Page 131 of Clean Slade
What good would that have done? He’d have tracked me anyway.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to punch something—my father preferably—I wanted to rip my skin.
“Shut up, Gianni. You’re just as hopeless as your brother,” he said when Nino didn’t stop harassing him. “Make the call. Now.”
This time it wasn’t a negotiation.
I could tell by his words, his face, and his eyes.
So I did.
I called the first number on my burner phone and waited. And waited.
He wouldn’t pick up. Of course he wouldn’t. He had no reason to. And because of that, I was going to lose my daughter.
“Hello!” a rough voice boomed in my ear, and a sliver of relief so tiny washed through my body.
Maybe…
Maybe this wasn’t the end. Maybe there was still time.
“It-it’s me. I’m sorry about, um…earlier. I’d like to meet your boss.”
My father pointed at the little black phone in my hand with his eyes, and I lowered to press the loudspeaker button.
“The boss doesn’t like to meet strangers,” said the voice.
It sounded so much deeper than usual. It was probably the volume of the speaker altering the sound.
“I’m not a stranger. I’m a partner. With lots of money,” I said.
I didn’t even know what I was saying by that point. I wasn’t thinking. I was just…speaking. As if I was possessed by survival mode or something.
“The boss doesn’t meet anyone.”
“Okay then. I guess that means you don’t need my buyers. Shame. And they’ve got millions to spend.”
“Hold,” Barry said, and I did.
I held my breath second after second after second, until I was dangerously close to running out of oxygen, but breathing in might make me fall apart. Might makeeverythingfall apart.
The phone clicked, and Barry returned to the call.
“The boss will meet you. Where?”
My father pointed at the floor, and I gulped.
“36 Coral Lane.”
“He’ll be there in an hour.” And with that, he dropped the call, and the beeping end-call sound filled the room as I stared into my dad’s eyes, begging for a miracle.
I tried not to look at the smartphone and the feed of my daughter and grandma sitting oblivious next to each other, watching the same movie I knew by heart.
I tried not to think it was the last time I’d see them, and they couldn’t even see me.
I tried to believe there was a guardian angel somewhere watching over us all that would intervene and stop this from happening.
Stop the end.
