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“You see, my nephews know when to keep their mouths shut and not run to the other families to tattle on what the Gluttony Syndicate is doing.”
“You think that’s what Bruno and Trisha have done? You think that they’ve told the other families your plans or something? The only thing they’ve done was try to get your syndicate on the right track,” Victor challenged.
“On the right track?” Gluttony spat. “We have been on the right track for years now. The old ways work and when war breaks out with your families and your alliance crumbles, you’ll realize that too.” Victor had worried about something like that happening until the meeting today. Seeing all the families together gave him hope for a peaceful future. It was a future that he wanted with Trish—a home, kids, a family, but now, he’d never have those things with her. He was going to end up dead in a ditch somewhere but there was no way that he let Gluttony or his men anywhere near her.
“None of that matters now,” Victor shouted. “I won’t take you to her. You’ll never find Trish.”
“I don’t need you to take me to her,” Gluttony insisted. “I’ve known where you both were for some time now. I let you believe that you were safe, but I could have ended you both at any time.”
“Why didn’t you?” Victor asked. “Instead of playing cat and mouse with us.”
“But cat and mouse is so much more fun,” Gluttony taunted. He thought that they were safe. He thought that no one would be able to find them in Trish’s safehouse, but all this time, they were living under a false sense of security. And now, it was going to cost them their lives. Victor had about an hour to figure out what to do about the mess that he found himself in. He had just sixty minutes to come up with a plan to keep Trish safe because there was no way that he could live with the alternative.
Trisha
Trish paced the floor, waiting for Victor to come back to the safe house. She was a fool for not going with him to the multi-family meeting. Letting him go in alone was a mistake, she just knew it. Any of the family members could turn on each other. They could be setting Victor up to be turned over to her father. She wouldn’t put it past any of them to double-cross Victor just because of his last name. It was a lesson she had learned a long time ago.
Having the last name of Gluttony put a giant target on her back, but she had learned to live with it being there. She and Bruno had learned at a very young age that people were going to always think the worst of them. They knew that the other families would take their shots at them, just because of their last name. Trish just never imagined that her father would be the one coming for not only her but her brother and the man she had fallen in love with.
She was just about to give up pacing when she heard a car in the driveway. Trish ran to the front door and looked out to find her father’s SUV. And when he and his guys got out, pointing their guns at Victor, she knew that she had to do something. Running out of the house and begging for Victor’s life was her first thought, but she also knew that she’d only be playing right into her father’s hands if she did that. No, she’d hide for now, like a coward, and hope like hell that her father wouldn’t kill Victor to get her to come out of hiding.
Trish ran back to their bedroom and found the gun that Victor kept on his nightstand. She checked to make sure that it was loaded and stepped into the closet, hiding in the dark shadows of the space. They’d find her, sooner or later, but she planned on coming out swinging. There was no way that she’d let her father win without a fight.
“Honey, we’re home,” her father called. “Come on out and give Daddy a kiss, Trisha.” Her father liked to believe that he was funny. Hell, his goons laughed at all of his morbid attempts at jokes, but Trish found nothing about this situation to be funny.
“Oh, come on, honey,” her father called. “You won’t want to miss what we have planned next for your boyfriend, would you?” She wanted to not only miss what was about to come next, but Trish also wanted to go back in time and beg Victor not to even go to the meeting. She wanted to insist that they run as far away as possible before her father could find either of them.
“Don’t do it, Trish. He’ll just kill you too,” Victor shouted. She could hear the punch when it landed. It sounded like flesh hitting flesh and all she could do was cower in the closet, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out. There had to be something she could do—she just needed to clear her head and think of a plan. It was what she had been taught to do. Her father had raised her to get herself out of situations just like this. He’d been training her, her whole life for this very moment.
Trish heard a noise outside on the balcony, just off the master bedroom. They hadn’t really gone out there much, keeping the door locked, but today, she had left the screen door open to let in some fresh air while she changed the bedding. Trish closed her eyes, wondering how she could have been such a fool. She promised Victor that she’d lock herself in the house once he left, and she had forgotten to do that.
She peeked out of the closet, trying to make out the dark figure on the balcony as he made his way in through the screen door. “Sis,” the man whispered.
“Bruno?” she whispered back.
“Yeah,” he said. She quickly made her way out of the closet and found her brother in the corner of the dark room. She could barely make him out, even up close.
“What are you doing here?” she breathed.
“Later, right now, we have to help Victor,” Bruno whispered. “Dad’s going to kill him.”
“How can we stop him?” she asked.
“How many men does he have with him?” Bruno asked. Trish closed her eyes, trying to remember the guys getting out of the car as she stood by the front door and panicked.
“Four men got out of the car,” she whispered. “Dad, Victor, his driver, and cousin Troy.”
“Fucking traitor,” Bruno breathed. “He was supposed to be on our side.” Trish was sure that they had a lot of traitors in their midst, but they didn’t have time to talk about all of that right now.
“They don’t know that you’re here, right?” Trish asked.
“No,” Bruno said. “Gino is around back, by the kitchen door. He’s ready, we just need a plan.”
“I’m going out there,” she said. “They know that I’m here. You’re the element of surprise, and we need both you and Gino to take out Dad and his men.”
“Take them out?” Bruno asked. Her father yelled her name again and she could tell that he was becoming more impatient by the second.
“It’s the only way that you and I will ever be free, Bruno. If we let Dad live, we’ll never find a way out of this mess we call a life,” she whispered.
