Total pages in book: 180
Estimated words: 176012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 176012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
Glancing around, I don’t recognize anyone else. Many of them are young, too young to have been around the last time I was here. But drugs are piled in front of one, and scars adorn the face of another. Guns litter the table.
“Thanks for coming to me,” Hugo muses. “It makes this so much easier.”
The hallway is behind me, but I know I wouldn’t make it far.
I swallow. “Is Reeves here?”
He blows out another puff, narrowing his eyes. “Why would he be here?”
“I assumed you were in contact,” I tell him. “He almost sacrificed you the other night.”
His men glance at him, and I see his uncomfortable shift and chuckle as he drops all four legs of his chair back to the ground. “You must’ve been dreaming, man.”
I tilt my head. If Drew isn’t enlisting his aid, then they’re not on the same side. Which makes Hugo even weaker.
I square my shoulders. “I know you think there’s only one way out for you—death or prison,” I tell him, seeing Tommy drift through a door to the left. She holds the ammo case by the handle and my chest swells with hope. “But you can leave. You can leave now with whoever wants to go with you.”
I have the deed. The firehouse is mine. I’m not stopping him from vacating.
Tommy goes unnoticed, setting down the ammo box on a side table.
But Hugo just mocks me, “And why would I do that?”
Walking over, I flip open the box Tommy brought down, seeing that she’s conveniently disappeared.
The Composition notebook is folded in half and squeezed inside the long box. The words on the outside are faded, but I can make out the word ‘Log.’
Pulling out the book, I turn and hold it up. “Reeves kept this on the people who worked for him,” I explain. “On everyone.”
Farrow watches, tapping his fingers on the tabletop. He knows this threatens him too.
“It’s filled with dates, times, receipts, pictures”—I fan the pages, noticing it’s a lot more full than the last time I was here,—“leverage he could use on anyone he did business with. Including his employees.” I pause, meeting their eyes. “He kept it in the gun cabinet upstairs because he knew you don’t look beyond the end of your nose.”
Reeves probably has another log somewhere, maybe more. Eight years is a lot of time to collect more dirt. But they don’t know what’s in this one and what’s not.
“There’s some really shitty stuff on you in here,” I tell Hugo. He was definitely working here by the time I left. “Do you think it will matter that you were so young?”
They stare at me, some of the much older members knowing they’re definitely mentioned in this book. Their crimes, but what else? Are there photos? Receipts? Texts? Cell logs? They don’t know.
Hugo isn’t smiling anymore. “What’s to stop us from charging you right now?”
“You mean, do I have a digital copy somewhere?” I taunt.
He could attack me, take the notebook…
Or…
Taking the lighter off the table in front of one of his guys, I flick it and hold it up, letting the flame catch on the corner of the book.
In a moment, it goes up in flames, and I drop it into a waste bin, the glow rising up the sides.
“That was stupid,” Hugo remarks.
But I shrug. “I think some of the men around you wouldn’t agree because they know you would’ve taken it and used it to control them.”
I wait for anyone to refute me, argue, pronounce their loyalty to Hugo… But the room stays silent.
“I’m not kicking you out,” I tell him. “I’m giving Green Street to Farrow.” I stop addressing their boss as I order the men instead. “If he leaves right now.”
And I point to Hugo.
He shoots up from his seat. “Fuck you.”
The real questions come now. Do they like the idea of Farrow more than Hugo? If they know who Farrow’s father is, that could work very much in our favor.
“Take him out back,” Hugo barks. “Put him in the car.”
No one moves.
“I said put him in the car!”
I wait for one of his men to seize me. One of them will. Someone will be too scared to disobey.
But before anyone rises, a woman on my far right, and another seated next to one of the guys…moves to Farrow.
Hugo looks back and forth before one by one, all of his guys continue to stay in their seats, ignoring his orders.
Farrow lowers his eyes, but I see the smile because whoever controls the women controls Weston. Hugo was right about that.
I don’t want him to die. I just hope he has the wisdom to know when to cut his losses.
A knock hits the open door behind me, and a kid walks in. “Package at the door.”
He holds up a large manila envelope.