Page 11 of Filthy Little Games

“Fuck!” I press down harder on his chest and stomach. “Hang on, Carmine. Just hang on until we can get you out of here,” I tell him right before I’m tackled to the floor by what feels like several large bodies.

My head and back slam to the stone ground, and then I’m looking up at a SWAT member who presses the muzzle of his gun to my forehead. I can’t see the face behind the helmet, but I warn him through gritted teeth, “Get the fuck off me and get my brother to a hospital right fucking now!”

The cop doesn’t flinch.

“Don’t do it, Hurley,” a voice says from behind him. “Too many witnesses now.”

“He’s resisting,” the cop above me says.

“Bullshit! I’m trying to help my brother!”

Behind him, Dre, Lorenzo, and Tristan all approach and point their guns at the cop’s back, even though they’re surrounded.

“DROP YOUR WEAPONS!” a cop shouts.

They ignore him.

“Put your guns down!” I command them before they get shot too.

The cop above me scoffs. “You don’t fucking give me orders!”

“I was talking to the three men behind you about to blow your head off.”

That finally has him pulling his gun back and climbing off me.

As soon as he moves, his less hostile comrade slaps cold metal handcuffs on my wrists, then slips my gun from my shoulder holster. “Creed Ferraro, you’re under arrest.”

“Where the hell is EMS? Are you just going to let my brother bleed out on the goddamn floor?” I gesture with my restrained hands toward Carmine’s unmoving, prone form.

Another cop comes over and places his gloved fingertips to the side of my brother’s neck for several seconds before he says, “Too late now.”

“Vaffanculo!”

The asshole has to be lying, because it can’t be too fucking late…

I lunge for my brother. Several hands not only hold me back but start dragging me away from him.

4

Creed

Three days later…

I’ll never know if Carmine was still alive or not when the cop checked his pulse. Either way, those motherfuckers let him bleed out on the bar floor and didn’t lift a finger to try to save him.

I saw the damage from the bullets and sent two of my guys to the morgue, but I still can’t believe he’s really gone.

It was my job to protect my baby brother, and I failed him.

When Carmine was born, I was only six years old. One of the first things my father told me was to always watch his back and keep him safe, and I took that shit to heart.

If he got into trouble when we were kids, starting fights at school, or wrecking one of our father’s cars in his teens, I would take the fall, along with our father’s beating, to protect Carmine.

He was my best friend. The one person who made enduring the burden of this family bearable.

I never should’ve left him at the bar to go talk to that goddamn woman. She’s to blame for his death almost as much as I am because she fucking knew something was about to happen and instead of just coming over and warning us, she decided to play a fucking game with me.

If Jasper wasn’t dead too, I would’ve thought he knew what was about to go down in my club. It was a setup. The warning was a ploy to lure me to the club. Someone baited me into showing up exactly when and where they wanted with the vague-ass threat hanging over my head so I’d come armed.

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