Page 25 of We're Not Strangers Anymore

Rowan and I rush into the house and up the marble staircase into our bedroom. I pull out a loaded pistol and hand it to Rowan.

“I’ll be back in three hours, the house is guarded but if anyone gets in, take this and hide in the closet. If you canmake it to the basement, stay down there until I get back.” I order.

“No please don’t leave–”

“It’s going to be okay, no one is getting past all of those guards, it's just in case, Row.” I assure her, holding her face in my hands. The house is secure and I need to do all of this quickly, before Conejo can plot against us any more than he has.

As I pull outside of the gate to the driveway, I get a video call from an unknown number. I know it’s Conejo, so I answer the call– but I see Luciano’s swollen, bloodied face and he’s screaming in agony inside a room covered in industrial plastic wrap.

“Times running out homie. Your boy got caught up.” I hear Conejo’s sinister voice behind the camera. He props the phone up, stepping in front of the camera and starts beating Luciano with a rubber mallet.

“You mother fucker let him go!” I scream into the phone. He continues beating Luciano until he goes limp. Then he stomps his face, he’s unrecognizable. Luciano is gone. He just fucking killed my brother. I should have never left him, he shouldn’t have driven back alone. We were supposed to seethis shit through together. Bile rises to my throat. This is all happening too fast and I haven’t had a fucking moment to figure out my next move. I never prepared for not having Luciano by my side.

“Looks like you made your choice.” He says, hanging the phone up.Fuck!I bust the glass of my windshield with my fist. I have to get the money and get Rowan the fuck out of here along with my mom and Laila. I’m going to have to go with them. Now isn’t the time to let anger get in the way or I’m going to get sloppy and we’re all going to end up dead. I need to focus. Iwillkill Conejo, not for money, not for power, but for my dad’s and Luciano’s legacy.

Grayson

After I hit the third spot in the field behind the organization's Safe House to dig the rest of the money up, I make my way to the Santoro Building to pay a visit to Frank in the bunker. He’s going to fucking pay for getting Luciano and my dad killed.

“How’s captivity treating you, Frank?” I say, entering the back room of the bunker. My voice is tense and sweat drips from my forehead.

“Grayson you have to let me go, I’ve been down here for two days with no food and barely any w–”

“Shut the fuck up.” I cut him off. “Luciano is dead. Al is dead,” my eyes bore into him.

“Grayson I’m so sorry man this wasn’t supposed to happen!” Frank pleads.

“Save it. No more talking, it’s too late.” I pull out a flame thrower from the utility closet and begin torching Frank’s soiled jeans.

“Fuck! I’ll give you anything you want, Grayson please!” He screams, but I can barely hear him over my rage.

“Too late.” I say nonchalantly. “You’re of no use now. You brought in problems we would have never had. My family is being killed off because of you.” I’m shaking now. As Frank starts passing out from the pain, I stop the torch and start slapping his face to keep him awake.

“You’re going to feel everything that I’m feeling right now, Frank. Everything Rowan felt when she found out her mom was dead. Her mom, who you killed, you sick piece of shit.” I set the flame thrower down and grab a screw from the small metal table behind me. In one movement I grab Frank’s sweaty, tear ridden face and jab the screw into his eye, leaving it in. He screams and yanks at the chains cuffed around his wrists as if he could break free.

“Wait until she finds out what you were going to do. Or when she finds out that it was you that killed her mother. We’regoing to make this fun.” I say, my breathing barely catching up to me. As much as I want to keep torturing Frank, I have to get back to the house and get Rowan. I knock Frank out with a swift punch to his temple, and begin removing his cuffs. Taking both of his hands, I tie them together with a rope, and tie the other end of the rope to a thick metal pipe on the low ceiling of the bunker. I pull the rope until his feet are just barely touching the cement floor. When he wakes up he’ll be in the worst pain he’s ever been in his entire life. And he’ll stay that way until he’s dead.

I finally get into the car with the back seat and trunk packed full with duffel bags of money. I’m covered in dirt and Frank’s blood but I won’t have time to get a change of clothes when I pick up Rowan, we have to go straight to the hangar and get on a jet to Sicily. We have estates out there under different aliases in case anything ever went down, though we never imagined it would get this bad. Rowan never chose this life, in fact, she did everything she could to stay away from what her father got her into. I am going to make sure this never touches her again. I’m going to make sure she can start a new life somewhere where she’s safe, for good.

I pull into the driveway and see one of the guards laying in a pool of blood. Fuck.All of them.I get out and draw my gun, flipping the safety off as I step over over the bodies scatteredalong the driveway all the way to the stairs and notice the front doors are open. Rushing into the house, I quickly move up the staircase as my eyes follow the droplets of blood on the white marble of the stairs.

“Rowan!” I call out to her

Nothing.

She’s smart, she has to be in the basement. I turn around and stumble quickly down the stairs making my way toward the thick iron door to the basement. I rush down the stairs of the basement and call out to her again.

“Rowan!”

Still.Nothing.Fuck. I tear through the house, panic driving my every step. I sprint back up the stairs to the bedroom, I didn’t check the bedroom yet she has to be there.

“Rowan!” I shout, my voice raw with desperation to find her as I burst into the bedroom. The closet door is open and all of the lights are on, but no sight of Rowan. Then I hear it– a faint, muffled sound coming from the closet. I move quickly to the inside of the large walk-in closet but I still don’t see her.

“Grayson!” I hear her muffled scream from one of the suitcases neatly stacked in the corner. I toss the smaller suitcases off and unzip the largest one at the bottom, finding Rowan curled up in the cramped space. Her face is streakedwith tears and she inhales deeply, probably suffocated from being in there so long.

“Grayson!” She cries, scrambling out of the suitcase and into my arms.

“You’re okay,” I whisper, more to myself than to her. I grip her tightly, pressing my face into her hair.

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