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I can all but hear my father’s words in my ear from the many lessons he gave me in our back yard. “Steady your grip. Aim for the chest. Exhale. Don’t pull the trigger. Squeeze it gently.”
A large man clears the threshold, backlit by the city lights filtering through the living room window. Blowing out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding, I squeeze the trigger. The deafening sound of the gun firing fills the room as he falls to the floor. Two more men quickly push into the room, and it only takes me three more rounds to put the two of them on the floor.
Not pulling the gun away from the door, I toss back the covers and climb from the bed. Sophia has already climbed from the bed and is kneeling beside one of the dead men to pull the gun from his hand.
“They won’t stop coming, jefa,” a pained, yet familiar voice, gurgles from the floor.
“Mateo?” Sofia’s tone is a mixture of excitement and confusion.
Returning from a quick sweep of the apartment to ensure there aren’t any other men waiting at the other end of the hallway, I flip on the bedroom light.
Even seeing Mateo with own eyes, I can’t believe it’s him. He’s lying in a pool of blood beside the two dead men. Blood bubbles from his lips as he struggles to take a breath.
My bullet must have hit a lung.
“What the fuck did you say?” Sofia shoves the gun in her hand against his chest.
He lays silently at her feet.
Dying men don’t have a lot of motivation to talk.
She shoves the gun hard against the bullet wound in his upper flank, causing him to wince. When words don’t come from his mouth, she presses harder. Hard enough the barrel begins to dimple his skin as muzzle presses into the hole. She squeezes the trigger, and he cries out as the bullet widens the hole in his chest.
“They won’t stop coming,” he repeats his words as he chokes on his own blood. “Not until you’re dead. He knew a woman could never run his empire.”
“Papaito?” Sofia asks the rhetorical question as her demeanor drastically darkens.
twenty seven
SOFIA
“I would expect this of him,” I seethe at Mateo. “But I’m fucking disappointed in you.”
Without hesitation, I lift the gun and squeeze off a round to his temple.
“Vete al infierno,” I mutter the words as I make my way to my feet.
Most children would be surprised to find their own father put a hit on their life, but I’m not even the least bit shocked. He has always kept me at arm’s length from his business. A little of the finances. An occasional trip to a practically obsolete warehouse. Eliminating what I always figured where low-level nobodies. Never explaining the details of his operation or actually bringing me into his inner circle.
The tension between me and his men now clear. I was never supposed to be in charge. He’s probably spent the past few months in prison working to run his empire from the inside or put someone else in charge until he’s freed.
“Where’s your bag?” I look up at Gabriel.
“By the front door,” he replies.
Leaving bloody footprints across the cream carpet, I make my way to the bathroom to quickly clean my feet and pull up my hair. Tearing off Gabriel’s shirt as I leave the bathroom, I walk toward the closet.
“Are you going to get dressed? Or do you plan on leaving the apartment in just your boxers?”
Gabriel grabs a pair of sweatpants from the floor and pulls them on as I’m shimmying into skinny jeans and a tank top. Not having many clothes to choose from at my place, he lifts the shirt I just discarded from the floor and pulls it over his head.
Both of have our shoes on, and we are out the door within a matter of minutes. Reaching the lobby, it’s a still a disaster. Wood panels cover the blown-out glass from this morning. While I have a car in the garage, I’m not willing to risk Gabriel’s life to determine whether that one also has a bomb strapped to the bottom.
As I step onto the street, it’s quiet. Eerily quiet as though the city that never sleeps is currently taking a nap. A cab rounds the corner, and I raise my arm to hail it. My hand rests on the grip of the gun tucked into the back of my jeans as he approaches and pulls to the curb. Seeing the driver is a stocky, older man with a handlebar mustache—clearly not a man that works for my father—I release my grip and pull my shirt back over the gun.
“Teterboro.” I give our destination as I’m sliding into the back seat. “Private charters. Do you have a cell phone I can borrow for a moment?”
Gabriel’s phone was ruined earlier today in the bath. For fear that my father is able to track mine, I figured it was best to leave it behind.
