“What is it you want, bitch? You want to die sooner? Because you’re heading in the right direction. I should just end you now.” He hisses, pulling a gun out from behind his waist and aiming it between my eyes.
I take a step forward, butting my forehead up to the barrel of the gun.
“Now, now Lucio. Daddy won’t be very happy if you take away his fun now, will he? Besides, you won’t pull that trigger and we both know it.” I taunt with a sinister smile on my lips as I poke the psychopathic son with his daddy issues. Lucio may want to kill me, but he wants his father’s approval more than anything. Killing me will only anger the man further and we both know he doesn’t want to do that.
Lucio’s hand flies up and pain sears my cheek as it splits open from the backhanded hit. A cry sounds from Ali as I huff and swallow the pain of the blow.
Leveling my head again, I stand taller, shoulders back. “You can hit me. You can break every goddamn bone in my body, but you will never break me.”
He may have hit me, but he didn’t shoot me. His actions told me everything and now I have the upper hand. I just have to get these damn cuffs off.
“We’ll see, little Lindsey. We’ll see,” he mumbles, walking over to grab Ali. Turning around, he pulls her forward and heads for the abandoned warehouse we’re parked in front of. The man beside me shoves a gun at my waist and pushes me forward with the hand he’s using to grip my arm. I could disarm him and take him down. But I have to be smart. I have to play this right or we really will die here today.
Sirens register in the distance and I turn back around to see if they’re in sight, but they’re not. Only similar warehouses and factories fill the streets. There is no one around, no one to yell to for help. Surely Cassidy would be at our place by now. She’d see we aren’t there and hopefully realize something’s wrong. She’ll call Mason. Hope flutters in my stomach. Yes, he’ll be coming for us. I just have to distract Lucio long enough.
Hope subsides quicker than I can blink because when I turn back around, Giuseppe Marino’s face lurches bile right up to my throat. There he stands with two associates in the doorway of the shabby graffiti-covered warehouse with some of its windows missing. Smoke fills my lungs as we close in on him.
“Lucio, about time, boy. Took you long enough. Girls, come in.” He throws his cigarette to the ground and steps to the side, gesturing a hand out in front of him for us.
A rough shove from Lucio’s lapdog sends me over the threshold and into an empty building with plaster peeling off the walls and concrete beams scattered throughout the level. Every step we take echoes, each breath loud in my ears, and as I’m pushed down to the floor, I stare out the dirty glass windows, hoping, praying we’ll make it out of here alive and not in body bags.
My knees fill with pain as they slam to the floor, and I hunch forward to lean on my hands. “You asshole. Want to be any rougher?” I snap back at the lapdog, but he says nothing. He must know to say nothing if he wants to keep his job.
“Ah, so good to see you in fine form, Lindsey. I see nothing has changed over the past few months.” I lift my head and meet Giuseppe’s smug face, smiling at me with fondness. I grimace.
“Fuck. You,” I hiss.
He runs a hand through his salt and pepper hair, which is perfectly aligned as it is every day. He bends down, undoing the button on his suit jacket as he moves. For a man who kills for leisure on a daily basis, there isn’t a drop of stained blood on his expensive suit.
“You ungrateful bitch. After everything I have done for you. After all these years of leading you down the right path, setting you up for a future in our world and you go and fuck it all up over your junkie sister who can’t stay clean.” A chuckle falls from his lips as he stands back up and he pulls a gun from inside his jacket, waving it around as he continues speaking. “You know, I always thought you were a smart girl, Lindsey. But what you did in court, not so smart. Now you will pay, both of you will.”
A cry rips from Ali’s throat beside me. “No. Please. You can’t. Not now, you can’t kill me now.” She shakes her head, lowering her face into her palms as she curls her body over, bringing her hands and face to her knees. Her whole body rocks as she sobs.
Lucio groans and paces the room, gun still held tightly in his hand. “Oh, enough already. Come on, Papa, just get this done already. I have to go meet Cannon in ten minutes.”
“Would you shut your fucking mouth, boy? Listen to yourself. You talk too fucking much in front of people,” Giuseppe yells at his son, his Italian accent thick and loud.
Lucio throws his arms up. “They’re about to die. What the fuck does it matter what they hear?”
It’s like whiplash, back and forth, back and forth. The two Marino men argue and I sit in silence with my mouth closed, thankful for the distraction because it’s buying us time. Ali is still sobbing, with her head down, hands wrapped around her middle. My heart aches at the sight and my fingers itch to comfort her.
I slip my hand out to her and rub her back. I then stick my neck up to look further out the window again. Come on, Mason.
“All right! Enough! It’s time.”
Ali and I both jump, startling at the rough outburst from Giuseppe.
Nausea twists up my insides as Giuseppe points his gun at Ali’s head. He turns his face toward me and a quiver runs through me when I realize what he’s about to do. His lips curl into a smile and my pulse quickens.
Ali whimpers, tears flowing freely down her cheeks.
“No! Don’t. Don’t kill her,” I choke out, my voice breaking. I clutch at my throat. I’m choking and I can’t breathe. He can’t shoot her. I won’t let her die.
“Don’t worry, I’m not yet.” He tilts his head to the side, eyeing Alison as he speaks. “One last person wants to see you, Alison,” he announces, his voice so smooth like he isn’t about to end another human’s life.
The rhythmic sounds of heels travel toward us until I’m greeted with long black hair swishing in the air over a skinny olive-skinned shoulder.
“Oh, shit,” I whisper.
Alison gasps. “Adriana.”
She smiles at her father, greeting him the same way she would at any family gathering. “Princess.” Giuseppe envelopes his daughter with a care and love he had shown me once upon a time, and I shudder at the thought of his hands on me.
“Papa, why don’t you let me do the honors with these two? After all, Ali was my best friend.” Adriana lays out the palm of her hand and Giuseppe slips his gun in proudly, knowing exactly what she is asking for. How could she? My mind spins to come up with answers, but nothing makes any sense.
“Make it clean, Adriana. We don’t need a big mess to clean up.”
“What? Adriana no, please. Don’t do this. I’m sorry, okay. So sorry I betrayed our family,” Alison begs, her body trembling.
Adrenaline flies through my veins. Fuck, is she really going to do this? I can’t move. There are two lapdogs with guns trained on me, and Giuseppe’s men are right behind him ready to strike. There are too many people in the room with weapons. I can’t take them all down, even if I wanted to, not without someone ending up shot or dead. I can’t risk it. I won’t risk Ali.
Sweat drips down my back as Adriana stands tall, posture stiff, legs apart, eyeing me while turning the gun on her best friend.
“Are you ready, Lindsey?” she asks, and I frown, glancing around for answers. What the hell is she talking about? Am I ready to watch my little sister die? No, I’m certainly not.
I didn’t have time to think, only time to act.
Adriana turns the gun on her father.
Bang.
He falls to the ground with a loud thud. Blood runs down his forehead and for a moment, time stops. Everything stops as I soak in the cold, dead eyes of the devil himself. No momentary relief soothes me, happiness doesn’t engulf me to see the man who deepened my connection with the underbelly of New York City dead. I feel nothing but a calming silence before the storm.