Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“She was asking me about the guy on her phone. She heard he’d been harassing me. I told her that he was telling me that his new boss was gonna get rid of the likes of me when they took over. But they wanted to take care of some… cunt,” he said, whispering the word, “around here first. That was it. That was when they pulled up and grabbed her.”
“How long ago?” I asked.
“Hours. This afternoon.”
Fuck.
“Okay. Alright,” I said, reaching for my phone, and doing something Cinna was going to hate me for. But she could only hate me if she was alive to do so. And this was the only way I could think of to make sure she stayed that way.
I had to break my promise.
I had to share her secret.
I had to tell the boss.
“Miss me already?” Renzo answered, the sounds of the party in full swing behind him.
“Listen to me,” I said, voice tight enough to vibrate.
“Cut that shit off!” he barked at the party, making everything go silent in a beat. “What is it?”
“Someone has Cinna,” I told him.
“The fuck you mean someone has Cinna?”
“She’s been on the trail of someone who is fucking with her. Something felt off about her not being at the meeting, so I called her phone. Some street kid had it, told me the whole thing. Pulled her into a van, drugged her, and drove off.”
“Mother fuckers,” he snarled, snapping at those gathered around him, and I could practically see them all moving out of the apartment in unison.
“Who runs the area around Amboy?” I asked. “That’s where she was taken from while asking the kid about some guy who said his boss was taking over this area.”
“Amboy? Fuck, Rico, who runs Amboy?” he asked, sticking me on speaker.
“Amboy is those Strand brothers. But the older one was pulled in a few months back. Younger seems to be losing grip on the area.”
“Who would take it over? That’s who has Cinna. Maybe a woman,” I added.
“A woman?” Rico repeated as I heard them all moving out onto the street.
“Just… think. She had reason to believe a woman was running things.”
“Fuck, um…”
“What about that Miller bastard’s widow?” Saff asked. “Around that area. Cinna was the one who had him offed.”
“I can’t think of anyone else,” Rico admitted.
“You got a location for her?” Renzo asked Saff.
“No, but it’s gotta be around there somewhere, right?” she asked.
“We’re five minutes away,” Renzo said, and I heard the warning in his voice.
A warning I had no intentions of listening to.
“I’m not waiting,” I said, cutting off my phone.
With that, I scanned the street.
“What way did it go?” I asked the kid.
“That way,” he pointed, and I took off at a dead run, wishing I had more weapons on me. I had a gun. Some extra ammo. And a knife in my pocket.
It would have to do until backup arrived.
The area around Amboy had a lot of house complexes and none of them felt conducive to kidnapping, torture, and murder.
So I kept running, my gaze frantically searching the surroundings, trying to locate the van, or any building that seemed like it could be used to hide someone.
It had been hours since they took her.
How much had she endured since then? Was she still alive? Did she wish she wasn’t?
A growl escaped me, my vision going red around the edges.
So much so that I almost missed it.
A black fucking work van with a the goddamn sliding door still thrown open, parked in a way that it was half-hidden by a dumpster.
Of an apartment building.
An apartment building?
I didn’t really stop to rationalize that.
I just ran up the block, then across the street, trying to slow my breathing, so they didn’t hear me coming with all the heaving breaths as I stared at the building.
It had to be the basement.
Nothing else made sense.
Even if this crew was running the area now, what were the chances that every person in the building would stick their heads in the sand and act like they didn’t hear a woman screaming and being tortured?
True, I didn’t have a lot of faith in human beings, but someone would have been upset enough about that to call the cops.
Basements, while not exactly soundproof, provided some sound protection. And there was a whole floor above without apartments as well.
“Open the door for me,” I demanded to one of the teens hanging about, not looking like they were working, just slacking.
“The fuck are you? No,” he said, making a face toward his friends about me.
“Open the fucking door,” I snapped, feeling the darkness seep in, start to take over, as I did something the normal, sane side of me would never do. Raise a gun to a kid’s head.
“Whoa whoa,” he said, hands up, body tense, but his words were casual. “No need to go all fucking psycho, man,” he said, going to the door, and slipping in his key.