by Sal Bianchi
Nick had leaned in low to mutter something to Russo so quietly that I couldn’t really make anything out aside from a single word here and there. I’d wondered if Nick’s actions would upset Flint, but he’d just stoically watched him work with the same stony expression he always wore.
All three of us had been surprised when, just a minute into speaking with him, Russo had suddenly burst into tears and begged Nick not to do whatever it was he’d threatened him with. In the end, Russo had admitted to knowing who the culprit was and given us the information we sorely needed, but my mind was still reeling. What could Nick have said to get him to react like that?
“Are you paying attention to the road?” Nick suddenly asked me.
“Huh?” I answered dumbly before I could fully register what he’d just said.
“Stop spacing out,” he snapped. “One near-death experience is enough for one night.”
“Sorry,” I apologized awkwardly. He was usually so nonchalant and easygoing about things, and it was weird to see him get so irritated.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m just worried. The Family’s probably already preparing to move. They saw us outside of the bar, right? His family is running out of time.”
I frowned grimly at his words and stepped on the gas. I was going above the speed limit, but I was willing to take the risk in this case.
The house was located on a quiet residential street. All the lights were off, so it was difficult to see anything as we pulled in. There weren’t any other cars in the driveway, though, and there didn’t seem to be any other suspicious vehicles parked nearby either.
“Let’s go,” Nick grumbled impatiently as he threw the door open and ran up to the front door without bothering to close it behind him. He was already rapping on the door by the time I caught up to him.
After about a minute of incessant knocking, a light finally came on by the window closest to the door. There was a sound of shuffling steps and then the click of a lock being unlatched before the door finally creaked open.
A woman with pale skin and dark, curly hair peeked cautiously out at us through the small gap.
“What do you want?” she asked nervously, her voice faltering as she spoke.
“You need to get your kids and leave right now,” Nick replied urgently.
Her eyes went wide at his words, and she pushed the door forward to close it. Before she could get it shut all the way, though, Nick shoved against it hard. She screamed as the door swung open with a bang.
“Get out!” she screeched. “I’m calling the police!”
“Samuel’s been made,” Nick hissed.
She stopped screaming immediately, and her face drained of color. She squinted at Nick and then gasped a moment later as a look of realization dawned over her face.
“You’re him,” she muttered nervously. “Alessandro’s bother.”
“Yes, yes,” Nick grumbled impatiently. “Listen to me. Samuel turned on the Family. Somebody threatened to harm you and your girls if he didn’t carry out a mission. He told the feds about it. We’re here to get you somewhere safe, but we need to go now.”
Mia looked back and forth between Nick and me, her mouth agape and shock clear in her eyes.
“I-I need to peak with Samuel,” she stuttered.
“You can’t,” Nick replied through gritted teeth. “He’s being held in protective police custody right now. Look, the Family almost certainly knows by now that he squealed. We don’t have time to stand here talking about this.”
“Okay.” She nodded slowly after another moment of hesitation. “Okay, I’ll go wake up the girls.”
She rushed off toward the back of the house.
“Stay here and keep watch.” I looked at Nick. “I’ll go help her get ready.”
Actually, I needed to make sure that she wasn’t back there trying to call someone in her panic. I moved down the hall in the direction I’d seen her heading and spotted her through an open doorway, bent over a crib.
“Do you need any help?” I asked as I entered what was clearly the two daughters’ room. Toys and crayons were scattered all over the floor, and a colorful, animal-themed mural was painted along one of the walls of the room. “I’m Agent Park, by the way.”
“Hi.” She smiled awkwardly in response. “Could you hold her for a second while I get Jenny up?”
She thrust the baby into my arms before I could answer and moved to the other side of the room to wake up the little girl sleeping in bed there.
“Come on, cara mia, we need to go,” she crooned softly.
The little girl groaned and rubbed her eyes before looking up at her mom.
“Where are we going?” she asked curiously.
Mia turned to look at me before answering.
“We’re going on a little trip.” She smiled down at the girl. “It’s a surprise, so we’ll find out when we get there, okay?”
“Okay.” The girl nodded sleepily as she got out of bed.
“Here,” Mia whispered as she snatched a backpack up off of the floor in front of the bed. She went to the closet and stuffed it full of random clothes before coming back to sling it around Jenny’s shoulders. “Wear this, okay?”
She took her daughter’s hand and looked at me with trepidation before leading the way out of the room and back down the hallway.
“Are you ready?” Nick snapped his head around to look at us as he heard us approaching.
“Yes.” Mia nodded shakily.
“All right,” Nick replied before moving quickly to the front door and throwing it open again. Just as she did, a car pulled off of the road and onto the driveway. I squinted as the bright beams of its headlights illuminated the front of the house.
“Crap,” Nick hissed. “Get back inside!”
He’d barely managed to slam the door back shut again when the first barrage of bullets came streaming through the front window. I dove to the ground, careful not to crush the baby I still had cradled in my arms. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nick shove Mia to the floor as well.
Mia and Jenny were both screaming now, but I could barely hear them over the sound of gunfire. I clenched my jaw as I racked my brain and tried to figure out what our next move should be. We could try to escape out the back, but we probably wouldn’t get very far on foot with two hysterical kids in tow.
