I failed. And she died.
It’s as simple as that.
Al seems to get that I don’t want to talk about that anymore. He wads up his napkin and drops it on the plate before reaching for his coffee. “You settling in since you got home?” he asks. “How’s she like the new place?”
I shrug. “To be honest, we haven’t spent much time together. Eliza stays up half the night and sleeps half the day, and I’m working all day. When I come home, she’s getting ready to go meet her friends. Once we get used to each other’s schedule, it’ll be easier.”
Al cocks a brow and takes a drink of his coffee. “You know, she’s not a child or a free woman anymore,” he says. “It’s not outta line to expect her to act like your wife.”
Before I can answer, I see one of Al’s guys slump over the table outside.
I don’t think. I just act.
I dive across the table, tackling Al and crashing to the floor with him. At the same moment, the sheet of glass fractures into a million pieces, raining down over the table and the floor around us. Al curses and rolls away, leaping to his feet with his gun already in his hand before I can even scramble up. The dude may be pushing sixty, but he’s still fit as fuck and quick on the draw.
He fires as a figure dressed in all black jumps through the window onto our table, a ski mask pulled over his face and a gun with a silencer aimed at us. Outside, I can see two figures on the ground, and the remaining Valenti man aiming to fire again. The masked guy on the table crashes to the floor, and I yank my gun from my belt and release the safety, aiming at the window as two more men duck into view, both of them with guns raised. I pull the trigger without thought, without hesitation, and one of the men falls. A bullet ricochets off a nearby table and buries itself in my thigh, but I hardly feel it. Steadying the gun with one hand, I turn it on the other guy, but he falls before I can squeeze the trigger.
Al pivots toward the edge of the building, where the guys appeared from. We wait, our guns cocked and ready. The only sound is the gurgle from one of the bodies on the floor as he tries to speak. I swing my gun in his direction and squeeze the trigger, putting a bullet in his head before turning back to the corner. This time, we see the guy edging around the side of the building. I fire, but he ducks back, and I can’t tell if I hit him.
Al leaps up onto his chair, takes one step on the table, and is out the window in another. I glance back toward the counter. There’s no trace of the guy working there, which means he’s smart enough to have ducked behind the counter or gotten the fuck out through a back door when shit started going down. That, or he knew ahead of time.
I don’t have time for maybes, though. Leaping onto the table, I propel myself through the window and land in a crouch. Outside, I follow Al around the corner. I scan the area, on full alert.
Al jerks his head in the direction of a black SUV parked on a side street. He creeps toward it, gun at the ready. I follow, a few steps behind him. We’re almost to the vehicle when I hear the scuff of a shoe on pavement. I turn and see a man with his hands up, wearing plain clothes instead of the black disguises the others wore.
“Don’t shoot,” he says. “I ain’t involved. I—I got a family. I’m just going to my car.”
I almost drop my weapon, but then I see the pile of black clothes discarded behind him in the little nook he stepped out of. In the instant it takes me to glance there and back again, he snatches a gun from his belt. I squeeze the trigger instinctively, without taking the time to aim correctly. The man grunts as the bullet buries itself in his belly. Two gunshots ring out at the same moment. A bullet grazes my shoulder, and one makes a hole right in the center of his forehead, so clean and crisp it almost looks fake. He crumples to the ground, and I turn to see Al behind me.
He grabs my arm and hustles me down the street and into his car. We sit there for a minute, both of us breathing hard and cursing plenty.
“What the fuck was that?” I ask after a minute.
Al claps a hand on my shoulder. “That was your first shootout, son.”
I start laughing like a fucking idiot, and I know Al’s going think I’m unfit for the Life and put a bullet between my eyes like I’ve got a fucking bull’s eye painted on my forehead, but I can’t stop even when I try. Al looks at me for a second, and then he throws his head back and starts laughing, too. We just sit in his SUV letting out big guffawing belly laughs that make us look like we’re crying like a couple of pussies.
Finally, Al wipes his eyes and shakes his head. “You know, I fucking needed that right now, King,” he says, turning on the car and lowering the visor against the afternoon sun. “You’re a good kid.”
“You get hit?” I ask.
“Not a scratch.”
I wipe my face, then pull off my shirt to wrap my arm where I got hit. My thigh hurts like the devil, but it doesn’t seem to be losing much blood. I use my tie to secure my shirt in place around my shoulder, then press my palm down on my thigh, gritting out curses until I get used to the pressure.
He’s got blood splattered all over him, but he shakes his head. “How bad’s that one?”
“Didn’t even feel it,” I admit. The adrenaline was too much. The pain’s only now setting in.
We drive in silence for a minute, back toward home. My stomach knots up, and I glance at Al from the corner of my eye. “Was that a set-up?”
“Had to be,” he says. “It isn’t like Anthony to be so sloppy, sending guys in broad daylight. He’s making a statement.”
“Fuck,” I say, clenching my hand around the door handle. This must be my fault. Eliza told him that she’d told me, and he didn’t want anyone knowing what kind of sick pervert he is, so he came after us.
I shouldn’t say anything, it will spell my doom, but Al should know why. I have to know for sure before I tell him, though. “How fast can you get me home?”
Al grimaces. “Not fast enough, kid. If he went after us, the deal is off. He won’t have made a move without getting his daughter out first. If he did, she’d be left to answer for it.”