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“I’d agree with that.” Luca heads towards the two bedrooms. He points with either hand at the doors.
“Right,” I say.
He heads right.
I look around my destroyed home while Luca starts rummaging. My chest feels like it’s being crushed. How the fuck did it get to be like this?
I take out my phone in desperation and call Mimi.
Expectantly, it rings out.
I pocket it and begin rummaging around the place. But it seems pointless. Surely if the bratva boys couldn’t find anything, what would we find? I suppose it depends on what they were searching for. I twist my lips and decide on my room first. It’s the same. Trashed and destroyed. Everything tipped out and, for no good reason, was piled on my bed so that it can be shit on. I leave it, knowing I’ll never stay here again.
I head through and join Luca; he’s found a few sheets of paper that have been sandwiched between the bed and wall. He’s reading through them and hands one off to me. It’s a list of ideas to make money in messy handwriting. All I feel is pity for my friend and his desperation. He could’ve come to us for help. We should have offered more. He hands me another, and this one has an idea circled.
Life insurance.
I think back to us playing the games of NBA before the fight. He’d been reading his mail…
“Ah, Sebastian?” Luca calls.
I’m digging through the sofa, searching for the letter. The fillings had all been strewn everywhere, but everything is still there. I find the letter jammed down the side. The vague memory of pushing it all away when I was on here bloodied up with Mimi comes to me.
It’s the letter from the insurance company. This is what he’d been reading. Highlighted right near the top isdenied.
Luca is at my shoulder, reading too. He sighs. Then he hands me more paper. “I think this is the proof he spoke of.”
He hands me a stack of photos and letters. They’re anonymous taunts from the Russians. There’re pictures of Carlos working, pictures of him with me, with Luca… Then it becomes pictures of just me and Mimi. The below becomes taunting. They’ve figured out that he didn’t know…
“We coulda avoided this. You were trying to be too smart. And we—me and Mimi should’ve just told him. We all should’ve been thinking of the big picture.”
“You think I don’t know the big picture?” Luca says. “Of everything I said before, what part of it wasn’t part of the big picture? Do you think I let you go through all that because I wanted to have fun? Why do you think I let Carlos continue working for me after I discovered his secrets? It’s all part of the bigger picture. If I get my hands dirty in this, I can potentially start a war. If I’m seen to be acting against the Petrov family, while making deals with my family and the Kumarin’s, it opens a can of worms that only ends in conflict. And Mimi has been taken; we don’tneedconflict.”
I stare at him for a moment longer, then look back at the letter. I sigh. “How much money’s worth of drugs were in the van?”
“Street value-wise, probably about three hundred grand. But Leandro was selling it to Kumarin for a different sum.”
“That’s all Carlos was trying to get for himself,” I say, giving the letter back to Luca. I walk towards the TV.
My phone pings.
It’s Mimi.
Sebastian! I managed to hide my phone in my pocket. They’re taking us to the Everglades. One of the men mentioned Clewiston…
“Here we go!” I yell, ditching the papers down on the couch. I run back into my room and go to my wardrobe. I open the door and find that it too has been ransacked, but unlike the rest of the house, they didn’t think there was anything worth destroying here. I push against the back wall, and it gives an inch. Then I push against the edge of the roof panel, and it slides away into the ceiling. I reach up and take the bag down. Inside are two handguns and some money. This is my own personal bank.
But I only need the guns and ammo.
Luca joins me. “You’re aware that this is probably a trap, right?”
I load the guns and put extra ammo cartridges in my pockets. “Luca, I don’t need to start a war, and I don’t really care if it’s a trap or not. I just need to get Mimi back.”
He reaches out and takes one of the guns. “Yes, we do.”
Chapter 26
Mimi
