he looked like an owl in a cartoon.
“That’s the difference between me and you. You send men when you have a problem, but me? I deal with it myself.”
His body tensed at the insult, and I jammed the gun harder into his bone, reminding him exactly who was in charge.
“How’d you get in here?” he rasped.
“You should really hire better security,” I said.
“If I scream, you’ll be dead in seconds.”
“Maybe,” I allowed. “But not before this gun rearranges your face.”
“What do you want?” he asked.
“An apology for starters.”
He scoffed. “For fucking what?”
“For trying to hire me to do clean-up on a job your men botched.”
His eyes went round again, nostrils flaring.
I shook my head, telling him to save his outrage. “You really should surround yourself with more capable men.”
“That’s why I hired you.”
“Don’t try and compliment me now,” I said, hard. “And you didn’t hire me. I said no.”
“Twelve million.”
“Is that your apology?” I asked. “Because what would have been a straightforward job is now a lot more fucking complicated. You sent three men to kill one, and he got away. Now he’s in hiding. He’s gonna be harder to kill.”
“You saying you can’t do it?”
“I’m saying I don’t want to.”
“Thirteen,” he countered.
“Money is nice,” I said. “But I think you’re going to have to try a little harder.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to know why you want him dead.”
His eyes darted to the side, staring up at me with surprise. “What do you care?”
“I don’t. But you’re desperate. And sloppy. And throwing money at me like it grows on trees. I want to know what I’m risking.”
“Nothing that thirteen million won’t erase.”
“True. Is that how you got away with killing Salvatore?” I asked.
His face paled in the dark, and his tongue darted out to swipe his lip. “Salvatore was my brother. I’d never kill him.”
“Not even if he was the only thing in your way of taking over this entire region?”
“Fuck you,” he swore. “The cops have no leads.”
“I bet that cost more than thirteen million. I bet it’s also the reason you want someone else to get their hands dirty this time. You don’t want to look to suspicious or else the brothers might come calling.”
His breathing increased, and his eyes darted around the room.
“It makes me wonder, Nicholas. Who is this kid, and why do you want him dead so badly? What threat is he to you?”
He gave a yell and launched up, but I slammed the butt of the gun into the side of his head. He fell backward with a grunt.
The door burst open, and light from the hall flooded into the room, not quite reaching where I stood.
“Boss!” one of the bodyguards yelled, rushing in with his gun drawn.
“Shoot him!” Grimaldi roared, trying to crawl over to the other side of the bed.
I grabbed his leg and hauled him back while a bullet flew over my head. I squeezed off a shot, and the bodyguard went down.
Grimaldi froze when I leveled the gun on the center of his hairy chest. “You could have just answered the question.”
“Incoming!” a familiar voice yelled, and I leaped back just as another man with a gun rushed in, firing off several shots in every direction. I dove to the side, the sound of gunfire ringing in my ears.
Somewhere in the condo, a door splintered, and men started shouting. “Fan out! Shoot to kill.”
Grimaldi launched himself at me, and we slammed into the curtain-covered windows. He swung, and I ducked, catching him around the waist and driving him back. We went down in a tangle of limbs, my gun sliding across the carpet.
He grabbed my face, trying to push his thumbs into my eye sockets, and I punched him in the side of the head.
“Freeze!” the wild-shooting bodyguard yelled, and I glanced up as he took aim.
The back of his head imploded, eyes widening and then going empty in the same second he fell facedown onto the carpet.
Ghost’s hand dropped out of the open vent in the ceiling, and I grabbed my gun as I rushed forward, leaping up to grab his hand so he could tow me up.
The extra men burst in just as I disappeared.
“Shoot them!” Grimaldi ordered, and bullets started spraying the ceiling like heavy rainfall.
We weren’t quiet as we scrambled through the vents, banging and cursing as bullets plowed through drywall and dented the metal.
Instead of going out the same place we went in, Ghost led us farther until we reached the building’s laundry facility. We dropped into the empty space filled with massive equipment, and then Ghost climbed into a hole in the wall.
“See you on the flipside,” he said and dropped.
I followed, falling down a long, narrow tube that spit me out into a large bin of trash. My hand slid into something wet and slimy when I sat up, and my left foot got lost in large black bags filled with something that smelled worse than a dead body.
Ghost disappeared over the side, and I shook my arm off, following. Saying nothing, we left from a service door that exited on the opposite side of the building than where we entered.
He was already sitting shotgun when I slid into the SUV, and he rolled his head in my direction, grinning like the asshole he was.
“Really, Ghost? The trash,” I deadpanned.
He laughed. “You should have seen your face.”
Sliding my tongue over my teeth, I swiped my sticky, infested hand across his cheek and then smooshed it against his lips.
“Ohhh, that’s nasty!” he hollered, shoving my hand away.
“If I get the plague, you’re paying for my antibiotics.”
“It’s good for the immune system.”
I gave him the finger and pulled away from the curb, turning down the first alley I saw, and then took several more streets and alleys, doubling back a few times and making sure we weren’t being followed.
When I was finally satisfied, I headed for home.
Clearing my throat, I said, “So, ah, thank you for having my back in there.”
“You mean thanks for shooting that man in the back of the head before you had to explain why you had a new bullet hole when you got home?”
“That’s what I said,” I retorted. “Just without all the thespian detail.”
“Details matter.”
I sighed. “I appreciate it. You didn’t have to come, but you did.”
“You’d have done the same for me.”
I said nothing.
He cleared his throat.
“I would,” I relented.
“Was that so hard?” he teased.
Excruciating. “Next time, just let me get shot.”
“Now who’s the thespian?”
I grunted. “That was a complete shit show.”
“But did you die?”
No. But Grimaldi didn’t either, and I still had no answers other than now I was positive he was the one who killed Salvatore.
“Please tell me you found something in his office,” I said. Otherwise, this entire thing did nothing but stir the hornet’s nest.
Ghost reached behind him and pulled a file folder from under his jacket. “This here is what I’d like to call the jackpot.”
I fought the urge to grab the folder and rifle through it while I was driving. “What is it?” I asked.
“Answers.”
“About Haz?” Forgetting the steering wheel, I reached for the folder.
Ghost yanked it away. “Keep your grubby garbage hands off this and your eyes on the road.”
“These garbage hands are about to demonstrate your kneecaps are a privilege and not a right.”
“Love has changed you.”
“Ghost,” I growled.
“Fine.” He conceded and opened the folder.
I tried to see what was inside, but the interior of the car was too dark.
“But before I tell you, let me just say you sure can pick them.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I barked, impatient.
He told me.
And fuck, he was right.