Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“Okay. Where?”
“Docks.”
“The docks?” she asked, voice tense.
And, yeah, it should be.
We’d been attacked on our own goddamn turf. That shit was insane. The Family was going to be reeling when this made the rounds.
“Yes.”
“I’m five minutes away. Tops.”
Turns out Luca made it first, likely called by Dante as I called Lettie for his brother.
And as soon as Lettie’s ambulance showed up, and she and one of her people rushed out, the lot was starting to fill up.
Santo’s brothers—Nino, Mass, and August—ran up. My brothers—Lucky and Milo—came at a slower pace as they talked to their soldiers, fanning them out to do a sweep, then likely stand guard.
For the first time in a long fucking time, we felt exposed. Vulnerable.
Warren fucking Graves was going to pay for this shit. But, first, we had to worry about Santo.
“You’re new,” Santo said, shooting a charming smile to the curvy redheaded nurse who was taking his pulse as Lettie checked out his wounds. “Does this treatment of mine involve sponge baths, by any chance?” he asked, getting a laugh out of the woman and an eye roll out of Lettie.
“Yeah, you’re fine, alright,” Lettie said, ripping his pants leg wider to poke around the wound. “Gotta get this out,” she said, then gestured to her nurse to put pressure on it as she went to check out his arm. “This went through,” she told him. “Okay. Let’s get moving,” she said, nodding toward my soldier who was standing next to the gurney, and he rolled it over, then the two of us lifted Santo onto it.
“Who’s calling your mom?” Luca asked, looking at Dante, August, Massimo, and Lucky.
“That’s on me,” Lucky said, taking a deep breath.
No one wanted to tell any of the women that any of their men were hurt, even if they were going to be okay. We all knew the burden of worry our lifestyle put on our loved ones. It sucked when all that concern was proven necessary.
“But I’m gonna go see her,” he said, nodding at Luca. “If you don’t need me.”
“We’re covered here. Go be with your family. All of you,” he said to the brothers. “I’ll call you if I need you,” he added before they could protest. “But I need your gun,” he told Dante, who was already holding it out.
“What the fuck?” Luca asked when they were gone.
“It was an ambush,” I told him. Then I explained about the woman in the car, the warning she gave me, and going ahead and leaving off the shit about how pretty she was.
We had Santo shot.
And one of my soldiers was dead.
There was other shit to worry about.
But my mind kept flashing back to her pretty face, her worried, tortured eyes, the cuff on her wrist.
“I want that container stripped of identifying marks and moved,” Luca barked to one of his men who worked at the docks, pointing at the box with the guns. “If they’re coming back for it, they’ll have a fuck of a time finding it. You,” he said, pointing to the manager of the docks. “I need you to work up a new schedule for protection. Day and night. No fewer than twenty men at all times. Borrow soldiers and associates from every capo if you need to. This place is getting locked down tight.”
Because we all knew what happened after shit like this.
We looked weak.
Other people might see it as their opportunity to make a move on us. To try to take the docks—and the millions and millions of dollars of passive cash it brought in each year—from us.
We had to show force.
And we would have to be ruthless for a while until the dust settled.
But that was after cleaning this mess up.
Meaning the bodies.
The blood.
The guns.
It was no easy task with so many bodies scattered, but as the men kept rolling in over the next half an hour, it would be easier.
“This was my fucking fault,” I said, looking down at the body of my soldier.
He’d come to me as a street kid, just broken himself out of the foster care system, looking for opportunities for himself.
Young and hungry, that was who he’d been.
Maybe a bit too cocky, too sure of himself.
But he’d been a good, loyal guy.
And now he was dead.
“Can’t take this on your shoulders without putting it on mine too,” Luca reminded me. “I signed off on this. Without doing any research on this fuck.”
I hadn’t done much either.
Mostly out of pure ignorance. Thinking that we already knew everyone in the area who might be a threat. And the name Warren Graves had never been spoken of before as far as any of us were concerned.
We’d gotten too complacent.
Too sure of ourselves.
And too cocky, thinking no one would dare to fuck with us.
Clearly, though, Warren Graves hadn’t gotten that memo. Which also meant there would likely be others who didn’t either.