Hopefully it’s taking him forever. The stupid bastard. He doesn’t know that Raffaele is coming. And by the time he does, hopefully it will be too late.
I shift in the chair. The rope tightens. It doesn’t budge.
“Hey.”
The guard doesn’t look up.
“If you helped me out of this chair, Raffaele would owe you.Personally.Whatever you want.”
He looks up at the ceiling and sighs.Drama queen.
“Don’t you think I’ve done enough?”
“I’m not?—“
“Even if D’Amico’s alive. Even if he shows up. What do you think happens to me if I walk you out of here? The guys downstairs aren’t loyal, but they aren’t stupid. They see me leaving with the package, I’m in pieces by morning. No questions asked.”
“But—“
“There’s no brotherhood here,” he mumbles. “There’s contracts and cash. Every man in this building’s looking out for himself. Me included.”
I want to argue. But I can see it on his face. He helped me send the text. That was the exception. The exception used up his courage budget for the night. He’s back to being the kind of man who sits in a chair and waits for the next instruction.
That’s all I’m getting from him.
I let my head fall back against the wood and stare at the ceiling.
The guard’s still talking.
Something about contracts. Something about why he stays in his lane. I’m not listening.
Because suddenly the lights go out.
One second the room is lit, the next it isn’t.
The only light left is what comes through the gap in the curtains. A thin stripe of it, pale and cold, cutting across the floor at an angle. Enough to see shapes. Not enough to see faces.
“What the—“ The guard is on his feet. I hear him cross to the wall. His hand finds the switch. He clicks it. Nothing. He clicks it again. Still nothing.
“Son of a bitch.”
I don’t move.
In the thin moonlight, in the corner near the door, there’s a shape that wasn’t there a second ago.
The shape moves.
It crosses the room in four steps, silent as a ghost. The guard is still at the light switch, still clicking, still swearing under his breath.
The shape stops behind him.
I see, in the thin dark, the silhouette of an arm coming up. The short, hard geometry of a gun barrel pressing against the back of the guard’s skull.
The guard goes still.
“Drop it, asshole.”
The lights come on.
