Page 53 of Killer Love

“Wait—” I hold up a hand. “Please, don’t bother Gio. I’ll just be in and out. I promise. No harm done.”

“Sorry,” he says. “The place is on lockdown tonight. I can’t let you in.”

I pause. “Lockdown? Why?”

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he keeps moving toward his radio and I grit my teeth.

I reach through the bars and grab his hand, yanking him toward me and slamming his face into them. “Why?” I ask again.

He tries to jerk away, but I pull him right back in. “I don’t know,” he says through the pain. “He just said to clear out. No one’s allowed inside. Something about his stupid wife.”

“What about her?”

Voices and pounding boots move in our direction from around the house. I can’t exactly say slamming this guy against the gate was stealthy.

“Does it matter?”

“It matters to me.”

A body collapses behind him. We both look over his shoulder to see a guard lying on the pavement a few yards away, face down in a red puddle.

I grin. “Let me in or the next bullet is for you.”

“Fuck off, commie.”

A second body falls behind him. He deflates without looking.

“Pretty please?” I say through my teeth.

He raises his free hand and slips his fingers into his breast pocket for his keycard. “Okay… okay…”

I let him reach to the right and he swipes the card on a terminal behind the gate. I keep a firm grip on his arm between the bars.

The gate turns on and starts to roll open, collapsing horizontally into the wall and panic fills his eyes.

He tries to pull his arm free, but I don’t let go. The gate leads us over, slowly inching closer to crushing his arm.

“Come on, man,” he whines. “I did what you asked—”

“But you were very rude.”

He tugs for his arm repeatedly, his eyes flicking back and forth from me to the gate. “Let go.”

“Are you sorry?”

“Yes!”

“Say it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For calling you a commie.”

I smirk. “Oh, I don’t care about that.”

He frowns. “Then, what’s your fucking problem—aghhh!”

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