Taillights. I need to kick out the tail lights. I should be able to flag down anyone on our tail so Rocco can…
My heart lurches. My chest tightens so hard I think I might puke.
No. Not now. I need to concentrate. Damn it.
But the sound of those gunshots fills my ears. Teo screaming his name, a mournful, desperate sound from a man who’d known him his whole life.
Rocco had been shot.
Rocco had been shot three times.
I just about have the wherewithal to turn on my side before I hurl my guts up.
The emptiness is overwhelming. Tears slide down my face, my throat burning, heart-shattering. He can’t be…he can't be…he can’t be…
Then the stench hits me like a slap to the face.
A voice in my head that sounds almost like Rocco’s screams at me to pull myself together. I’m the one in danger right now. If I don’t get out of here, I will never know for sure. I will never be able to say goodbye.
Determined, I wriggle down the trunk, inch by painstaking inch, and try to ignore the foul wetness seeping into my clothes. Finally, my foot can reach where I think the taillight must be, so I kick out.
Nothing happens.
I growl in frustration as I kick it again, harder, shoving my heel directly into the plastic casing. But still, nothing seems to move.
“Fuck!” I scream as I start kicking with reckless abandon.
Without any warning, something gives, and my ankle twists at a sickening angle as it pushes all the way through.
I gasp as fresh air immediately fills the small space. I ignore the pain that grips my foot as I scramble around toward the hole I created.
I push my arm through it, and the jagged plastic bites into my arm as I begin to wave frantically.
Maybe someone will see. Maybe someone will call the cops. I don’t stop until I feel the car lurch to one side and the engine growl to a stop.
All I can do is wait and listen as the car doors open and two sets of feet approach the back of the car. I’m bracing myself for whatever comes next.
Well, fuck them if they think I’m going anywhere without a fight.
I don’t recognize the men that open the trunk. Not that I gave myself much time to examine their faces before I began kicking and screaming with everything I have. My injured ankle throbs with every blow.
“Mierda,”one of the men buckles as my attack hits his low-hanging fruit.
But my satisfaction is short-lived when the other manhandles me out of the trunk and throws me over his shoulder.
“You’re fucking DEAD!” I scream, unable to do anything else as he carries me through what appears to be some kind of abandoned warehouse.
“Cállate,”the man holding me snaps.
But I don’t care. “He will fucking kill you for this!”
He shouts something to the man still on his knees by the car that’s barely audible over my shouting, before taking me through another set of doors.
The room we enter is two stories tall, entirely bare, save for a few decommissioned pieces of industrial machinery that are coveredin dust and cobwebs—fishing, I realize, with a start. We must be near the docks.
The second captor appears behind us, dragging a collapsible chair from the wall to the middle of the room.
“Put me down!” I shout loud enough to burst eardrums.
