Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
But then the doors were chiming again.
And I had to open my eyes and lose the fantasy.
CHAPTER NINE
Cosimo
I’d been getting bad news and reports of attacks and injuries since I was a fucking kid. I’d seen my first man shot to mincemeat when I was all of ten. My first knife wound not long after that.
It wasn’t uncommon to walk out at night to grab a drink, and find my father fishing a bullet out of someone’s shoulder at the dining room table, or stitching up a wound with a glorified sewing kit.
I had a pretty good tolerance for stress.
I could walk away from a shootout without a single frazzled nerve.
But, hearing Venezio on the other end of the phone, voice tight from pain, telling me that shit had gone sideways, and not only he, but they were hurt?
Fuck, the adrenaline shot through my system like an electric current.
My fucking hand was shaking as I dialed up Miko’s number. He answered on the last ring, sounding a little distracted.
“Venezio was ambushed.”
“What?” he swore, and I had his full attention in a blink. “How?”
“Don’t have details yet, but both he and Halle are hurt. They’re on their way here now.”
“I’m on my way,” Miko said. “Want me to call anyone in?” he asked.
“Not yet,” I told him. “I’m hoping we won’t need Salvatore.”
Salvatore Costa had a nickname in the Family.
The Surgeon.
He was the closest thing to a doctor the Family had. Someone who was capable of fishing out bullets, sewing up wounds, or doing shit a lot more complicated than that. He even had his own office full of equipment for times when we needed it, but most of the time, he came out to us.
He was an asset the Family was missing for many years when he did a bid and took his time instead of spilling his guts for the government.
“Shit,” Miko said. “I’m ten out,” he said.
I hung up, taking a deep breath, then tucking a gun into a holster before making my way downstairs to wait for Venezio and Halle.
“Mr. Costa,” Yuri, the nighttime doorman greeted me as he held open the door. “Do you need anything?” he asked.
In general, I wasn’t in the business of making my doorman do anything for me, but with the absurd amounts of money I paid day and nighttime guys to keep their noses out of my business, they often felt the need to do little shit for me. Bring my packages up to my door, wash my car windows, ask if I need errands run, little shit like that.
“Waiting for someone,” I said, moving past him and toward the curb, watching down the street.
And then I saw it.
A black sedan taking the corner at a glacial pace, making me wonder how badly Venezio was injured, if he wasn’t driving at least at the speed limit in such a dangerous situation.
It wasn’t until the car drew closer, and the streetlights shone in the windshield, that I saw it wasn’t Venezio driving at all, but Halle.
With huge, wide eyes, and a white-knuckle grip on the wheel.
When she pulled up to the curb, leaving a solid ten inches between it and the car, I came to the conclusion that she likely didn’t know how to drive. Though everyone in the Family eventually learned to drive, I knew a lot of other city natives who never did.
Most people didn’t want the headache of having a car in the city, so it made sense that they didn’t bother to go through the additional headache of getting a license they might never need.
But, yeah, it was clearly proof that shit had gone really fucking south if someone who didn’t know how to drive was driving away from an ambush.
I yanked open the door, finding her looking a little shellshocked, but with a nasty gash across her forehead, and a decent amount of blood streaking down her face.
Head wounds.
They bled like a bitch.
But they usually weren’t as bad as they first appeared.
Save for the headaches and possible concussions that came along with them.
Seeing her hurt, though, made a weird fucking feeling move through me, one that was so foreign that I couldn’t even place it. But it felt like a clutching sensation in my chest.
Venezio, though, Venezio was fucked up.
His face was busted to shit. I wouldn’t be shocked if his eye socket was broken, along with his nose. Who knew the state of his teeth. But his lip was split. He had cuts on his cheeks. His eye was swollen half shut. And he had an egg on his temple.
That wasn’t even factoring in whatever the fuck had happened under his shirt to make him bleed so much. And when Miko started to pull him out, and he could barely move, and he definitely couldn’t put weight on his leg?