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If he’s worried I’ll fight him for the top spot, he’s crazy. I have no interest in taking it from him. Let him deal with the headaches and bullshit.
“Of course, not everyone likes change,” Dano says in a tone that makes me study his face.
He’s tense—lines bracket his mouth as a bead of sweat slides down his forehead.
Son of a bitch.
He won’t risk it. He knows if I turned on him, he’d lose, so he’s set me up. This is what Nova was talking about. He’s not planningon letting me leave this place alive. That’s why he picked this place and shut it down. There’s no one to hear the gunfire.
I play dumb for a second, calculating my odds of survival. I’ll admit they’re not good. Only I could survive ten years in prison and walk into an ambush set up by my own brother. If I had feelings, I’d be hurt.
“So, what are you shipping? H?”
I loosen my stance, ready to move, my gun pointing at the ground.
He and Felix chuckle as Felix crosses his arms over his chest. “We move plenty of drugs, but we leave the heroin for the Irish rodents. No, what we’ll be moving is something more lucrative, sweeter,” he teases as it hits me.
“People. You’re going to move people.” I keep the inflection out of my voice. At this point, I can’t say I’m surprised. Dano never did have any morals.
“Please, anyone can do that. Nobody pays any fucking attention to their surroundings these days. It’s almost too fucking easy to snatch a person, and nobody cares. Even those who wind up on missing posters get forgotten about eventually. Life goes on, after all. No, the challenge comes from the younger market. Amber alerts make it more difficult, but it’s part of the thrill. The rest comes from getting away with it.”
“I’m pretty partial to the hunting part myself. Have you ever been to a kid’s playground and seen how many people are on their phones? I can have their kid gone and out of the city before they even look up from whatever social media bullshit is trending. In a way, I’m teaching them a valuable lesson,” Felix jokes, making the guards who have moved closer laugh.
“And you really think the other families will let you get awaywith this? That my father will? We have a line we don’t cross, and children are on the other fucking side of it.”
Dano steps a little closer, but not close enough that I can grab him. “Spoken like someone who’s never tasted the sweetness of a stolen cherry.”
“You sick fuck.”
“I hardly think you’re one to talk, big brother, I’ve heard the rumors, and I’d think twice before insulting me. I’ve had many offers for you. Some wanted to keep you as a pet, others wanted to play with your body until it gave out. But I decided to make your death a quick one. I’m benevolent like that. And after a decade of being in a cage, I doubt the prospect of being locked up again would faze you much.”
Only someone who hasn’t spent ten years having their life dictated to them, from when they can eat to when they could piss would think that. I grin, knowing it unnerves him and has the same effect on the men around us. “So you have it all figured out, huh? What story have you come up with to get away with this? Who will you be placing the blame on?”
“My vote is self-inflicted. Bullet to the brain because it’s scary out in the real world after having every second of your life dictated to you for ten years. Maybe we should force you to write a note saying it was just too much.” Felix nods at his guards.
“It sounds good to me, except it seems, brother dearest, you have gathered quite the following while you’ve been locked up. So his death would make him a martyr, and I can’t have that. No, I’m going to leave you a little gift—a boy who I think you’ll find particularly delicious. The story will be about how I saw you raping the kid just before he bled out on the floor.
“The only thing I could do was to put down the rabid dogthat must have been broken and become someone’s bitch inside.” He winks at me as Felix laughs.
“I’m nobody’s bitch,” I growl as the two guards that had moved behind me while Dano was talking grab my arms and yank me back, disarming me with a twist of my wrist.
A couple feet separate me and Dano now, and he pulls his gun. A few more steps, and I’ll be able to disarm him and snap his neck.
“Sorry, brother. It’s better this way. At least for me.”
A gun fires, but I feel nothing. I look down at my chest just as Dano falls to his knees, a bullet hole in his forehead, before he face plants to the ground, dead.
I make my move while the others are in shock, throwing my head back and breaking the nose of the guard directly behind me before yanking the second guard in front of me to use as a human shield as Felix fires his gun at me.
The guard takes the bullet to the chest as another round of gunfire sees Felix hit in the neck. He drops his gun and grabs his throat, his eyes bulging as blood squirts through his fingers like a fucking geyser, covering us all before he falls. Realizing the danger isn’t coming from me, Jim and the remaining guards start firing at a spot behind me.
I don’t give a fuck who it is, I use their distraction to my advantage and take the guard’s gun from his holster before dropping him to the ground. I swing the gun up and fire two bullets into Felix’s guard just as the other shooter takes out Jim and the guard behind me. I drop to my knees and use the production line as cover. It’s not the most effective, but it’s the closest thing to me.
It’s silent. The sound of the guns firing has left my ears ringing. I listen for any type of noise, but all I can hear is my ownbreathing. Just when I think a bullet must have taken out the mystery shooter, I hear footsteps.
Lifting my gun, I jump to my feet and point it at the figure dressed head to toe in black walking my way. “Who the fuck are you?”
The figure has a gun pointed at me, much like the one I’m aiming at them, but that doesn’t stop them from reaching up with their free hand and yanking off the ski mask they’re wearing.
