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“Yes. Antony Grassi,” he said. “Who am I speaking to, my dear?”
“This is Savannah. I’m Nino’s, ah, girlfriend,” I said, hearing the breathlessness in my own voice as I was forced to stop at a red light.
“What’s going on?” he asked, suddenly all that customer service formality gone. I could practically hear the mafia boss in his voice. Because, surely, that was how it worked, right? Luca was the boss now. But before him, it was his father?
“I got a call. From the guys who have my mom,” I said, pushing the pedal damn near to the floor as soon as the light turned green.
I’d never been a reckless driver. Hell, I never sped in general. I believed in the so-called ‘rules of the road,’ and how they were put into place to keep people alive.
But, damnit, I was trying to keep someone alive right now too.
“Tell me you didn’t leave the safe house,” he said, and I heard a snapping sound, like he was trying to get someone else’s attention.
“Nino isn’t answering his phone. And they said I only had a half an hour. So I have to go. Ihaveto. It’s my mom,” I added on a choked sound.
“Okay. Okay,” he said, trying to calm me down because, even to my own ears, the hysteria was clearly building up inside me. “Where did they want you to meet them?”
“The old bike shop on Taylor Avenue,” I told him. If my mental map was right, I was close already.
“Okay, honey. Listen to me, I am going to have someone there with you in under ten minutes. I need you to park and wait for—“
I ended the call.
I understood his concern.
Truly, I did.
But I couldn’t wait an extra ten minutes.
It was already almost fifteen minutes after the call. Waiting another ten was going to cut it way, way too close. And that was assuming that someone wasn’t watching, wouldn’t notice one of the mafia guys showing up instead of me.
No.
I had to do what they said.
Even if I knew, technically, it was a trap, that they were only trying to get to Nino through me. That there were a lot of awful, wicked, painful things they could do to me to accomplish that goal.
It didn’t matter.
Because those things could be happening to my mom this very moment. They could have been happening all night for all I knew.
I couldn’t let it happen for another minute while I stood by twiddling my thumbs, waiting for the men to come save her.
Besides, I had the gun.
Did I fully trust my aiming and shooting skills?
No.
But I figured that if you were close enough to someone, it did away with a lot of the issues there.
I never would have been able to picture myself considering shooting or murdering another human being before. I was a pacifist by nature. I believed in doing as little harm as possible to others.
That said, no one had ever messed with my mom before.
I was pretty sure I could put a bullet in the bodies of everyone who dared to put their hands on her, to give her even a moment of fear.
It wasn’t until I could almost see the old bike shop that I realized that I had nowhere to hide the gun. Surely, they wouldn’t let me take my purse, right? And the linen pants were too thin for me to tuck it into my waistband like I saw in the movies.
