Page 32 of Wicked Tricks

We got to know him over the years, and he became fiercely protective over us. He was our collective father figure, and had three daughters of his own who he would brag about for hours if given the chance.

Louis hopped onto the forklift and hung the cigarette in his mouth as he reversed it back and returned to the docks.

I exhaled, and got into the truck.

“Let’s get out of here,” Livie said shakily as she fastened her seat belt.

I nodded, “I’ll text the girls.”

We drove straight to the storage unit and backed the truck into the shed as tightly as we could. The girls arrived only ten minutes after us, and we all stood in the back of the truck, pulling the plastic wrapping off of the stacked boxes on the pallet.

We took the boxes down one by one, I stood on a step to reach the top, and handed them to Livie who handed them down to Mina who stacked them in the storage shed.

“We need to invest in our own forklift,” Mina said, “you think I signed up for this to do manual labour? Get fucked.”

Bea chuckled.

“Should do this more often to work off your fat ass,” Livie shot back, throwing the lid of a carton at Mina’s head.

“Ha!” Mina laughed, “my fat ass is the reason I make more in tips than you.”

“You both have fat asses, now shut the fuck up and help me,” Bea yelled from the back of the shed. She was unpacking the boxes to check for what we were looking for.

The top cartons usually had nothing, but we checked just in case. Bea was sitting on the floor with bunches of bananas piling up around her ankles as she dug through the contents of each carton.

I lifted the next box off the pallet, and it was much heavier than the others.

“Oof,” I grunted under the weight, “we got one.”

I handed it to Livie who dropped it instantly on the floor of the truck, ripping the tape and lid off the box. She threw the bananas to the ground as she rifled through.

“Yes,” she squealed as she revealed the stacks of cash hidden under the layer of produce.

As we dug deeper and deeper into the shipment, we got exactly what we expected.

Cash, guns, drugs.

We began sorting the score, stacking the guns and drugs into suitcases and pushing them into the shelves in the shed and putting the cash into large duffle bags. Our collection was growing quickly, and we would soon need even more storage.

It had been a slow build up for the operation, but the careful planning we did kept us from being caught.

All this work, I had nearly thrown out the window due to my own anger issues.

I was usually a careful planner, but I was not as level headed as I would have liked to be. I felt a pit in my stomach at how I had put the operation, and all the people I cared about, in danger.

We were operating on the fact that we knew of the Santino’s rule that they did not harm women. But we could not guarantee that they would let this slide.

If we were caught, someone would have to pay in some way.

We just didn’t know what that would be.

I thought about Antoni, and tried to imagine him as the angry crime boss with the reputation he had in Melbourne. Like anyone who was well known, there were stories about him that were told in our circles. Stories of brutality, of murder, and of ruthlessness. I just didn’t get that vibe from him, even though we had only spent a short amount of time together. He didn’t seem scary at all.

For some reason, he had spared me, and I couldn’t figure out why.

I knew better than to underestimate him. I knew that the time he was spending at Lilith’s was not because he simply enjoyed my company. I saw the way his eyes scanned the place, the way he studied anyone who showed up. It frustrated me, not knowing what his game was.

I only worried that it would be too late by the time I figured it out.

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