Funny thing is, we’d had several people do just that. It was like they knew by pushing basement that it was their final descent.
It was their hell.
I waved at the secretary, and she smiled and waved back. With an exhale I walked toward the back of the building where the elevators were located. I pushed the button, it dinged, and I walked in and looked up at the camera as the silver doors closed.
Basement. I pushed the glowing B button and waited as the elevator descended to the bottom floor. With a ding, the doors opened. Complete silence greeted me. I walked directly toward the basement-level secretary.
Her eyes revealed her fear.
That was the first and last thing I noticed before a gun went off. A bullet whizzed by my head. I ducked and reached into my waistband for a gun. I turned to the right and saw a guy stalking toward me. The secretary started screaming and hid in the corner. I fired two shots directly at his forehead and rolled behind the desk, where the secretary was seated. Releasing my brass knuckles I grabbed my other gun and held it out in front of me. One gun was pointed to the right, one to the left.
And then I felt something touch the back of my head.
“Not so smart for a boss, eh?” a man’s voice said.
I didn’t panic. It wouldn’t make anything better. “I’m smart.”
“Oh, yeah? Then why do you have a gun pointed at your head?”
I shrugged. “You tell me.” I looked down at his shoes.
Not boots. He was wearing tennis shoes. Brand-new tennis shoes. Not name brand. I closed my eyes and inhaled. He smelled like fast food.
Paid. He was a hired hit man. By the looks of his shoes he’d already gotten half his payment, too.
He also wasn’t used to the mafia, used to our kind.
I laughed.
“Stop laughing!” He pushed the gun harder against my head. “I’m gonna enjoy this.”
I sighed and stepped on his foot then quickly leaned over to the right as I pulled his arm forward and smacked it against the marble countertop. His gun toppled to the ground. I turned and kicked him in the stomach, and he stumbled backward, hitting the copy machine.
“I’ll enjoy this much more, I guarantee it.” I pulled out my gun and shot him in both knees. He fell to the ground with a loud crack and swore in agony.
Three more. There were three more guys.
Footsteps neared me.
I ducked under the desk and motioned for the secretary to be quiet, but her hands were shaking. Shit. With one swift movement, I knocked her to the floor and pulled her underneath the table with me.
“Thank you, thank you.” She shook in my arms.
I hit her across the back of the head, rendering her unconscious. She wouldn’t thank me when she woke up with a killer headache, but at least she’d be alive.
The footsteps got closer.
And then three shots rang out.
A man walked in front of the desk. His shoes were—white.
His hand reached down to me. “Come on. I don’t have all day,” he whined, sounding genuinely irritated that he’d had to shoot someone.
I grabbed his hand but kept my finger on the trigger in my left hand.
Once he pulled me out from underneath the desk I was face-to-face with the last person I thought I’d see.
“Sergio?” I gasped. “Man! I thought you moved!”
“Nah.” He unloaded his gun. “I like to dabble every now and then when I see a damsel in distress.”
I snorted and put my gun away. “Same ol’ Sergio. Thanks, by the way. You must be—”
“The ghost.”
“Didn’t think you were a man for hire these days.”
His brown eyes narrowed. “A man does what he can do, to help family.” Sergio tucked his gun in the back of his pants and leaned against the marble countertop.
I swallowed and looked away. “Yeah, well… think you can help me get the account information?”
He snorted. “I could do it blindfolded. Let’s get this done. You’ve got more guns waiting for you.”
“I wait with bated breath.” I swore and followed him into Tony’s office. It suddenly felt wrong to be calling him Tony instead of Dad. But there was no love lost, and that was damn tragic. Parentless kids, all of us. Nixon, Trace, Mo, Mil.
“So.” Sergio sat behind the computer. “Word on the street is you need ten mil.”
“Word on the street? What are we? In a gang?”
Sergio chuckled. “What else would you call it?”
“Valid point.” I leaned against the glass desk and watched him log in to my father’s computer. “How do you even know his password?”
“I’m a ghost. I know all.” His hands sped across the keyboard so fast that it made me dizzy. “This may take a few minutes.” He motioned to a seat, but I refused to sit down. Not after having five guys shooting at my face and knowing it was my own family that had sent them.
This was only the fifth time in all my life that I’d been in my “father’s” office. I walked over to the minibar on the far right and poured myself a whiskey.
“Think you should be drinking, all things considered?” Sergio asked from the desk.
Ignoring him, I took a long swig and looked at the table next to the minibar. There were pictures. But they weren’t of me.
They were of him and Nixon.
With a curse I turned away. Was it always about him? Would it never be about me? How selfish could I get that I would even ask that, but… I wanted something that was my own, someone that was my own, and it seemed as of late I was either stuck with second best or picking up someone else’s pieces.
“Almost there, just keep your pants on,” Sergio called.
