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“FBI? That was no FBI.”
“That couldn’t have been the local police—”
“Ha!” Lev grunts, gripping the wheel as he spins us into a wild turn.
The wheels screech and I’m forced to grab onto Stitches’s knee or be thrown backward. I’m sitting too low to see out the window beyond the roofs of buildings and the pale blue of the sky and the occasional power line that stretches by.
Lev honks his horn and another car nearby honks theirs. Other traffic sounds surround us as he drives like a maniac, weaving through different lanes, and cutting abrupt turns.
“If it’s not the FBI and not the police, then who is it? It wouldn’t be CIA. DEA? DHS? It couldn’t be—I know everyone jokes about it with the Al Capone stuff—but there’s no way that was the IRS?”
“Delphine,” Stitches says, “it wasn’t anybody legal.”
“Lucius?”
Stitches’s eyes close and he peels off his wire-framed glasses in an exhausted manner I’ve never seen out of him. He wipes them on the hem of his shirt, the expression on his face screwing up as if pained by a terrible migraine.
“This is such a fucking shitshow,” he blurts out under his breath.
The sick feeling I’ve had for hours returns at full strength. I can barely swallow without feeling like I’ll cough up everything inside my stomach, which isn’t much considering I’ve barely been eating. Lev’s madman style of driving isn’t helping.
“Francis, tell me what’s going on.”
“I don’t know what’s going on. That’s the problem. Everything… everything’s been thrown all out of whack. Nothing we’ve planned for… it’s all been…. Delphine, it’s been almost four days since we’ve heard from Salvatore. Hedisappeared.”
A coldness blows through me. A frigid kind of coldness that’s so affecting it leaves me numb. I give no other reaction beyond staring at him as if he’s said nothing. I’m looking at him, barely blinking, as Lev hooks a hard left and then zigs and zags between more cars.
My body jerks along with the erratic movements of the truck.
But none of it registers with me.
He disappeared.
We all know what that means. Men in Salvatore’s lifestyle don’t just disappear.
They’ve got him. Lucius has him… and he’s probably hurt him very badly by now, if he’s even still alive.
Though as vile and savage as Lucius is, he’s probably decided to make him suffer. Make it a slow, miserable, tortuous death. From what Salvatore described of his abuse as a child, his father would show no mercy, he’d drag it out and turn it into a sick and demented game where he delighted in his son’s pain and suffering.
The coldness inside me intensifies until my lungs freeze. I’m back to being unable to take a breath.
Stitches clamps his hands down onto my shoulders and shakes me back to reality. “Listen to me. I grabbed the escape bag we put together for you. We’re headed to the airport in Lunsbury. We’re getting you out of the country. Salvatore set up an alias for you. I can’t tell you where. A whole new life under a new name. You’ll have new protection too. It’s what he would’ve wanted.”
It’s what he would’ve wanted...
…because he’s dead.
HE’S DEAD.
The disturbing train of thought has me staring off blankly once more, like Stitches hasn’t shaken me.
“Delphine, do you hear me? Our priority is getting you out.”
One of the unmarked white vans flies toward us from a side street. Lev curses and swerves the truck to narrowly avoid a T-bone collision. In doing so, we almost cause a collision of our own, crossing over into the lane to our left side where a school bus of children erupt into a chorus of terrified screams.
“Shit, shit, shit!” Lev yells. “These fuckers somehow caught up. Hold on tight—it’s gonna take some work shaking ’em off!”
What ensues is probably one of the most dangerous car chases in recent history.
