Chapter 46
Massimo and Alfie weren’t particularly discreet as they drove, which meant one of two things.
Either they didn’t think I’d make it out alive, or it didn’t matter if I knew.
Both options were possible. Alfie warned Massimo not to trust Giambrone too much.
Massimo bitched about being sick of begging for scraps and how finally someone realized the asset he was.
Based on that information and what I knew of Massimo, it was easy enough to deduce what was going on.
The problem was neither of them mentioned Lou again.
At first, with my mouth duct-taped, I grumbled muted incomprehensible babble, begging for information.
That earned me a nick on my knee from Massimo’s bowie knife the first time he told me to shut it, and a small gash on my forearm the second time.
The third time, he vaulted around in his front seat and pressed the knife to my throat.
“We need you alive. Not in one piece.” The car bounded over a dip in the road, and the blade bit into my skin. My breath hitched from the sting. “Keep this up, and I’ll start taking you apart bit by bit, starting with your eyes. You got me?”
I nodded stiffly, and Massimo sat back in his seat. Hot blood trickled down my arm to my lap and wet the collar of my shirt near my neck.
After that, I stayed quiet. I didn’t move. I didn’t attract their attention at all. I regulated my breathing and reined in my emotions. I focused on what I could control, such as carefully sawing the scalpel blade through the tape.
As expected, both Massimo and Alfie got bored with me quickly. They stopped checking on me after the first few miles of silence down the freeway. Alfie tossed me the occasional glance in the rearview mirror, but the further we went and the longer I remained inconspicuous, the less he glimpsed back.
There didn’t seem to be any purpose to where we were headed.
For a while, we went east, crossing the Bay, then north past Berkeley, before backtracking and continuing south to Fremont.
It wasn’t until Massimo got a call that they seemed to have a destination in mind.
By that point, I was banking on the fact that their photo of Lou was an edited montage made solely to lure me in.
My nose itched from their constant smoking.
When they made a pit stop at a drive-through, the smell of greasy burgers and fries made the ashtray reek worse.
Paper bags and wrappers crackled as they gobbled down their food.
They didn’t offer me any, not that I had the stomach for it.
They didn’t even taunt me with it. I was just baggage to them—harmless, mindless baggage. It was better that way.
By sunset, my stomach was growling, my legs and arms were cramping, and I wished there was water to wash the taste of duct tape from my tongue.
The bindings around my arms and legs had long ago been cut.
The tape was peeled off my mouth enough for me to move my lips.
All the while, the two jerkwads up front remained blissfully unaware, prattling off about their business plans, possible ways Giambrone might deal with Renzo—none very creative—or random current events I couldn’t give a rat’s tush about.
As we drove up some hills with scattered shadows of evergreens that turned into a forest of redwoods, the car slowed to a crawling twenty-five miles per hour.
If I was going to escape and make a jump for it, this was it.
I bit my lips, peeking out the window. A shiver went down my bare arms. The blare of our headlights showed pine needles and leaves covering the thin road shoulder, but beyond that, there were constant trees, with the occasional drop-off. Not ideal at all.
To my surprise, a minuscule version of the Golden Gate Bridge cropped out in the distance under the last vestiges of daylight.
It was exactly what I needed to build up my courage.
We weren’t that far from home, and night was falling fast. They’d have a hard time finding my trace this way.
With a deep breath, I quietly unclicked my seatbelt and scooted little by little to the passenger door.
“Remember, we’re in control here,” Massimo said, racking the slide of his gun. “They’re not getting her.”
“What’ll Giambrone think, boss?” Alfie questioned. “He told us to hand her over.”
“He respects power. We need to show his men that we won’t be walked on. We’ll establish ourselves right away. Lou gets in with us, or nobody’s going anywhere. We’re not doing this for them to fuck with us.”
I froze, mid-pull on the door handle. So, they did have Lou.
My thoughts raced by, like the scenery. What about Boyan?
How did they get her? My hand shook against the door.
My breath stuttered out. Was she hurt? A rush of nausea hit me because I had almost left her behind.
Cautiously, I sat back in position, clipping the seatbelt back in place just in time.
