Page 16 of Forgotten Deeds

Romeo notices his girl’s situation. “Sam, carry her.”

“I’m not wearing panties, remember?” Nicky says.

“Sam, don’t fucking touch her,” Romeo barks.

I hustle over, solving the problem by taking Luca from Romeo.

Now that his hands are free, Romeo picks up Nicky, who looks like she’s bathed in a bucket of blood.

“Does this mean you two are going steady?” Sam asks me and Luca as we step outside.

“Fuck you,” Luca whispers. The man’s still got some fight in him if he’s able to talk smack.

I place Luca in the backseat as gently as I can. “Don’t die, my man,” I tell him.

“I’ll try my best,” he says weakly, and I close the door.

Enzo nods at me before he gets behind the wheel, and they take off to the clinic.

Returning inside, I make one more sweep of the main floor, screwing on a silencer to my gun and pumping a bullet in the head of each of Carlo’s men. Just in case.

After retrieving Lily’s backpack and stashing it in my car, I make my way to the VIP rooms. Disappointment washes over me when I discover Matteo’s dead body with a stripper heel protruding from his neck. Not as nice as me killing him, but points for creativity.

I spot a bloody corpse with a tangle of pink hair in the corner. More disappointment until I notice the lips—Amethyst has changed her hair. Squatting down, I grab my knife from my ankle strap, hovering it over her mouth. But what if poison oozes out from those babies when I slice them open? Deciding my morbid curiosity isn’t worth the risk, I sheath my knife.

Walking to the utility closet with my bag, I jiggle the handle, but it’s locked. I easily kick the door in and step inside, only to come face-to-face with an angel.

Not the angel of death, but a little angel with a blonde halo, whose hauntingly pale blue eyes are pleading with me.

Chapter Eight

Lily

“Please don’t kill me,” I beg Darius. “I wasn’t even here. I don’t know anything. Please just let me go, I won’t say a word!”

Before I know what’s happening, he has my hands secured with zip ties. “No!” I scream, but I’m silenced when he slaps a piece of tape over my mouth.

He hoists me over his shoulder, and I struggle against him. My feet are free, and one of them connects with his rock-hard stomach.

Grunting, he grabs ahold of my ankles with his other hand, and now, my legs are bound. Muttering something in Greek, he carries me outside. An older model sedan is parked right by the door with the trunk open, and I begin thrashing and trying to scream as he carries me to it.

“Give me just a few minutes, aggeloudhi mou,” he says, placing me inside the trunk.

My eyes wide with terror and my cries muffled by the tape, he closes the trunk, and I’m plunged into darkness.

* * *

Darius

Lily has a terrible habit of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. “Fuck!” I thunder, grabbing a chair in my way and flinging it across the room.

Taking a deep breath, I focus. First things first. I gather all the weapons, because a fire won’t destroy the evidence.

Placing all the firearms—and a few knives for Sammy—in the hidden compartment under my backseat, I return inside to the utility room. I manipulate the electrical wiring and take a blowtorch, making it look like the circuit breaker overheated. Dumping a bag of trash on the floor, I pour gasoline over the debris. It’ll look like the circuit breaker sparked into the trash, causing the fire. As for the overwhelming smell of gasoline and those snitch burn patterns, that’s why the fire marshal is on the family’s payroll.

Stepping outside, I hop behind the wheel, moving my car a safe distance from the building before sprinting back. Noticing Lily’s car in the back lot, I run over and swipe the license plate and scratch off the VIN. That’s as good as I can do given my time constraints.

And now the tricky part—starting the fire without getting myself killed. Hustling to the utility closet, I strike a match and toss it on the gasoline-soaked pile of trash and run like hell.

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