Just don’t have an accident.
I park the bike a few yards from the entrance to the house, and I walk casually toward it. I stop short just before the property line. I can hear guards talking, and I kneel, listening to what they’re saying.
“She goes to Jose in an hour. Make sure the transport is prepped,” a burly Latino man says, puffing on a cigarette.
I don’t have much time. I was initially going to do this discreetly, but I see now there isn’t time for that.
I take out a grenade, pull the pin, and roll it toward where the guards are standing.
I take cover behind a tree. The force of the grenade exploding makes the tree lean over and causes a slight ringing in my ears. I pull both of my handguns out of their holsters and walk into the yard, firing at everyone I see. I don’t care if it’s a guard, a dealer, or an innocent bystander. Everyone goes down until I find Sofia and get her out of here.
I walk toward the house. Doors open, and guards spill out in all directions. I fire at them, ducking behind a tree as they fire back. I hear them shouting, and I hear women screaming.
I also know the neighbors will call the cops because of the explosion, so I have a limited amount of time before the pigs arrive.
I peek out, assess where the guards are, and by stepping out and back behind the tree, I fire and take out four. A bullet grazes my arm, and I wince slightly. There’s no time to cry about flesh wounds now.
I kill two more guards before the sirens sound off in the distance. The guards no longer care about me. They need to move whatever illegal stock is in the house.
I walk toward the house quickly, taking out another guard. The front door bursts open, and I raise my guns, but a group of Hispanic women dressed in overalls comes rushing out. I scan their faces, but Sofia is not among them.
Behind them, a guard surfaces, shouting when he sees me. A bullet to the head stops his train of thought very quickly, though I don’t know who else he has alerted. I walk into the house, checking around corners to make sure there aren’t guards hiding around them.
A door near the front opens, and I swing around as a beautiful woman steps out and points a gun at me. I scan her face and lower my gun. “Sofia?”
“Who are you?” she asks, her hands trembling from holding the gun up.
“We need to get out of here. The cops are on their way.” I turn toward the front door and motion for her to go through without bothering to tell her my name.
“I’m not going anywhere with you. Who are you?”
“Your father sent me,” I explain, annoyed because we need to hurry. “I’m not with the Catalans. I’m with the New York family, the Sorvinos.”
“That means nothing to me.” She lowers her arms slightly. It looks like she’s getting tired of holding the gun. I quickly disarm her. “We haven’t got time for this bullshit. Get your ass moving.”
She looks afraid as we quickly make our way across the front yard. I take her arm and yank her in the direction of the bike. We’re barely past the property line when a car arrives, and more men get out. It doesn’t take them long to realize I have Sofia. There are shouts, and bullets start flying past us.
“Run,” I shout, running alongside her. Once we reach the corner, I pull her to the side where I’ve parked the bike. “Get on.”
“There’s no helmet,” she whines, but she climbs on behind me.
The bike roars to life in a split second. “Hold on,” I yell. As I pull off onto the road, I feel her surprisingly strong arms around my waist. I can hear the police are closer, but I also hear the revving of a car. Checking my side mirrors, I see that the black car is full of men, and it’s chasing us.
Instead of driving back toward Long Beach, I hop onto a freeway and head toward Riverhead. They expect me to go straight back to Facuno, but I’m going to get them a little lost first.
If I go straight to Long Beach, they’ll just pick her up again, and it’ll all be for nothing.
I zig-zag through traffic, and Sofia clings to me hard, winding me slightly. She’s got quite the grip. Now and then, the sound of a bullet sounds off, but I keep moving, trying to avoid the car, and soon enough, they fall back, trapped by the other vehicles on the highway. When I think they’re suitably far enough back, I take the exit and drive through the suburbs, taking multiple twists and turns so they can’t tail me.
Even though it doesn’t take long to get the car to drop back, I drive for another half an hour. Stopping now and then to look around before I take off again, making sure we’re not followed. Each time I stop, Sofia asks me where we are going, but I shush her. Doesn’t she understand that I’m working here?
I’ve never had time for princesses, not even for Arianna, my sister. They don’t grow up in the family as we do. They don’t have to face the sullied underworld that we do. They just get to spend money, cook and look after the men. They have it so much easier than we do.
Sofia is probably just like my sister. She’s got a bitchy streak in her, but the only thing backing her is her family’s name tacked onto her own.
She tries to say something when I stop, and I snap, “Just shut up, will you.”
She looks offended, but I don’t have time to deal with this bullshit. I start the bike again and circle the block twice before I take off toward East Main Street. There’s a good restaurant there that will be a decent place to stop. Sofia’s grip has lightened around me, and I almost warn her not to fall off, but it seems she knows how to handle a motorbike. I slow down, not wanting to draw the attention of a traffic officer. As we near the busy street, I give a cautionary glance around, but there’s no sign of the car. We’re safe, at least for now.