Page 83 of Final Installment
Of course, Luka thought bitterly.
“He’s not as much fun as you are, Elona.”Kristo pointed the gun at her brother and then back at her.Again, she remained still.“We had a good time.Would have had a better one if your dumbass brother knew how to drive.”
“Was drunk,” Skender managed to say, his voice fading.“You got me drunk.”
“That’s true,” Kristo allowed.“Probably shouldn’t have gotten in the car with you knowing how wasted you were.”He shrugged.“You know I don’t really remember anything after we sped away from that night club.I remember waking up in the hospital, chained to my bed, surrounded by police.”He gestured toward Skender again.“This shithead was gone.Carlo rushed him out of the country before anyone caught on to the trouble.I was left there to eat that charge by myself.”
“That’s why you wouldn’t defend yourself?”Luka tried to make sense of Kristo’s decision.“If you’d told me—.”
“How was I supposed to tell you when you wouldn’t talk to me?Huh?”Kristo demanded furiously.“Everything went through Zec.You didn’t even have the decency to call me on the fucking phone.”
“I couldn’t,” Luka defended himself.“Zec said—.”
“Oh, fucking spare me, Luka!You let Zec make those ugly decisions because it insulates you from the reality you can’t stand to face.”The gun was pointed back in his direction, the muzzle even with his head.“You never wanted to be the head of this family.You’ve done everything in your power to not actually ever make any moves.You’re happy to let Zec do all the dirty work, and he’s happy to do it for you.”
“Because he’s loyal!”Luka shot back.“He knows his place!”
“There it is!”Kristo shouted triumphantly.He glanced at Elona as if to say, “See?”Focused back on Luka, he asked, “Where is my place now?”
“Standing on a pile of our corpses, I imagine,” Luka ground out bitterly.
Kristo made a face.“Hardly.You’re going into the ocean when I’m done with you.”
“But not her, right?”Liliana dared to speak and pointed a glossy pink nail at Elona.“She’s worth more alive.”
“I promised alive.”Kristo grinned evilly.“I didn’t promise unharmed.”
“Kristo,” Liliana said pleadingly.
He swore at her in Albanian, and she shrank back, shutting her mouth and practically disassociating in front of them.Kristo walked over to Skender and kicked the younger man in the leg.“Luka, you remember that bungled crypto deal you had with Darko?This little prick was the one who stole from us.”
Stunned, Luka considered Elona’s little brother.Was he truly a criminal mastermind?“How?”
“I suspect I’m not the only double-crossing asshole in this family,” Kristo said.“He’s still keeping that secret.”He kicked Skender again, this time aiming higher and burying his foot in the kid’s crotch.Skender made the most pitiful sound, and Luka’s gut soured in empathy.
“It wasn’t hard to get him to fall for Liliana,” Kristo continued, smiling at his work.“Sad, lonely boy meets a beautiful, sexy woman who thinks he’s so interesting.He falls for her.She uses her tricks to convince him to help her get back at the man who had betrayed her twice.The same man who was going to marry his sister and make her life a living hell.”
Luka wasn’t going to argue with Kristo about how he would have treated Dafina.
“The thing is,” Kristo’s face contorted with rage, “this kid is much smarter than I expected.He wasn’t planning on just hurting you.He was planning to double cross all of us.Isn’t that right?”He kicked Skender again, this time in the gut.“Earlier this year, he cleaned out the trust account the Raffaellis were holding.The Dushku money.The Beciraj money.All of it.”Kristo snapped his fingers.“Gone.”
Zec was right.The Raffaellis had been hiding something.They had given him cooked books to hide the money that was missing.
“Probably why the Raffaellis planted that stupid bomb,” Kristo reasoned.“They knew their days were numbered.Stalling the wedding or killing most of us would have bought them some time or maybe even allowed them to hide the theft altogether.”
“And you couldn’t put off your plan any longer,” Luka said, piecing it together.“You had cover for your coup.You could blame it on the Raffaellis and Skender and get out clean.”
“That was the plan.”Kristo crouched down and hauled Skender into a sitting position.He dragged the kid to the wall and propped him up next to Elona.“I’ve got to give it to him.He’s a tough little bastard.Much tougher than his father was.”Kristo laughed evilly.“Well, if Valmir Dushku was even his father.”
Elona reacted with shock at that insinuation, but there was something else on her face.A moment of realization.
“He’s given me the crypto wallet, but he won’t give me the passcode.”Kristo stood tall again and waved the gun around carelessly.“He seems to think I’m kidding about how far I’m willing to go.”
Luka watched Kristo’s arm lift in his direction.There was a bright muzzle flash, a deafening crack and then pain exploded in his stomach.Before he’d even managed to react to being shot once, Kristo fired again, blowing another hole in his gut.
Elona screamed.Liliana covered her ears.Skender shouted angrily.
Tucking the gun into the waistband of his jeans, Kristo sneered down at Skender.“Do you understand now?”