They turned onto a small offshoot road, slowing down further. The tires ground over rocks. The car rocked from side to side down the dirt road.
“There they are.” Massimo signaled after about a minute of driving.
Blinding headlights up ahead flickered twice in the darkness.
Alfie pulled to a stop with a squeak of the brakes as four men exited the SUV in front of us.
They left their front doors open, the engine still running, their shapes shadowed outlines between our headlights and theirs. No sign of Lou yet.
“Don’t think about moving.” Alfie flashed his gun in front of me.
I nodded again. Satisfied, he and Massimo exited the car. I always thought Alfie was a stupid brute. This just proved that. As if I was staying put to wait on their goodwill not to kill or torture me.
The interior car lights didn’t flick on when their doors opened, but the car chimed until Alfie slammed the driver’s door shut.
The keys in the ignition swayed and clinked.
Crouched low, I clambered over the console and stole them.
With a soft click, my passenger door opened.
Fresh air filled my lungs. Pine needles crinkled softly beneath my weight as I circled the car’s exterior. A vehicle rumbled past in the distance.
“You Mickey the drummer?” Massimo called out.
I flinched. I’d heard Mickey was one of Giambrone’s most ruthless capos. Rumor was, he got the nickname because he liked to bash in the heads of his victims.
“Yeah, that’s me,” a deep, rumbling voice I didn’t recognize said. “Where’s the woman?”
“Back seat,” Massimo answered. “The girl?”
One man’s shadowed hand pointed back to their vehicle, a good ten feet away.
Heart beating in my throat, I crept off the road and into the woods to loop around all of them. I hid behind tree after tree. My footsteps pattered over packed dirt and a few uncovered roots.
“Good,” Massimo said. “Give her to me.”
“That’s not our instructions. Give us the Burch woman.”
“Change of plans. We’ll be handling the trade.”
Step by step, I snuck further from Massimo’s sedan. I was about level with the SUV now.
The stranger chortled. “That shows how little you know. There won’t be a trade.”
“Then what the hell are we here for?”
“Cleanup.”
The quick pulse of a suppressed firearm plowed through their standoff, and a body thumped to the ground. I stiffened, halfway to the Giambrone men’s car.
“Boss. Massimo,” Alfie bleated as more shots went off. He scampered behind his own car. “Shit. Shit. Fuck.”
Shots went off. Alfie’s were sharp and booming, echoing through the darkness.
Theirs were punctuated and low, chilling in their effectiveness.
Bullets clanked into the metal of cars as more people ran to assist Giambrone’s goons.
They must have been lying in wait just in case.
I hesitated. What if there were more? What if there wasn’t?
I took the chance and ran to the back of the SUV, recoiling with every thunk of a stray bullet. The exhaust fumes clung to my lungs.
“We can work this out,” Alfie yelled.
“Cute.” Suppressed gunfire whipped through the night amidst Alfie’s bursts of return fire.
I snaked around to the open front passenger door and hunched over to crawl inside the purring car.
The carpet was soft. The supple leather seats still had that new car smell.
The varnished wood console didn’t feel like it had a single scratch, and a zesty air freshener vamped it all up.
These Vegas cronies didn’t skimp on their rentals.
A stray bullet clapped through the windshield, and I ducked with a whimper.
Someone else gave a muffled wail. There in the back seat was Lou.
Her eyes widened to marbles, the white of them shining in the dark.
She was bound by her hands and feet, lying on the back seat, unable to sit up.
There was no way I was going to have time to cut her free before those goons finished with Alfie.
I scrambled over the console and tore out the cloth gag stuffed in her mouth.
“Anzy, they’re—”
“Shhh.” I pressed the tip of a finger to her lips. “We’re going to get out of here.”
“How?” she rasped, her body shaking.
“Same way we came.”
It had gone quiet outside as I wormed into the driver’s seat, strapped my seatbelt on, and hunkered down, level with the dashboard. The steering wheel gently vibrated in my hands as I took a deep breath, my foot hovering over the accelerator. This was it.
“The woman’s not here,” one of the men cried out. “Door’s open.”
“Spread out. Find her.”