I don’t like this, not one bit.
I squat down next to my back tire trying to make heads or tails of this. How could a man I know I killed be sitting in front of Eric’s house right now? I dropped him with a shot that there’s no way he survived, not to mention he faceplanted in the harbor and the police diving team brought out the body. I know because I followed the case and even looked at the pictures after they were released to the public.
I try and think back to that deal, one of many we do, but for some reason that one seemed off from the beginning. It was a shipment of olive oil from Italy, but in reality, it was empty bottles, and a couple of would be thugs trying to make a quick low six figure payday.
A couple of thugs. It hits me.
That guy I killed had a brother he mentioned a few times. From what our intel told us it was a twin brother.
Fuck! This guy’s here for revenge.
What was his name? What was his name? I pull out my phone and a quick Google search jogs my memory. Diego Luciano. That’s it! And another quick Google search makes my stomach absolutely drop.
Wanted in Florida for multiple homicides, armed robbery, and rape in Miami, along with his accomplice…Dante Luciano.
And staring me in the face on Google Images is a picture of Dante…a.k.a. ‘Dan’, Layla’s study buddy.
13
Layla
“Help me get this bitch in the van,” I hear as I come to, Dan moving quickly toward me as I look at my dad lying on the floor next to me hogtied and gagged.
“Wait a second. If I don’t get this fucking camera disabled the cops are gonna have more footage of us.”
An older man with an Italian accent sits not ten feet from me at the same kitchen table where I passed out. He’s got a computer out and he’s doing something…frantically.
“The app found two more cameras. One upstairs and one facing the street. We’ll get the street camera on the way out. Just let me get this one upstairs,” he says as he darts to the steps with some device in his hand, probably something that locates the signal and exposes the camera locations to him.
How do I know? Because Logan has something similar that he showed me a few years ago when he was lecturing me on protection and personal safety.
Logan. God, I wish he was here right now. I wish my dad wouldn’t have flown off the handle and just listened for a second, let us say our piece, and we probably wouldn’t be in this situation right now.
Dan stares down at me, watching over me as I can hear his older accomplice moving around feverishly upstairs.
“Please, Dan,” I mumble through th
e bandana stuffed in my mouth. “We have money. You can have it. Just leave us be.”
He smirks and gets in closer to me, his face just inches from mine and his boot not far behind as he remains standing, just bent over.
“Oh, bitch, don’t you worry. We’re going to take your money too. All of it. And then we’re going to settle the score for what your asshole boyfriend did to my uncle a few years ago. And as soon as we finish you off, we’re going straight to his house to finish him off. Should be pretty easy with the recordings of your screams we’re gonna get when the fun starts…and by fun I mean pulling out your toenails one by one.”
“They’ll know it was you. They’ll figure it out when you don’t go back to class,” I mumble.
“Class? What the hell is that? Study for four years so I can go work for somebody for forty years and maybe retire with enough to take a vacation with some tour group in Italy one day? Or just take your millions and go there now, swimming in the sea for the rest of my days eating all the pizza and pussy I can handle.” Then he turns to my dad. “You do know your best friend was eating your daughter out, right? What a fuckin’ freak show you three are. What a hot mess.”
“Mess with the bull, get the horns,” a deep growl comes from the other side of the kitchen. Just as Dan goes to turn I hear the sound of a suppressed handgun fire and Dan drops to a weightless pile right in front of my nose.
I cringe, closing my eyes tight before I hear the sliding of his body being moved away from my line of sight.
“Don’t move,” Logan says, stalking his way toward the stairs. I roll my eyes at his words, wanting to say, ‘Thanks, Captain Obvious,’ considering we’re still tied up, but truth be told I’ve never been happier to see anyone in my life, and for all the reasons you could ever imagine and more.
“I got it!” Dan’s accomplice says, just before I hear the sound of the silencer attached to Logan’s pistol, followed by a Clint Eastwood type one-liner. “And I got you, asshole.”
Logan drags the other guy down the stairs and grabs an oversized knife from the kitchen, freeing both my dad and me before sticking its point down into the cutting board.
“Layla, get the Clorox out of the cleaning supplies and clean this place down like the Pope’s coming for a visit. Eric, grab the other side, and let’s get these bodies loaded up.”