Page 70 of Stolen Sin

We take the emergency staircase. My hair is still wet from that fucking shower. I pause at the top, holding onto Emily’s hand to stop her from barreling forward, and put a finger to my lips to keep her silent. Once I’m sure there’s nobody else on the steps, we start to descend.

But not too fast. If we go too fast and one of us trips, we both go down and we make a whole lot of noise, and then those fuckers come and they kill us. We go at a moderate pace, and I’m cursing myself silently for taking a room on the fourth fucking floor the whole way down, and Emily looks terrified. I can’t blame her.

We hit the second-floor landing when I hear a door down below slam open and voices echo up the concrete.

“…the fucking worst job. That cock-sucking prick Joey thinks he knows how to run a fucking crew, but I swear, we’re gonna catch that Bianco dickhead and kill him first, yeah?”

“Sure, John, whatever you say.”

I open the second-floor door as silently as I can, but unfortunately the ancient push latch makes a sound like dinner plates smashing on a tile floor, and then I’m dragging Emily inside.

She tries to keep running, but I yank her back against the wall and shove a hand over her mouth. She’s staring at me with eyes like a dying deer, oozing panic and fear. “Don’t move,” I whisper. “And don’t watch.”

The two thugs come up after me a second later. Neither of them bothers looking to the left, since that’s the wall. I’m on the first one before they know what’s happening, my knife driving into his neck as I turn, drop to a knee, and shoot the other guy in the skull, aiming up so his brains and blood and bits of his skull splatter toward the ceiling and don’t get all over me. His friend, probably the nice gentleman named John, collapses to the floor and chokes on his own blood.

Emily’s pale and trembling. “I told you not to look. Can you start moving again?”

She works her mouth. Then she says, “Why didn’t you just let them keep running?”

“Now there are two less people trying to kill us. Come on, we have to move.”

I don’t know if she likes that answer, but it’s better than the total truth. I killed them because I wanted to kill them. Because Santoro and his whole crew have been nothing but a pain in my ass and I’m so far from destroying them that it’s maddening, all because my father can’t get his shit together.

I killed them because it felt good and because I’m a selfish prick. I probably shouldn’t have done it in front of Emily, but oh, well. She should know what I am.

Welcome to the mafia world, baby.

Down on the ground floor, we walk across the lobby like we’re in a hurry but not freaking out. I’m squeezing Emily’s hand hard to keep her from running outside at a flat-out sprint. That would only draw attention, and right now we want to slip away like a couple of ghosts drifting through walls. Outside the night is muggy and warm.

“We can’t go straight to the truck,” I say to her and drag her to the left and into the parking lot. I put the cars between us and the windows. “They’ll have somebody watching.”

And I’m right. They have two guys in a sedan parked catty-corner from my spot just sitting and smoking cigarettes in the darkness. The cherry glow brightens their faces every time they inhale.

“Are you sure?” Emily whispers. We’re crouched behind a van slightly behind the pair and neither of them knows we’re there.

“I’m sure,” I confirm. It’s possible I’m wrong. It could be these two thuggish-looking men are a couple of bored civilians out for a smoke in their car together, but I highly doubt it, and if I’m honest with myself, I’m not in the mood to find out.

I go right up to the window, tap on the glass, and start shooting.

They’re dead pretty fast. The guy in the passenger seat nearly gets his gun drawn before a bullet clips his nose off and another screams through his temple. The car’s interior is a charnel house of blood and flecks of human detritus. One cigarette’s still burning a hole in the driver’s pants. I think about putting it out, but he won’t mind. He’s very gone.

Emily doesn’t say much when I get her in the truck and we pull out. That whole fucking hotel must be swarming with men right about now, and I picture it like a beehive, and all the bees are rushing toward the exits, coming to swarm whoever’s trying to hurt them. But it’s too late as we reach the main road and drive away.

We don’t talk for a while. I’m deeply paranoid by now and start to drive erratically, run a few stoplights, pretend to slow at a yellow before I gun it through at the last possible second, that sort of thing.

“Did you recognize those men?” Emily finally asks. It’s the first thing she’s said to me in the last hour.

“No.”

“Does that mean they weren’t from your father?”

“Not necessarily.”

“You should call someone. Tell them what happened.”

She’s right. I’ve been busy thinking pissed-off murder thoughts and haven’t taken a minute to plan ahead. I pull onto a quiet neighborhood street and park in front of a house with its outdoor lights off. I get out of the truck and lean against the hood, leaving Emily alone inside. She huddles into herself. I’ll do my best to comfort her later, but for now, I’m all business.

Elena answers her phone on the first ring. “I was wondering when I’d hear from you,” she says.

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