Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 82847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
“You’re just really… I don’t know.”
“I think you do know.”
She hesitated before she turned to look at me.
“A crazy, psychotic, deranged man is fucking obsessed with you.” I held her stare and watched her hold her breath while she continued to maintain eye contact with me, afraid to look at me but more afraid to look away. “You should be scared.” A dangerous smile moved over my lips. “Not for you, but anyone who looks at you in a way I don’t like, gets just a little too close, says something I don’t like… They’re fucked.”
13
WOLFE
I was in the back seat of the SUV. Two guys were in the front, and Andre was in the right seat beside me. We were in the lead, while Don Mancini, Leo, and Elio were in the next vehicle, and then there was another vehicle behind that.
They put me in the front just in case they sprayed us with bullets when we got there.
It was fine, no hard feelings.
My phone vibrated with a text, so I pulled it out of my front pocket and glanced at the screen.
It was Francesca. Please be careful.
I grinned from ear to ear. Aw, my baby’s worried about me. Who’s obsessed with whom now?
I’m serious, Wolfe.
Don’t ever worry about me. It’s my job to worry about you.
Your arrogance is what I worry about.
It’ll be alright, baby. You know how many times I’ve been shot?
Cristo…
I’ll tell you when this is done.
Please text me the second you’re on your way home.
I was about to step into a den of vipers, but I was sitting in the back seat grinning like an idiot. I promise, baby. We’re about to pull up, so I need to go radio silent now. See you soon. I shoved my phone into my front pocket without waiting for her to text back, knowing it was time to put my game face on.
Andre stared at me with bullets in his eyes. “What the fuck are you smiling about?”
I changed Francesca’s name in my phone to Baby, so if anyone saw my texts on my phone, they wouldn’t know it was my boss’s daughter. “It was my girl.”
“You got a girl?”
“Yep. And she’s fiiiine.” I looked forward again. A black gate opened for us, and we approached a small two-story warehouse near the docks. It was quiet out because it was three in the morning. Everyone fast asleep on a weekday evening.
Our SUV came to a stop, and I hopped out, seeing the guards with their rifles stare us down like this was already hostile. They maintained their stance by the double doors that led to the meeting inside with Lombardi and his cronies.
The drivers stayed in the vehicles, having rifles if we needed cover.
I walked up first. “Evening, boys. Or, should I say, morning?”
They didn’t say a word to me, and the first one patted me down to check for guns.
The other moved to Andre and did the same to him.
The guy who frisked me found the knife I kept tucked inside my boot. He took it and straightened, holding it in front of me before he clicked his tongue and shook his head.
“You said no guns.” I grabbed his wrist and twisted it quickly before I slammed my other hand down on his, hitting him so hard he dropped the knife. With killer instincts, I reached out and grabbed it. “But nothing about knives.” I turned the handle back and forth so the blade would catch the light before I tucked it back into my boot.
The guy lifted his rifle and pointed the barrel straight at my chest and put his finger to the trigger.
“Ooh, big man with a big gun.” I stepped forward, pushing my body into the barrel as I drove him back. “Gonna blow this whole deal for your boss because his little boy never learned how to play with guns?”
His ferocity wavered when I mocked him, the pressure against my chest decreasing as he pulled the rifle away slightly.
I gave the rifle a hard shove. “Get that shit outta my face.” Then I spat on him. “Figgh’i buttana.”
His comrade put a hand to his shoulder and stopped him from escalating it.
Don Mancini and everyone else had checked in during our altercation, so we were permitted to enter the warehouse, a single long table in the center of the cavernous room, Lombardi and his cronies already seated, waiting for us.
I looked at the large wooden crates stacked up against the wall and looked for the one with the streak of red paint down the side.
Don Mancini took the lead and approached the table. “Luigi.”
“Vincenzo, have a seat.”
Don Mancini pulled out the chair in the center and sat down. Elio took the seat beside him and Leo on the other side.
I lingered in the back with Andre and Nicola, bodyguards without guns. I crossed my arms over my chest and looked at the open gallery upstairs, a walkway with doors that led to another part of the building, a perfect angle to shoot all of us like fish in a barrel.