“Where’s Tommy?” I asked.
He shook his head, “I don’t know.”
“I remembered that he said someone faked a text from Eddy so I was wary.”
“Good.” He drove crazy fast.
“Where are we going?” I had no idea what that place even was.
“Bianca’s ma’s house, where I’ve got the girls and the kids.”
“Luciana?”
“She’s there, too.”
“How’s your Dad?”
“Pop’s hanging in, last I heard.”
“When did you last see Tommy?”
“I haven’t seen him. He was supposed to meet me this morning. He never showed.”
I felt sick to my stomach.
My phone rang. It said Tommy on it.
“Tommy!” I breathed at the phone and looked to Dario.
He jerked his chin at the phone. I answered it, “Tommy?”
“Not Tommy,” said a male voice, “But we have him. Get to where Tommy’s brother is and call this number back.”
“What do you want?” I looked at Dario with panic. He took the phone from me and pulled over to the side of the road.
“Who is this? This is him; what do you want?” Dario held the phone for a minute. Then after a minute of listening, he said, “Put him on the phone.” A minute later he said, “Hey. You alright? Yeah, man. Yep, she’s with me. Right. Right.” Then he hung up.
“What do they want?”
“Money,” Dario said, pulling back onto the road.
“Money?”
“Yeah; they want a million cash. That’s it. These guys are small time, guys hired by Castillo’s nephew. They were hired to take out a hit on Tommy but decided to sell him back. They want you delivering the money. Pop has enough money in his vault. I’ll get it and we’ll make the drop.”
I was speechless. Dario pulled around in a U-turn and drove in the opposite direction. Ten minutes later we were at their Pop’s place and Dario pulled in and made me follow him inside.
“Why do they want me delivering the money?” We were in Tom’s office and Dario was opening a safe in the wall behind a family photo of Tom and the four grandkids.
“They probably figure you won’t shoot them; you’ll give them the money and they can get outta there clean. They’ll figure if I’m in there it’s a big chance that I’ll be carrying and it’ll go south.”
Dario pulled out 10 stacks of bills and then put them into a duffle bag that he’d fetched from a closet.”
“But what if they just take the money and shoot me? What if Tommy’s already... already...” I was panicking, big time.
“I’ll have you covered. We’ll have the place crawling with men. Let’s go. They’re calling in fifteen minutes with the drop location.
“You sure they’ve got Tommy?”