Page 97 of Unraveled

Louis blinked. “W-what?”

“Your car. The color. It’s fucking ostentatious. You can’t miss it driving by. It might as well be screaming at you to look at it.”

“My c-car.”

Gian poked the guy in the forehead with the barrel of the gun again, harder the second time. “That’s what I said, dipshit. Pay attention.”

Louis tried to move away from Gian, but he didn’t get more than a couple of inches in the shitty, worn-down driver’s seat. After all, Gian had tied the bastard’s hands to the steering wheel, and his legs to the gas and brake pedals.

“What the hell?” Louis asked, yanking on the restraints.

“It’s easier when you can’t run,” Gian explained. “Now, about your car.”

“Fuck you.”

“Stupid boy.”

Gian cocked back the hammer on his gun, aimed, and pulled the trigger. A single shot plugged into Louis’s knee, blood splattering over the car and out the door. Gian didn’t bother to move when the blood flew, simply stayed like he was and let it stain his suit. It would have to go after tonight, anyway.

Louis’s shouts of pain made Gian smile a bit.

“You can keep yelling, but the owner has stepped out for a while to grab some late night snacks,” Gian lied.

The truth was, the owner of the junk and crushing yard was waiting in his office for when Gian drove out of the lot. The man would then pick up his payment, left in the usual spot, and junk the Toyota by crushing it with a hundred other vehicles that night without so much as looking inside.

“Now answer me,” Gian continued. “Didn’t Edmond tell you that color was a bad choice for a car?”

Louis nodded.

“Of course, he did. I remember him bitching about it shortly before Corrado died.” Gian chuckled. “Pretty sure he threatened to junk it, when you weren’t home one weekend.”

Louis cleared his throat, water in his gaze.

For the most part, the man hid his pain well.

“When did Edmond order you to do the drive-by on Cara and my enforcer?”

“He didn’t—”

“Don’t try lying,” Gian interrupted swiftly. “It was pure fucking luck that nobody saw your yellow piece of shit that day, and nothing more. The problem is, somebody did see it. She only happened to remember it today. Lying makes this last longer, man. See how that works?”

“He told me to use another car,” Louis said hoarsely. “I couldn’t get my hands on one.”

“Stupid.”

The man nodded, his silent agreement.

“Why Cara?” Gian asked.

“She was a means to an end.”

“The end being what, exactly?”

“He wanted to get you to fall in line,” Louis said. “You weren’t following the fucking rules, okay? He said taking something away from you might put you back in your place.”

Edmond had a lot to learn about Gian, but he saved that lesson for another day.

“Tell me about the bomb, and Corrado,” Gian urged.