Page 71 of Count Down

I’m fucking anxious about leaving. About running away to another continent. But I’ll have Gina with me. And as long as we’re together, it’ll all be perfect.

50

GINA

Spain.With Luca. I’m nervous, but also excited. There’s really only one person I feel bad about leaving.

“Do you think we could see Lexi before we leave?” I ask Luca.

Luca nods. “You should call her. Do you think she could bring you your passport?”

“I don’t have my phone anymore.” Even if I borrowed Luca’s phone, I don’t have Lexi’s number memorized.

“Oh yeah,” Luca chuckles. He pulls my phone out of his pocket and hands it to me. The screen is full of cracks, but it still turns on. It’s working just good enough for me to pull up Lexi’s number and call her. “Tell her to meet us at Walnut and Rittenhouse,” Luca adds.

Lexi’s phone rings. She picks up before the first ring is even done.

“Hello?!”

“Hey, Lexi,” I say.

“Oh my god! Are you okay?! Where are you?!” She panics.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Luca found me. I’m with him.”

“Oh fuck. Thank god. Shit, I was so worried.” She must have been so stressed. “I knew Luca would find you. Fuck. I just knew it.”

“Can you meet us?” I ask.

“Yes!”

“Do you think you could go by our apartment? Pick up my passport? It should be in the back of the top left drawer of my dresser.”

“Yeah…”

“And then meet us at…” I look at Luca to remind me, “…Walnut and Rittenhouse,” I repeat.

“Okay… What’s going on?” She asks.

“We can explain it all when we meet. We’re safe though. Thank you.”

Twenty minutes later, Luca pulls up in front of the church. It’s old and ornate. Across the street is a small park, but the other sides of the church are surrounded by tall glass buildings.

Luca gestures for me to follow him. He goes to the trunk of his car and grabs a tire iron. I follow him around to the back corner of the building. I can’t imagine why he would want to break into an old church.

But instead of going for any doors or windows, Luca counts the large bricks on the bottom of the church from the corner. At the sixth brick, he winds up and hits it with his tire iron. The face of the brick cracks. He strikes it again and it cracks even deeper, as if it’s hollow.

On the third hit, parts of the brick face crumble away. Luca uses the tire iron to knock away the shards of brick and I see that it’s hollow. He pulls out a small metal box.

When he opens the box, I see a small stack of cash, a passport, and a handgun. “Just in case I ever needed to retire,” he says. He sticks the cash and the passport in his pockets. He takes the gun out and tosses the metal box into a construction dumpster next door to the church.

Luca takes the gun and walks toward the street. He finds a street drain and drops the gun between the grills.

We go back to his car and get in to wait for Lexi to arrive.

“I think Lexi’s the only one I really feel bad about leaving,” I tell Luca. “Are you going to miss anyone?”

Luca takes a deep breath. He looks at the back of his hand and rubs something off of one of his fingers. “Mateo was like my brother growing up. The rest of the Barone’s were like my family, too.” Luca looks up at me. “But it’s time I did my own thing. Will you miss the dance company?”

---