Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
“How’d you get wrapped up with the mob?” he asked, voice low and rough.
Because if there was ever a big fucking wrench in your plans, it was knowing you had just gotten on the wrong side of the mafia.
There were gangs. Then there were crews. There were even organizations.
But way at the tippy fucking top of the criminal food chain was where the mob always had, and always would, sit.
The thing that made the mafia powerful was the very thing no one else could replicate. The loyalty that came from blood. The generations worth of connection-building, or wealth-building, of perfecting the world of crime to get to the point where a capo’s hands were often not even dirty because of the hierarchy in the organization.
Everyone envied the mafia.
And everyone was fucking scared of us too.
Rightfully so.
We’d paid for our reputation in thousands of gallons of blood spilled over generations.
Sheryl’s confidence seemed to falter at that.
It was then I knew.
This wasn’t Stan’s show.
This was hers.
She wasn’t some innocent woman who got wrapped up in the world of drugs and dirty cops.
Oh, no.
She was the queenpin.
The mastermind of this whole operation.
Working right there under Traveler’s nose the whole time, working to create a friendship, so she never got suspicious.
“What? You’re the only one who gets to keep secrets, Uncle Stan?” she asked. “Let my father go,” she demanded. “And we can just forget about this.”
“Don’t be so fucking naive,” Sheryl snapped, making Traveler stiffen. Shocked, I thought, at the vitriol and cutting tone. “That is not going to happen. Now I have no issues with the mafia,” she said, turning her gaze toward me. “You should leave and forget what you saw here.”
“That’s not gonna happen.”
“Well then, one missing mafia member likely won’t be too mis—“ she stared, cutting off at the ruckus behind her, then turning slightly to look.
I was about to raise my gun, thinking this was my chance, but Traveler grabbed my sleeve, a silent plea to wait.
I didn’t understand as the voices that were not Aurelio and Milo came closer.
But then they moved into the warehouse, stopping dead at the scene in front of them.
“What the fuck?” the taller, fitter one snapped.
“Traveler,” the darker-skinned one breathed out, his eyes wide as he looked at the damage done to her.
These guys had to be her other uncles, Chuck and Don.
“James?” the other one said at almost the same time, his face a mask of horror and, with each passing millisecond, fury.
Whatever this was, they clearly weren’t in on the whole beat and kill the Moon family thing.
“Oh, good. Everyone is here,” Sheryl said.
Then, moving faster than seemed possible, she was reaching for a gun, firing off several shots so quickly that it was hard to understand what was happening until I saw Don and Chuck’s bodies jolt as bullets sliced into them.
I didn’t hesitate, aiming at Stan as he reached for his own gun.
Traveler let out a shocked scream as Milo and Aurelio came rushing in, finishing the job on Stan.
But we all paused.
Because we weren’t in the business of shooting women, of killing women.
It was a short pause.
But long enough, it seemed, for Traveler.
Whose hand shot out, grabbed my gun from my hand, aimed, and fired.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Each fucking bullet hitting their marks.
Sheryl’s body jerked hard with each bullet slicing through her body.
Then she was falling, but not before she got one shot out herself.
Right at Traveler.
I seemed to see it before Traveler, shoving her hard to the side, praying the bullet wouldn’t land.
“Oh, fuck fuck fuck fuck motherfucking shit,” Traveler hissed, dropping my gun, and grabbing her shoulder.
Shoulder.
It was just her shoulder.
She was okay.
A graze.
“Oh, holy shitballs, how did you walk this off?” she asked, looking at Aurelio who was still standing with his gun out while Milo walked to Stan and Sheryl, checking each for a pulse before standing.
Then walking over to Don and Chuck, checking on them.
“They’ll make it,” he concluded. “Come on. We gotta get moving,” he told them, helping them each to their feet. The shock must have been fueling them as they each started to shuffle forward, hands pressing into their wounds.
It was done. For the time being.
Aurelio and Milo moved toward James who seemed to be going a little in and out of consciousness.
“Dad,” Traveler yelped, forgetting about her graze momentarily as she rushed toward her old man.
“You’re hit,” James said as Milo and Aurelio took his weight across their shoulders.
“It’s just a graze,” she said, brushing it off. “You’re a mess.”
“We gotta move,” I said, nodding at my cousins. “We don’t want to be here when the dealers come back,” I added.
“Are we just going to leave the drugs here?” Traveler asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” her father said, wincing as the guys shifted his weight as they started to walk.
“Problem for another day,” Traveler said in a way that implied it was something he’d said to her a lot in the past.