Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 96129 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 320(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96129 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 320(@300wpm)
“Fuck.” I looked over and thought about it. If I’d been the one holding someone hostage and wanted to get out, that would be the first person I’d shoot.
“I’m also going to assume whoever walks her out will be wearing a vest.”
“So you’d aim for his head?” I asked, and how my voice sounded calm and not as panicked as I felt was a mystery.
“That’s the only option.” He paused. “It’s an FMJ. It won’t be messy.”
That was what the assassins had used that night to kill our mothers, so I knew it wouldn’t be messy. I also knew that any sudden movement and Rosie would be the one taking a bullet to the head. Fuck. It wasn’t often we were on this side of things. It wasn’t often that we were forced to take a step back and analyze the consequences of our actions. I bounced from foot to foot, my adrenaline still pumping, my nerves making me feel like I was bouncing off the fucking walls. A black truck drove down the street and we looked down to see that it was the SWAT team. We shared a look. Holy shit. I couldn’t just stand here and watch. I had to go into that fucking house before they did. We’d done it before. Hell, Rocco was the one who trained me how to fucking do it. As if sensing my dilemma, Rocco pulled his phone out and pressed it to his ear.
“How much time?” he asked. “Fuck.” He breathed out, still listening. “How much time would they give me?” He listened some more, breathed out again. “Yeah. If they agree to hold off, I’ll do it. Once though. Only once. I want that shit in writing.” He paused again. “Fuck you. I have my own lawyer. Yeah, well, Lorenzo Costello is a good goddamn lawyer and the only one I trust.”
I felt a lump form in my throat. He was willing to do time over this, for me, for her. We’d all taken an oath, we’d promised loyalty, our willingness to kill to protect our brotherhood, to die for it, to go to jail for it, but so far, I’d only done the first two and I couldn’t bear it if Rocco did that for me. When he hung up with his brother, he slid the phone into his back pocket and faced the gun again.
“I’ll let you pull the trigger, but you’re not going down for this. If they take anyone in, it’ll be me.”
“Dom, don’t be stupid.” He let out a laugh, adjusting the scope. “It won’t come to that, but if it does, you’d have to leave Rosie and you’d have done all this for nothing.”
“Not for nothing. For her safety, and if not for her safety, to avenge her.” My throat clogged again when I said that last bit.
If she didn’t make it out of this alive, I’d never forgive myself anyway, so I might as well be dead or in jail. As it was, this only solidified her fears and proved Gabe’s warning was valid. I’d make the choice for her and walk away. It would kill me. Fuck, it was already killing me, but I loved her too much to do this to her. My oldest friend stood up from his crouched position so we were at eye level, and just stared at me for a moment. I saw something shift in his eyes, as if he was just now realizing that this wasn’t just a childhood crush or someone I’d fuck out of my system. After a few seconds, he gave a nod, took a really deep breath, and got back into position.
“They’re giving me a five-minute window,” he said. “After that, they’ll move in.” He looked at his watch and took a long, deep breath before getting in position.
When he set his finger on the trigger, I didn’t dare say a word. I tried not to even breathe too loudly. This wasn’t the shooting range. This wasn’t for fun. On the other side of the red dot, there would be a human being, not a white sheet of paper with little dots to shoot at. It wasn’t something I thought about often. I usually just did a job and went on with it, but something about tonight was giving me pause. Maybe it was because I knew Anthony and Tommy had kids barely out of high school doing their dirty work. I’d started when I was in fucking high school, so it shouldn’t get to me, but the older I got, the more it did, because a lot of these kids wouldn’t have been in this life if it weren’t for their persistent recruiting. That made them more like Gabe and less like me.
I’d seen more dead bodies after spending six months with my father than I had the previous seventeen years of my life in real life and movies combined. Maybe it was because I dealt with bigger monsters than the ones in fiction, but at some point, I was able to take my emotions out of it. The way I saw it, it was shoot or get shot at. Right now, all of my emotions were sitting inside that house.