Page 94 of Once A Crime Lord

Fifteen minutes out.

She swallowed bile and knelt beside the bag of ammo in the corner. She grabbed her second gun and stuffed bullets and magazines into her pockets. She didn’t look at her father as she walked out of the bedroom. Carmen stood in the kitchen with Nora strapped to her chest.

“Lyla?”

“They’re coming.” She stared at her daughter who cried pitifully. Like them, Nora was overtired, scared, and confused. They were in the middle of nowhere with no backup and Sadist’s men on the way. Terror threatened to obliterate her icy composure. This was it. She could feel the walls closing in around them.

“Sadist?” Carmen whispered his name. “He’s coming?”

She held up the phone. “They’ve been tracking us.”

“Is Uncle Pat...?”

“He’s dead. We have to get out of here.”

“And go where?”

“We can’t be in the house when they get here. We have to make a run for it.”

Carmen opened her mouth to argue and then closed it. “Okay.”

They ran onto the porch and down the steps. She cautiously approached the incline and searched the desert landscape. She didn’t see the headlights of an approaching vehicle, but she knew they were out there. Fifteen minutes. Fuck.

She rounded the house and started after Carmen and Nora. The canyon loomed around them, protecting and trapping them. Was there a way through? A cave they could hide in? They wove around cactus that towered six feet high, waist-high shrubs, and creepy looking trees without canopies. There were scorpions, snakes, and God knew what else out here, but they had no choice. The moon cast enough light for them to avoid being impaled by the spines of the wild cactus.

She skidded to a halt as the phone vibrated in her pocket.

Why are you on the move?

She held the phone away from her as if it turned into a snake. How could she be so stupid? Of course, they were tracking the phone. Her first instinct was to toss it as far as she could. The other part of her knew the key to finding her mother and possibly the identity of Sadist was in this piece of evidence.

“Hold up,” she called. “I’m going to call Blade.”

“Run and call him!” Carmen retorted.

“They’re tracking the phone.”

Carmen stopped in her tracks. “Call him and toss it, Lyla.”

She dialed Blade’s number and silently promised she would thank him for forcing her to memorize it. Her heart thudded in her ears as the phone began to ring. She glanced back the way they had come and was surprised at how much ground they covered, but they were nowhere near the base of the canyon, their only hope for cover. Just when she feared the call would go to voicemail, he picked up.

“Who is this?”

“Blade, it’s me.” She clutched the phone with both hands.

“Lyla? Whose phone is this?”

Her throat closed up.

“Lyla?”

“He’s dead.”

“What? Who?”

“My dad. I shot him. He was going to kill Nora.”

“Fuck.”

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