Please God, work for me. Please let me aim straight.
Wrenching the gun out from its hiding place, I fling myself backwards against the wall and aim it at his head. “Get the fuck away from me, you sick bastard!” I scream, as every emotion I’ve repressed over the years comes spilling out of me. My hand is shaking so hard I can’t even keep the muzzle straight. “Just fucking die!”
I watch his expression switch from surprise to anger, and that’s when I close my eyes and fire.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
I let off three rounds that shatter the quiet of the house, only stopping when I hear his huge body crashing to the floor.
Is it over?
Dragging myself to my feet, I limp towards him with Frankie’s gun still outstretched. I’m shaking. I’m in shock. That moment of skepticism is creeping in again because something crazy and improbable just happened for the second time this week.
He’s not dead.
He’s lying on his back in a pool of his own blood that’s spreading rapidly. All his sin and poison is seeping out of him. I hit him in the chest. I also hit him in the neck. One hand is clutching at that wound, trying to knit the mangled flesh together, but we both know it’s too late.
I used to think there was only darkness crawling behind his jet-black irises. Now I’m seeing all the things he made me feel reflected back at me.
Disbelief.
Desperation.
Anger.
The baseball bat is still lying discarded next to his other hand. I tilt my head to consider it, and then I’m bending down to pick it up. He tries to speak, blowing red bubbles out of the corner of his mouth when he guesses my intentions.
Sliding the gun into the waistband of my jeans, I test the weight of the bat between my fingers. I try out a couple of swings. Each time the metal slices through the air, I can feel it ripping at the seams of my memory.
Bad and sad things come flooding out, of rapes and beatings, games and abuse. The fourteen years I was kept from Frankie, and the lifetime that I’ll never spend with my son.
I don’t know when I started crying, but my cheeks are wet again.
I breathe in freedom.
I breathe out fear.
Then, lifting the baseball bat high, I bring it down as hard as I can on his right knee, and while he’s still writhing in agony, I bring it down hard on his left.
CHAPTER 36
FRANKIE
“Get under the desk.” Bambi blinks at me. “I said, get the fuck under the desk.” Losing my patience, I pull her out of the chair and push her head down, feeling her resist, until her body finally crumples up into the small space. “Stay there until I come back for you, do you hear?”
I turn to leave and feel her hand on my leg.
“I don’t want you to go.”
Another burst of gunfire cuts through the yells and screams.
Fuck. “Bambi—”
“Frankie, I’m scared.” She looks really young again. Her pink hair is a mess. She’s only seen us inflict violence before. She’s never seen us on the receiving end of it.
Crouching down, I take her chin gently between my fingers, and force a steady tone. “Hey, I’m a villain, remember? We live for this shit.”
“Don’t die.”
“Not planning on it. But if I do, don’t chew gum at my funeral.”
Satisfied with a weak smile, I drop her face, and pull out my gun.
Outside, Nancy’s chair is empty. I’m taking that as her resignation letter, effective immediately. The hallway is empty too, but when I reach the gaming floor, it’s gunsmoke and chaos with upturned chairs, chips, and broken glasses strewn across my new carpet like confetti warfare.
Keeping just inside the doorframe and out of sight, I survey the damage. There are bodies lying everywhere, some dead, some trembling. Most of Viper’s men are those without a pulse, their weapons kicked out of reach, just in case they decide to make a movie comeback. Five others are on their knees by the main doors with their hands on their head.
Where’s Viper, and who the fuck betrayed us?
I can’t even message him to bring hellfire into this room. I left my phone in my office.
Keeping low to the back wall, I tuck in behind the nearest roulette table. There are at least twenty-five armed Irish. No Bratva, though. Every exit is blocked, except for the one to my office, but that’s where Bambi’s hiding, so no one’s going through there without a bullet from me first.
My thoughts dart to Ada, and the ache is raw. If they found out about this place, they’ve found out about us, which means her life is in just as much danger as mine.
Are you here too, O’Sullivan? If so, let’s get this show started.
On cue, the Irish mobster cuts across my periphery, pausing by the line of men on their knees to pistol-whip the closest, kicking him onto his back when he starts to sway. He moves slower these days, his old swagger is more a fat man’s stagger, but he’s still the same man who smashed my life apart.
“Frankie Lastra,” he shouts, his dark brogue kicking me back down the stairs to a basement. “We have some unfinished business, you and I…” From my vantage point, I watch him walk a tight circle around Viper’s men. “Are you going to come out like a good boy, or am I going to have to make you?”
“Phone,” I hiss at a gambler cowering on the floor close by.
With a shaking hand, he dives into his pocket, unlocks the device, and tosses it across to me as O’Sullivan points his gun at the next man on his knees.
“I’m going to count to three, Lastra… One.” His gun explodes, along with most of the guy’s head as horrified screams ripple around the room. “I liked your surveillance guy,” he announces, as another hush descends. “Took me hours to break him, and there wasn’t much of him left when he finally started talking. Threatening his daughter turned the final screw, but she’s dead now as well, so that’s a fucking shame.”
Silas.
Motherfucker.
Fighting back my anger, I tap out a message to Viper’s burner.
Betrayed. At Encore.
I don’t know Grayson’s number off by heart, but I’m hoping that the squeal of tyres I heard in the background of our call was the sound of a hundred trained Santiago soldiers heading in our direction.
All deals are off now.
All bets are lost.
“Is it time for another number, Lastra?” he calls out. “Two.” Without warning, O’Sullivan fires again, and another body hits the deck. This time the ripple of screams around the room comes with begging and pleading.
“Silence!” he roars, as a message bounces back from Viper.
Eyes to the front in five, mafia boy. This is how we do things at The Firm.
What the—
“Were you a player in Monaco, Frankie?” O’Sullivan resumes his circling, though it’s significantly smaller with three less men. “Is that why you thought you could just stroll back into my city and play with her life, too? She’s all mine, by the way. Semenov’s had enough. He’s there now to bring her to my house. I was thinking of keeping her in the basement to make her feel at home—”
“Stop.”
I rise to my feet with my hands up, and chuck my gun away.