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It surprises me. “I’ll have to get you a new one.”
“I don’t need you to,” he says before he points out, “Now we have no backup. So you do as I say when I say it. Do you understand?” I nod.
I open my mouth to say that I will do whatever he wants when bullets start flying through the kitchen.
Chapter 12 - Luigi
It’s an instant reflex.
The minute the bullets start destructively flying through the kitchen, I grab her hand and drag her down so she doesn’t get hit.
Glass shatters and wood splinters. I put a hand on her shoulder. “Keep your head down. I’m going to see how many of them there are.”
She does as she’s told, at least, and I take the gun in the back of my tracksuit out and crawl toward the window. The kitchen window partially faces the dirt road, so they must have seen us in here together. I glance out the window slowly from the bottom and see a parked car. Two Mexican-looking men are standing with their guns out, aiming at the cabin. The one man is on the phone shouting in Mexican, obviously alerting everyone looking for us that they found us.
I duck down and take a deep breath before I slowly peek over again. Before they can do anything, I stand and shoot both of them in the head. I glance around outside the window, listening with laser focus. When I’m sure there’s no one else there, I turn toward Ana, yelling, “Come on, we need to get out here.”
She follows me out of the kitchen. I scoop up the kit bag I had packed during the night when I couldn’t sleep and open the door. I hold a hand up, step outside to look around and then give a short nod.
I lead her to our car, and she climbs in the passenger side while I enter the driver’s door. I start the car and take off down the dirt road, driving over one of the bodies as I swerve to miss their vehicle.
Anastasia is breathing hard, and I know she’s in shock.
“Take deep breaths. Everything will be okay,” I assure her, keeping an eye on the road.
“The main thing is we need to find a new car. This one probably belongs to them, and they tracked it to the cabin. That’s probably how those two meat-heads found us.” I glance at her as she takes a few deep breaths. “That’s it. Easy going. We’ll stop at the nearby gas station and arrange a new ride, don’t you worry.”
I drive to the gas station directly, with no detours, and thankfully no one catches up to us or tries to stop us. I pull right into the mechanic's garage and park the vehicle.
Anastasia gets out and comes around the car, standing near me. I approach the manager, who is working on a truck in one of the bays. “Chris, I need you to strip this car for a tracking device and send it on its way.”
The manager glances up, and I nod. “I’ll pay double. Some guys are looking for this car and us.”
“I’m on it,” he says with a bit of a drawl, but he moves to our car quickly and starts taking it apart.
“Come with me,” I say gently to Anastasia, leading her out of the garage and into the gas station shop. There’s a small clothes section, mostly for touristy things. I take her over and look through the racks. “Get something more comfortable to wear. We’re going to be moving around a lot.”
“I should get a weapon,” she whispers. “Just in case.”
I shake my head and point to the clothes. “Hurry up. We don’t have a lot of time. I’ll go get some supplies to eat and drink.”
She picks out some clothes, a couple of shirts and pairs of leggings and joins me at the register. I pay the pimply teenager for the stuff we take and lead her out of the small shop and back to our car.
“Find it?” I ask as we walk in.
“Small bugger,” Chris says, wiping his hands as he finishes putting the bumper back on the car. “I’ll attach it to one of the dogs and let them loose.”
“Thanks, I owe you, man.” I reach into the kit bag and take out five grand in hundred dollar notes. “It’s clean. You won’t have issues.”
“Pleasure doing business with you,” Chris says, smiling at me and Anastasia before walking toward the back of the shop.
“You drive,” I order the Russian princess, climbing into the passenger side. “We need to get out of here before anyone catches up.”
“These guys of yours? Aren’t they afraid of your cousin or my father?” Anastasia asks as she backs out of the garage and starts down the road. “Surely your family knows them.”
“Not really, I learned long ago to establish a network of people I could use if I were ever in trouble, and that meant no one that would be loyal to my family. Only to me. Look, we’ll be on the run for a while, and you have to realize the people I choose to use will not tell Alessandro or Ivan anything.”
She nods, glancing at the rearview, and I follow her gaze. “No one’s following. We’re fine. You’re going to drive to lower Manhattan. There’s an off-the-grid apartment there that we can use as our base. I’ve got some burner cell phones. I need to make some calls.”