Again, I ignored him and searched more around the room. There weren’t any more pictures on the tables he had set up. Two chairs were in the corner with a closet toward the main door. Curious, I walked over to it and tried the knob.
Locked.
I pulled out one of my picks and had the door open in seconds. Shock wasn’t an adequate word to describe what I was seeing. Shock would have been a normal response. My response was anything but normal.
Horrified? Now that was better.
A shrine.
With prayer beads.
And a picture of Nixon’s mom. I could stomach that, I could deal with that amount of crazy, but the picture had Trace’s parents in it. I’d seen them only once when I was little but I’d also seen pictures. From what Nixon had told me, they were unmistakable.
There were red marks across every face in the pictures. My stomach heaved as I numbered how many faces had the red mark. Both of Trace’s parents… and my dad. My real dad.
Which could mean only one thing.
Tony had been snuffing out the entire family for over eighteen years.
And today would be his day of reckoning. His finale.
I hoped to God it would be a massive disappointment. I’d even tell him that to his face, right before I pulled the trigger.
“Done!” Sergio announced. I turned around and walked toward the desk while he scribbled something on a piece of paper. “So, the wire transfer will go to this account.” He handed me the paper. “Did you remember to get a briefcase?”
“In the car already.” I stuffed the piece of paper in my pocket and shrugged. “How are you in on this? Who are you actually working for? Me? Luca?”
Sergio’s eyes darted behind me. I turned and saw a camera nestled quite nicely in the corner. Great.
When I turned back around he was already walking toward the door.
“Wait,” I called. “If this goes badly… thank you, for what you just did.”
“We’re family.” He shrugged and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. “Try not to end up with a bullet in the head, eh?”
“I’ll do my damnedest.” I cracked a smile and took a seat on Tony’s plush leather chair.
How long? How long had he been planning this, and why the hell were Trace’s parents involved? I wracked my brain but couldn’t come up with any solution other than pure insanity.
I waited another five minutes then left the room and walked down the hall to the elevator.
I was more pissed off than scared; I didn’t really get scared anymore. Impending death never scared me. Hell, it was a reality. But now? Knowing that Trace could lose both me and Nixon? At the same time? All over again? Yeah, that sucked. I refused to leave her. Even if I had to go to hell and back and beg to be brought back to life—I refused to leave her. I couldn’t.
The elevator dinged. I walked out and dialed Tony’s number. “I got the money.”
“You did?” The ass sounded surprised.
“Yeah.”
“Complications?”
“A few minor ones. Nothing to get upset over.”
“I’m impressed.”
“Don’t be,” I snorted. “Now, where am I meeting you?”
“Our house, of course.”
I paused. I thought we were supposed to meet at Nixon’s, which meant he was changing things. Why was he changing things? “Fine. See you in ten.”
I hung up and got into my car. Shit. Things were already going sideways and I had no idea what to expect. Would he put a gun on me when I opened the door? Would he take the money, confess, and then shoot me?
I contemplated all the ways I could die the entire way to the house. The minute I got there, I jumped out of the car and grabbed the briefcase. Birds chirped and the sun was shining, just as if something huge wasn’t going down.
And then I heard a gun click. “We’ve been expecting you.”
I turned around. “Phoenix?”
His smug grin made me want to rip his head from his body.
“Who else were you expecting?”
Chapter Forty-seven
Chase
Phoenix nudged me in the back with his gun. Holy shit. I would kill him. End him. If he as much as sneezed on my back. I walked in front of him and opened the door to the house.
Tony was standing in the living room, smoking his usual cigar and looking out the window.
“Ah, you’ve made it.”
“Nice greeting,” I said dryly. “Can you please call Phoenix off of me before I put a bullet in his head?”
Tony nodded and Phoenix backed off, walking over to Tony and slapping him on the back. “See how easy this was?”
“Easy?” I repeated.
“He needed money.” Tony shrugged. “How would it look if our family simply gave the De Langes ten million dollars? It would look like a handout. Besides, I need Phoenix to be silent, and we’ve come to a sort of agreement. I pay him to keep my secrets and he finishes the business I don’t wish to finish.”
“What business?” Dread pooled in my stomach.
Tony puffed on his cigar. “You and a few others…”
I opened my mouth to speak when all of a sudden I heard a whimper. I walked farther into the living room. My eyes fell on the couch.
Mo, Mil, and Trace were sitting there. Hands tied behind their backs and duct tape over their mouths.
“You sick son of a bitch!”
“Kids!” Tony spat. “You’re all children! Did you think this was a game? Did you think I was working underneath a child for the past four years to simply hand over all the power I’ve had? Do you think I like having to listen to a child order me around as if I was nothing? A child that did not even deserve to be boss in the first place! Blood relation, Chase! You are the blood relation!”