Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
My brother and I tensed as footsteps crept around the corner toward us. We wordlessly started to part, spreading out to the sides of the alley to be able to confront the person from both sides.
“Whoa, just me,” Milo said, holding up a hand.
“Who are we looking for?” I asked.
“Fuck if I know. I was just told to get down here. When I got here, everyone was already in the docks.”
“You haven’t run into anyone yet?”
“You know this place, man. Goes on forever. Dunno how far ahead of me everyone got here. But we’re better moving together,” he said. “This is a dead-end. Let’s go back the other way.”
With that, the three of us set off as a unit, someone always having the others’ backs. But the deeper we got, the more confused we were becoming.
There were no yells, no sounds of fighting, no gunshots. Nothing.
Panic had my stomach clenching, wondering if our cousins and brothers were somewhere in there, shot, dying, dead.
It wasn’t often that we had trouble at the docks. Luca had great security around the place. But, shit, a lot of illegal stuff came through the docks. And where illegal stuff was, so were people trying to jack it and sell it for themselves.
That said, that wasn’t usually cause for Luca to call everyone in.
“Got one!” someone yelled from somewhere deeper in the same general area we were walking in. With that, we started to run until, finally, we found Lucky kneeling on the back of someone on the ground all in black.
Beneath him, the guy was struggling. “Get the fuck off of me,” he snarled.
Lucky adjusted his hold, grabbing something and pushing it back toward us.
It slid across the ground to come to a stop a few feet from us.
A gun.
For a split second, it fooled even me—someone who’d been around guns of all sorts since I was toddling.
It looked, at first blush, like a semi-automatic.
But before Milo even picked it up, I could tell something was off about it.
“It’s a fucking paintball gun,” he declared.
“You’re fucking with me,” Lucky said.
“See?” Milo said, lifting the gun, pointing it at one of the shipping containers, and pulling the trigger. A neon green splat spread across the blue metal.
“Are you out of your motherfucking mind?” Lucky asked, grabbing the guy by the back of his shirt and hauling him to his feet.
“Fuck you,” the guy snarled, looking up at all of us.
It was then that I realized he was just a kid. Late teens, maybe. Brown hair, brown eyes, splotchy, acne-covered skin. “I’m not talking without my lawyer.”
“We’re not the fucking cops, you moron,” Milo said, snorting.
“Come on,” Lucky said, half-dragging the kid along with him as he started off in the direction he’d come from.
“I want my attorney,” the kid demanded.
“You’re gonna need a dentist if you don’t shut the fuck up,” Lucky grumbled.
“You can’t hit me.”
“Kid, don’t try me,” Lucky said as we broke out of the row of containers to find several of the other guys had rounded up other kids dressed the same, some with green splotches of paint on their all-black clothing, others with bright pink.
“Here’s another idiot,” Lucky said, shoving the kid toward the group, all of whom were on their knees.
The other kids had the good sense to look scared.
“They can’t keep us here against our will,” the kid Lucky grabbed declared to the crew.
Two girls shushed him.
Another boy—much taller and wider—glared at him. “Shut the fuck up. Don’t you know who they are?”
“I don’t give a fuck who they are,” the kid declared, starting to get to his feet.
Until our cousin Domenico—fresh out of prison and fucks—moved in, pressing the muzzle of his gun to the kid’s temple.
“Give a fuck now?” Dom snarled.
That was the moment I was pretty sure the kid legitimately pissed himself.
But he lowered back down to his knees.
Who could blame him? Even if you didn’t know Dom had been to prison, he was an intimidating guy. Tall, well-built, with a jaw of granite, unreadable black eyes, and an aura about him that suggested everyone give him a wide berth.
“Dom,” Luca said, his voice somehow firm and soft at the same time.
Dom stepped back, holding up his hands—one with the gun still in it—in a placating gesture.
Luca launched into it then. A speech that was half mafia boss, half understanding but annoyed dad.
“To sum it up,” Dom said when Luca finished speaking. “Don’t be a bunch of fucking dumbasses, and you won’t get shot. Now fuck off.”
Luca shook his head, but he was smiling as the kids quickly disbanded.
“Can I, uh, have my paintball gun back?” the kid asked, coming up to Milo. Up close, yep, he’d definitely pissed himself. I almost felt bad. Almost. But then I remembered the nice night he and his dumbass friends had ruined.