Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 96170 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96170 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
“I don’t know!” He’s shaking now. Probably pissing himself. Fucking nothings like this won’t hesitate to kill whoever they want, but as soon as the gun’s turned on them, suddenly life and death matters. Pathetic slime.
“Not a good answer.”
“Hold on. Wait! I was just given orders by my crew chief! That’s all I know!”
“What were your objectives? Were you trying to sabotage the Serrano family’s business? What were you doing there?”
“I don’t—I can’t—” He looks around in a panic. Distantly, the whine of sirens echoes over the city. Perfect fucking timing.
“Time to go,” Enzo says gently. He’s such a damn good actor. Everyone here knows we’re not killing this guy until he talks. “Pull the trigger and be done with it.”
“The girl!” Mario screams, eyes wild with terror. “We were there for the girl!”
I go very still. My men stare at me with varying looks on their faces. Enzo seems thoughtful. Leo looks confused. Stefano’s pissed.
“It wasn’t the cars? You weren’t trying to hit the Serranos directly?”
“No, no, it wasn’t like that. We were told to kill the girl no matter what. Make it look like a robbery, but kill the girl. Please, that’s everything I know. Please—”
I pull the trigger.
Mario’s throat bursts out the back of his neck in a spray of blood. He topples backward, gagging and choking, clutching desperately at his wound like he can turn back time. I step back, rage rolling through me in white-hot waves.
They were there for Fiorella.
“Guess we’re not getting more out of him,” Enzo comments with a sigh.
“Should we clean this up?” Leo asks, looking around.
“No, you idiot,” Stefano says, batting at his head. “Come on, time for you to go.”
“Don’t talk to me like that; you know it annoys me.”
“Now, now, boys,” Enzo says, dragging Leo away. “See you back at the depot.”
I’m barely paying attention. I keep staring at the corpse in front of me, trying to make sense of what he just said.
I went into this assuming it was some kind of hit against the Serranos. I figured whoever was behind it wanted to drive their business into the ground. The Serrano Famiglia is deep in debt, and they can’t afford to lose more work. It wouldn’t take that much effort for a rival to torch them to the ground.
I figured Fiorella was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But it’s so much worse than that.
“Boss,” Stefano says from my shoulder. “We really do have to go.”
The sirens are getting louder.
I pull myself away and storm back to the truck. Stefano climbs in beside me as I take it out of park and pull away, hands gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles hurt.
“New orders,” I bark over the radio. “From now until the wedding, we’re watching over Fiorella. She doesn’t go anywhere without at least two of us nearby. Do you all understand?”
“I’ll start making schedules,” Davide says with a sigh.
Chapter 8
Fiorella
Two Weeks Later
“You sure you’re good?” Ernesto frowns at me from under his mop of black hair. He’s the foreman of this garage and the last one to leave for the night.
“Don’t worry about me.” I tap the hood of the Spider with my wrench. “Just got to finish up. If I stop now, I’ll lose all my momentum.”
He grunts, rubbing the back of his head. “I hear you, Fio, but you shouldn’t stay late anymore. You remember what happened a few weeks back.”
I wave his concern away. “Papa’s taking care of that. It was a fluke, right? I’ll be fine. I’ve worked after close a hundred times.”
“Yeah, okay, you’re right.” He hesitates still, but he finally shakes his head. “I wish my guys worked half as hard as you.”
“Give them jobs they actually like, and maybe they would.”
He barks a quick laugh and waves a hand. “Call if you need anything, alright, mija? I don’t need any more headaches from you.”
“You know me. I’m totally self-sufficient.”
“That’s the problem.”
I watch him go before turning up my radio. This is the best time of the day, when all of Papa’s guys are gone for a few hours before the real night shift begins in earnest. Ernesto runs a crew of mostly legal employees doing mostly legitimate car work as a front for the actual chop shop activities. It’s nine at night, and the criminals won’t start showing up until eleven. Then they work until four in the morning, the place closes for a couple of hours, and the cycle starts all over again.
I’m elbow deep in work and the world fades to nothing. This is what I live for. These stolen moments where I’m alone and doing a job I love. No thoughts, no worries, only pure flow. Simple step after simple step, each one building on the other, until the task is complete.
That’s as free as I get these days.