Page 132 of Working for the Mob

Chapter 41 – Art It’s Over

By the time I got to the car, George was holding the door open for me to lay Lance into the back seat.

“Why’d they run?” I asked him, as I carefully laid Lance in the back of my car. I cringed at the blood he’d get on my new seats, which paled in comparison to the bullet holes lining the exterior.

But that wasn’t important. I needed to get Lance to the hospital. Now.

“I’m not sure,” George said, as I stood up. “The ladies had ‘em pretty well pinned up inside their warehouse. They couldn’t get out. Valuncia must have thrown your brother off and slithered back inside.

“Then they just stopped shooting and the next thing I know, their car came flying out.”

“They lost their hostages,” I said, and couldn’t help but smile in pride. Trust Genevieve and Lucy to escape themselves.

I turned to her, but she wasn’t behind me. I swung my head around. Lucy was relaying the night’s events to Henry and George.

Then I spotted her.

Out of the shadows stepped the drifter, the same man I punched out cold a few minutes ago, with a look of triumph on his face. One of his hands held Genevieve and the other pressed a straight razor against her neck. It was the same razor I had punched out of Valuncia’s hand in our fight. He must have found it on the sidewalk.

I fluidly pulled Lance’s gun from my belt, cocked it, and held it at the drifter before the blood could even pound in my ears. If he did anything to her, I’d waste him here on the driveway. I still might.

“Let her go!” I yelled, the revolver fixed on him.

The man stopped inching forward under the lamplight.

“Stay back!” he yelled, and George, Henry and Lucy circled around him. “Where’s the clutch?”

He spoke to me but his eyes flicked around the circle to keep track of their movements. “Where’s the clutch?” he shrieked again. His over-bright eyes threatened to pop out of his head and spittle flew from his mouth.

“The purse?” I said, through clenched teeth. Did he still carry around Genevieve’s purse with him this whole time?

I pushed it from my mind. I had to keep calm. It took all my control not to shoot him right there.

Genevieve stared at me with wide eyes. The hands clinging to the man’s arms visibility shook.

A cold bead of sweat ran down my back, but I didn’t even flinch.

“The clutch!” he said, in a trembling voice. “It’s gone! Lawrence promised me a thousand bucks if I delivered him your,” he shook Genevieve, “bitch.”

Rage flashed in my vision. I nearly pulled the trigger out of anger.

“But now he’s long gone, and so is my clutch!” He spat the words like it was my fault for Valuncia’s transgressions and his missing purse.

My thoughts raced in a jumble as the sweat poured down my back. I couldn’t risk the shot. If I missed by an inch, it could hit Genevieve instead. Even if my bullet dropped him dead, he could still take Genevieve with him.

But I kept the revolver aimed at him.

“Just drop the knife. We can talk this out,” I said. “You want money? That’s fine. I’ve got money.”

“Talk?” he scoffed. “You want to talk? And then what, you’re going to gift me one thousand dollars and let me go, just like that?”

“I’ll give you whatever the fuck you want. Just. Let. Her. Go.”

His eyes darted around the circle. Lucy nodded her head in encouragement.

A ray of hope first through the clouds. I had him. He was considering it.

Genevieve choked back a sob around his hand. Tears welled at the end of her eyes.

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