Page 9 of Escape You

My heart raced at the idea of finding out his name, his address, if he had family, if he slept naked, if he lived alone. “Do you have to?”

“Yes.” He glared at me.

“Fine. But I don’t want to ever see him again. Only tell me if I need to know.” It was over with him. The sooner I got that through my head, the sooner I could move on with my life and focus on what really mattered.

He chuckled, shaking his head. “That good, huh? You have the same face Dom had for five years after he met Emilia. You saw how that turned out.” A smirk pulled at his lips.

“I’m not leaving my family over some guy I don’t even know.” I glared at him. Why did he keep comparing me to Dom? “I don’t have a face. Just give me the good news.”

“The cartel has agreed to honor Mickey’s original contract, minus ten percent forreparations.” He crossed his arms over his chest, leaning on the wide ledge under the window.

“I expected as much. With the volume we’re moving, it’s worth it.” I mumbled a little prayer. That was really good news.

“Before you celebrate too much, they’re also agreeable to whatever date works for you. I don’t like it. Since when has the cartel been a friend to us?”

“Right. Do you think they’ll risk the deal just to get back at us?” Maybe my great plan wasn’t such a great plan after all. Too risky.

“They don’t know what happened with Mickey. To them, Mickey and their boss got into it and they both ended up dead. It was literally an eye for an eye.”

“Maybe it’s my telltale heart making me see things that aren’t there.”

“Trust your gut.” He pointed a finger at me. “Our plan will have to be airtight. We’ll make the delivery without them knowing about it. When we’re back home, we’ll send them the coordinates. We don’t need to be in the same state for the drop-off to happen.”

“Agreed. We knew that shipment would be tricky. I was thinking about maybe postponing the run. Make sure we have all our T’s crossed and whatever else. Just a few more weeks. Money will be tight, but the guys can handle it. We’ve done it before.”

“That’s smart. If we wait a month, that would be best.” Vic nodded.

“We also need more intel on our new customer. Are the guns staying in Mexico?”

“Do you care?”

“It’ll give us an idea of who we’re dealing with. I want to know their business and see if there’s anything we can use to our advantage. How likely are they to try and pull something on us? After Uncle Mickey went off the deep end like he did, I’d like to think I can recognize the signs.”

“You’re right. Mickey kind of lost there. He never recovered from Dom’s betrayal. I mean, it wasn’t like that, but Mickey never saw eye to eye with me on that.” He wrote furiously, mumbling to himself as he filled the whole page.

How did he keep track of all that information? I kept a spreadsheet to stay organized. When he finished writing, he flipped to a different section.

“Ready for the bad news?” He glanced up.

“Shoot.”

“The council sent word. They’re not able to see you at the moment.”

I stuffed my hands in my hair. “Translation—we’ll talk to you in a few weeks, IF you’re still alive.”

“Yeah. Pretty much. We can still crash their council meeting tomorrow morning. Make them see.”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t want to antagonize them like that. I want them to come to me because I’m the only person who can protect them, not because they’re afraid of me. The new councilor is a friend of mine. Maybe I can appeal to her in private rather than in front of the entire council. Can you set that up?” When he cocked an eyebrow, I corrected. “Just give her a ride to the restaurant so we can have a quiet meal tonight.”

“Fine. We’ll try it your way first. But just so you know, they were all scared shitless of Mickey.”

“I used to be you, remember?” I understood exactly what he was going through. Mickey had a different leadership style. Was Vic right in thinking “my way” was the wrong way? No, I had to stick to the plan. The crew, this town, they were all my family.

“You had it easy.” The look he gave me wasn’t one of superiority. He truly felt sorry for me.

“What now?”

“This is only a rumor, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore it. The Big 5 has taken notice of our state of affairs here. Apparently, the unstable situation with the crew is putting all of New Jersey in jeopardy.”

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