Page 134 of Clean Slade
“Be careful,son.You don’t want to piss me off now,do you?Not when I can blow them to smithereens at the touch of a button.”
“See?Unhinged,” King shouted at him. “No sane person takes pleasure in threatening to kill their own blood.”
“They’re in position,” Joey said. “However, we have a problem.” We all turned to him. “If this place is rigged, and we have every right to believe it is, going in is a no-go. Unless I know who holds the trigger, there’s nothing we can do that won’t result in all of us getting blown up.”
“So what? We just sit and wait for a man to kill his mother and granddaughter? We can’t do that,” Ash said.
“No. We take him down,” Wyatt said. “A man like that wouldn’t leave the job to anyone else. He’d want to make sure he has full control of the situation. The kill switch must be on his phone.”
I nodded.
He was right. I may not know Tony Ferraro well, but after what King had shared, I knew that was exactly what he’d do.
“Should I give Parker and Maddox the go-ahead? What do we do? How do we know he won’t push the button as soon as he sees them?” Ash looked at all of us, despair settling on his face like it must have been on mine.
“We can’t,” I said.
“Can’t we send Wyatt to stand in for the dealer?” Joey asked.
“It’s too late. There’s not enough time,” Wyatt said.
Donovan looked around us and winced.
“If only we could take a cell tower down, it would block him from doing anything.”
“I doubt that’s how it works anymore, what with satellites and fiber and shit,” Joey said.
I started to nod but stopped.
“Donovan’s right.” All eyes turned on me. “We may not be able to take a cell tower down, but we can do something much better.”
They all grimaced, but I didn’t have time to explain. There wasn’t time for much of anything. I ran back to the car and jumped in the backseat.
I pulled my laptop out just as Asher caught up with me and watched me trying to frantically connect my laptop to my phone.
“Wha-what are you doing?”
I didn’t answer him. I gave him my phone to hold as I got to work.
Maybe there was hope after all.
Maybe no one had to die today.
“Slade, talk to me,” Ash said. “What are you doing?”
I tapped the return button before I answered.
“I’m just sending a text message.”
THIRTY-TWO
KING
The wait was killing me.
It was killing me because I didn’t see a way out of this for Mac or me. We were my father’s pawns. We always had been. It was foolish of me to think we weren’t.
“Are you so desperate for money that you would kill us all to get it back? How much did that man steal from you that you’re willing to sacrifice your entire family for it?”
