Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 72325 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72325 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
For a moment, I thought about dropping my pursuit and heading in for a beer. Maggie was probably working, and it would be good to see her. I still remembered what it had felt like to hold her narrow hips. To feel her sweet ass on my lap.
But I had to find out what the fuck Baxter was up to now.
I pulled over behind a blue van, watching the taillights in Baxter’s BMW flash red. Baxter parked his Beemer seven cars ahead, right under a light pole. He was only about thirty feet from the Rusty Bucket. He got out, crossing the street toward the bar.
I slid out of my borrowed car, moving through the darkness after him. I ached to grab him and force some answers out of him, but there were too many people around.
Baxter slipped behind a Jaguar and stepped onto the sidewalk. There was an empty lot right next to the Rusty Bucket, and I made my move. I lunged over the hood of the Jaguar like a fucking stuntman. The force of my attack knocked Baxter off balance. He fell to the sidewalk, cursing on his way down. A small box fell out of the inner pocket of his coat, as I gripped him by the shoulders. I rolled us over, dragging him into the empty lot and away from the streetlights.
Flipping him over, I sat on his scrawny chest. My blood was boiling as I punched him. There’d be time to ask questions later. But by the time he was moaning in pain, clutching his face, I reined myself in.
“That’s for North Haven, you piece of shit.” My fingers locked around his thin throat. “Who the fuck sent you?” Baxter just groaned, his fingers groping at the sidewalk.
I slammed his head into the hard ground. “Answer me.”
Instead, a weird grin settled on his bleeding mouth. He held his hand up, and at first, I thought he was trying to take a swing at me. But then I saw it. He had a little black bundle in his hand.
Shit.
“Another bomb?” I snarled, as I wrested it out of his hand. “Is that all you know how to do?”
Baxter grunted, and I smashed my fist into his nose as I tried to work through this turn of events. “Gambini paid you to blow up the Rusty Bucket?”
“I’m not telling you shit,” the prick said, his voice weak but triumphant. “I’m a dead man if I do.”
“You’re a dead man if you don’t,” I warned, but at this point, Baxter didn’t seem to think he had anything to lose.
So I needed to change that.
“Your boss is just going to shoot you in the head,” I argued, my arm jerked back. “I’m debating between beating you to death and gutting you.” I pulled out a knife and held it against his neck. “Why the fuck would Gambini have you blow up that bar?”
My knife dug into his neck and blood flowed onto the dirt below us. This bastard deserved to die in this empty lot. I twisted the knife, noting that I was cutting him in almost the same place that the shard of glass had hit Rock.
Baxter squealed. “Okay,” he gasped, trying to wiggle away from the knife, but I had him pinned.
“Tell me why Gambini wants us dead.”
“He doesn’t,” Baxter gasped, and I decreased the pressure on his neck by a fraction.
“Not Gambini,” he choked out, blood dribbling all the way down to his jaw. “Roselli.”
I rolled my eyes. Baxter would say anything to save his own skin. “Bullshit.”
“It’s true. Roselli was pissed that you thought you could rob the bank without asking him first. So he hired me and told me where you’d be.”
How the fuck had he known that? If this prick was telling the truth.
“You expect me to believe that our own boss tried to kill us?”
“It was meant to scare you off. Think, man. If Roselli wanted you dead, he’d have had me put that bomb in your car.”
“So why blow up the Rusty Bucket?”
Baxter shrugged. “More punishment. He knows you three like that place.”
Maggie’s face flashed through my mind. “There are innocent people in there, you bastard.”
“You should’ve thought of that before you tried to screw over your own Don.”
I smashed my fist into his nose, and he screamed. “Get the fuck up.” I picked up the bomb as he rose shakily to his feet. Then I marched him to his Beamer, slamming him against the side of the car. While he tried to catch his breath, I reached in his pocket, pulling out a ring of keys. There were two fobs on there, one for the Beamer, and one for something else.
I opened the driver’s door and Baxter all but fell in. Weakly, he tried to pull the door shut behind him, but I stood in the way keeping it open.