Page 69 of Count Down

Luca climbs off of the man and then helps me up. He wraps me tightly in his arms.

“Are you okay?” He asks.

“I… I’m fine,” I say. “Thank you for finding me.”

“You did great,” he says. “And your piece tonight… it was fucking beautiful.”

Luca kisses me hard, like he thought he might never get to kiss me again.

49

LUCA

I look Gina over,patting down every inch of her until I’m sure she reallyis okay and not injured anywhere.

“What do we do now?” She asks me.

“We’ve got to clean this place up,” I reply. She frowns and looks around. I can see her wondering what that might include. “We’ll blow it up,” I add. Her eyebrows raise. “This is a crime scene,” I continue. “Even if I’m going on the run, it’s better if it’s not so obvious these four guys were shot.”

I head toward the kitchen. Blowing up the restaurant is the quickest way to hide or at least obscure the evidence of what went on here tonight.

I rifle through the kitchen shelves, looking for something I can use.

Gina steps around the bodies and avoids looking at them. “How are we going to do this?” She asks.

“A gas explosion,” I answer. “It’ll look like an accident. I just need some way to make the gas ignite. And ideally when we’re a safe distance away.”

Gina looks around the kitchen. “Were you really going to turn over Mateo?” She asks.

“Only if Ireallyhad to. If it kept you safe,” I say. “But I figured between us we could find another way.” I grin at her. She smiles back. When I told Solonik I’d turn over Mateo, I knew it would get his attention. He’s greedy to a fault. I knew I probably wouldn’t have to go through with it. But I would have done anything to protect Gina.

As I look through the cleaning closet, I realize something. “This might be the last big illegal thing I do,” I look at Gina. “Now that I’m retiring.”

“You’re retiring?” She asks. Her eyes light up.

“I kind of have to after tonight.”

“Well,” Gina says, smirking. “I guess you’ll have to go out with a bang.”

I turn back to the closet of cleaning supplies. There are always some kind of sketchy chemicals in industrial kitchens.

“Perfect!” I pull out a plastic bottle of pool cleaner, about the size of a 2 liter of soda.

“Pool shock?” Gina asks as she reads the label. “Why is this here?”

“It’s really just condensed chlorine. People use it to make their own bleach sometimes. It’s cheaper and it lasts longer. Looks like they’ve been mixing their own.” Next to where I found the pool shock, there are a few white bottles with “Bleach” handwritten on them.

“This stuff is explosive?” Gina asks.

“Yeah, when mixed with glycol ether, it’ll heat up and ignite.”

“Where do you get that?” She asks.

“It’s in brake fluid,” I search through some drawers and pull out a turkey baster.

“Did you watch a lot ofMacGuyvergrowing up?” Gina asks as she follows me out the back door to the alleyway.

The van they kidnapped her in is unlocked. I pop the hood on it. “Yeah. And a lot ofMr. Wizard.” I say.

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