Page 84 of Filthy Little Games

“We follow your lead, even when you do some crazy fucking shit,” Dre agrees. “What do you need me to do tonight?” Dre asks, making me smile in relief that I’m forgiven for not only making mistakes but hiding them from my family.

27

Creed

“You and Aldo are going in alone? You can’t be serious,” Dre says from where he and Tristan lean against the SUV in the parking garage. His arms are crossed over his chest. I’ve just told them my plan for how to get this party started. Of course, Dre wants to bitch about it.

“I know what I’m doing.” Nothing and no one will stop me from going after Zara’s daughter tonight. “If I storm into the building with an army, it’ll raise the alarm.”

“Oh, it’s going to raise the alarm no matter what. Missing kids have a tendency to do that,” Tristan says with a chuckle. Still, he comes over and holds out his palm to me. When I take it, he pulls me in for an embrace, slapping my back. “Good luck, boss. Call us if you need us.”

“He’s going to need us,” Dre mutters.

“Just follow behind us, wait until we’re inside, and get a look at the place before you do anything.”

With that, I open the door and climb into the SUV. Aldo has already changed the license plates to fakes and loaded up both vehicles with weapons, armor, and zip ties, so I tell him, “Let’s go.”

“Can you hear me?” I ask into the earpiece an hour later after Aldo and I have suited up and staked out the apartment, searching for any changes since we last left.

“Ready, boss,” Tristan replies from the car parked a block away. “Local wi-fi has been jammed so any personal security cameras inside the building should be offline until someone notices.”

“Good. Aldo and I are going in now. Wait where you are until you hear from us.”

I’ve pulled a lot of jobs before — murders, heists, robberies, teenage punk bullshit — but I’ve never wanted any of them to go off without a hitch as much as I want this one to be flawless.

I wish Carmine was with us. My brother loved kids, wanted a dozen of his own. He would’ve been on board with this plan even if it was half-cooked.

Since Emilio’s apartment is on the sixth floor, Aldo and I slip into the stairwell and start the trek upward while keeping our heads down and baseball caps pulled low to avoid being identified on any cameras.

We step through the door to the floor when I hear the elevator ding. Before the door can shut behind Aldo, we backpedal. I keep it cracked to watch the hallway and see who exits the elevator.

My heart drops to my stomach when an entourage strides past, surrounding a single, bald, older man.

It’s fucking Emilio.

Of all the times for him to visit...I guess Friday night is one ofthem. If I had waited and done more recon for another week, I would’ve known that too.

And of course, he also had to bring a small army with him.

“What do we do now, boss?” Aldo whispers as I let the stairwell door shut softly.

We sure as shit can’t walk out any of the main doors right now, since there could be more guards downstairs or a car waiting at the curb. Glancing around, I jerk my chin up and begin climbing the steps as quietly as I can.

Over my shoulder, I whisper to Aldo, “We’ll go up two floors and try to find a custodian closet to wait him out in.”

The eighth floor doesn’t have such a closet, so we go up to the ninth. There, we find a maintenance room, but the door is locked. Aldo rams his shoulder into it a few times, and it buckles.

Once we’re inside, I press the earpiece to inform Dre and Tristan what’s going on, then have them pull around, so they can watch the front of the building and tell us when Emilio and his entourage leave.

“Good thing we waited a few minutes, huh, boss?” Aldo remarks.

“Yeah, good thing,” I agree, turning over a bucket to sit on top of it.

I refuse to let this setback kill our plan, though. Zara would be so damn devastated if I returned home without her daughter tonight. I refuse to let her down.

Loving her apparently means wanting to do everything in my power to make her happy. It’s like her feelings matter more than anything else in the world.

And that’s exactly the problem. I’m starting to make Zara a priority over everyone and everything else, even all the people I’m responsible for protecting.

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