Page 20 of Scars He Gave Me (Bratva Crime Syndicate 2)

I count to ten for courage, inch around Joey Tribbiani, and stand between Tomas and the door. This might be my only chance to get to the police. “You ever seen a picture that big hanging in a bathroom?”

I wait until he’s lifted the painting and his back is turned to run.

My shining moment. A perfect distraction.Run, Forrest, run!

I would’ve made it, had it not been for Alvin. He’d made it almost out to the seating area on his stomach when we weren’t looking, trailing blood like a slug. I trip over him and go sprawling through to the marble floor in the seating area. “Fuck!” I tear the knee to my jeans, but the only real injury is to my pride. Alvin groans in muted pain.

Tomas stands in the doorway, shaking his head at the pitiful sight. “No wonder you two got married. You’re the Abbott and Costello of escape artists.”

I have to swallow back a laugh. I forgot how Tomas used to love those old black and white movies.

He shakes his head and shrugs a shoulder. “If you want to go, Corrie”—oh, God, no one’s called me that in ten years—“go ahead. But they’re going to come for you, especially when they come to me and I tell them you have their money.”

I blanch, the color draining from my face. “You wouldn’t.”

He isn’t that cold. That uncaring. He loved me once, didn’t he?

He nods to the dead guy by the closet. “Ask that guy what I’m capable of.” He cocks one brow. “You can come with me, and I’ll protect you until you don’t need it anymore. Or you can go it on your own. Maybe the cops can help you, but then you’ll have the Italiansandthe Russians chasing you.”

He crouches over Alvin and flips him so he is on his back. I can’t make out what he says because blood is pounding in my ears. Tomas fists a handful of Alvin’s hair then lets his head fall to the floor with a thwack of skull on marble.

“What about Alvin?” I ask.

Tommy shakes his head. “Just you. I’ll have someone come by and help yourhusband”—he says the word with pure disgust—“get his story straight for the cops. But if you’re coming with me, then we have to go. Right now. No other choices.”

He stands and steps over Alvin, then holds a hand out to me.

“You coming?”

He’s calm and smug and I hate him for everything he was and everything he is. But I don’t have any other choice until I figure out what to do.

I take his hand.

6

Tomas

Things work for me because I plan, then if the plan goes awry, I adapt. But this clusterfuck is unadaptable. I’ve never been so careless. So stupid.

Corinne is huffing and puffing in the passenger seat. I’m checking the rearview mirror every two seconds like it’s my first day on the job.

Alek would be laughing his ass off at my shitshow of stupidity. I missed the mark. Killed two Italians. Grabbed a girl. The only redeeming quality of this night is the duffel bag of money I have stowed in the trunk.

The city is still alive with action. It’s only a little after two a.m. and I’m watching for police cars, gang colors, or Italians on the hunt because I’ve killed two of their men. Next to me, Corinne smells like sunshine and flowers. I’m torn between pushing her out of the car because I can’t afford the distractions and calling Alek to meet us so she can ride back with him. Whatever it takes to put some distance between us.

Alek would deliver her to my father, and she’d end up on the auction block next month once they’d “trained” her. I shouldn’t give a fuck, but I do, so that’s not an option.

Left on her own, she’d call the cops, which would snowball into an even more tangled clusterfuck.

No. Best to keep her with me. Huffing and puffing aside.

But right now, I’m wearing the blood of three different men and I need to get rid of the gun, the clothes, her wedding dress, and the Italian’s knife. At least I have supplies in the trunk. A bottle of bleach. Plastic bags. Gloves. Duct tape.

When I get to the dump site, I snap on a pair of gloves and take off my clothes, adding them to a pile with her dress. She’s watching me. I can’t see her because the headlights are blinding me, but I can feel her eyes.

Maybe she’s looking at the scars. None of them are fresh but they weren’t there when we were in high school. There’s a scar from a gunshot at my right shoulder. A long, thin line where Doc sewed me up after a bar fight in my wilder days, soon after I arrived in the city. Another stabbing scar stitched by a prison doctor after my six-month stint in Concord when I took a shiv to the gut.

Or maybe she’s looking at the man’s body where the boy’s once was. I slip my arms into a T-shirt I pull from my stash in the trunk and finish my business disposing of everything, then slide behind the wheel.

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