I was so focused on trying to come up with a solution that I almost didn’t notice when the gunfire suddenly stopped. I was tempted to take a peek outside, but I forced myself to stay still. It might be a trap, and I was also holding an infant civilian.
I could hear what sounded like voices arguing outside. Then the gunfire started back up again a moment later, and it relieved me that I hadn’t given in to the temptation to look out at what was happening. To my surprise, though, the bullets didn’t seem to come through the window anymore. I turned to look at Nick, and I knew by the expression on his face that he’d noticed it as well. They were definitely shooting out there, but not at us.
After another few seconds, the gunfire came to a stop yet again. I held absolutely still, unsure what was going on or how I should react.
“Yo, Nick!” A voice called from outside the house. I snapped my head around to look at my partner, who seemed just as confused as I was. “You still alive in there?”
The voice didn’t sound hostile. In fact, it almost sounded as though whoever was speaking was trying not to laugh.
After a few seconds of silence, Nick got to his feet slowly and walked toward the window. I could see the look on his face melt from one of apprehension into one of relief as he looked at whoever was standing out there.
“Hey, he is alive!” The voice called again cheerfully.
“It’s fine,” Nick sighed as he moved back to help Mia up off the ground. “We can go out now. You should probably cover her eyes, though.”
Mia blinked at him before lifting Jenny into her arms.
“Close your eyes, baby,” she whispered softly into the little girl�
��s ear. She was still crying, and she clutched onto her mom’s shoulders like a lifeline.
I wasn’t any less confused, but I decided to trust Nick and follow him outside as he stepped through the door. Once I was out on the front lawn, I understood why he’d told Mia to cover her daughter’s eyes. There were four bodies littered across the grassy lawn, riddled with bullet holes and surrounded by dark blood spatter.
“Looks like we got here right in time, huh?” I looked up and finally saw the man who’d been speaking the entire time. He looked young enough that he might have been a teenager. His hair was styled into something that kind of resembled a mohawk, and he was grinning impishly, as though he’s just won a game of tag instead of filling four men full of bullets. There was another man standing beside him. He looked a little older and more serious. Both had automatic rifles dangling casually off of straps slung around their shoulders.
“Yeah,” Nick chuckled. “I owe you guys.”
“Don’t sweat it,” the young man beamed. “We’re practically brothers. I mean, you spent more time with our mom growing up than we did.”
I turned to look at Nick expectantly as my confusion at the situation reached an unbearable level.
“Jase, this is Dante.” Nick finally explained as he gestured toward the young man. “And this is his brother, Benny. They’re Colletta’s sons. You remember Colletta, right?”
“Yeah,” I replied. Nick had told me before about how she’d been something like a surrogate mother to him after his real mother had died. I’d never actually met her, but I knew from the way he spoke that Nick was really fond of her.
“How d'you know we were here?” Nick asked seriously.
“Word travels fast within the Family.” Dante shrugged. “You’ve caused a really big ruckus with everything you’ve been doing, you know.”
“Sorry.” Nick frowned apologetically.
“Eh, don’t be,” Dante scoffed. “It’s kind of hilarious. Anyway, why don’t we take them for you?”
He nodded toward Mia and Jenny, and I gasped as I realized what he was suggesting.
“What?” I snapped. “I really don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Relax, suit.” Dante grinned. “I just meant we’ll take them over to the station for you or wherever you were planning on taking them. No one in the Family even knows we came out here, so no one will expect them to be with us. That way, you two can run off and do what you need to do to settle this. As funny as it’s been watching everyone freak out, it’s going to start affecting business if it goes on much longer.”
I pursed my lips, still unsure whether it was wise to entrust the three of them with this.
“It’s fine,” Nick assured me. “We can trust him. And he’s right. If the Family comes after us again, they’ll be in danger. They’ll be able to fly under the radar if they go with Dante.”
“Fine,” I agreed reluctantly. This was definitely skirting the line over whether I was breaking protocol or not, but I could always make the argument that I was acting in the best interests of the victims.
I gave Dante the address of the safehouse we’d prepared before coming out here and watched as Mia climbed into the back of their car with her two small kids. She looked so worn out and shell-shocked as she sat there that my heart ached for what she’d had to go through.
“We should head to the motel ASAP,” I declared once the car had pulled away. “I’ll call the police and report the shooting. We can leave right after.”
“Don’t.” Nick grabbed my wrist to stop me from dialing the number on my phone.
“What do you mean, ‘don’t’?” I asked incredulously as I gestured over the four bodies lying dead on the lawn. “I can’t just leave a bunch of corpses here.”
“Yes, you can,” Nick replied darkly. “If we leave now, then this is just some mafia squabble. It probably won’t even make the news. If you report it, there will be questions about why you were here. It’ll be publicly known that you were involved with this. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I stared at him in shock at what he was suggesting for me to do.
“I can’t just abandon a crime scene,” I protested. I understood where he was coming from, but every fiber of my being was screaming at me to go through the proper protocols.
“Report it to Flint if you want,” Nick sighed. “But seriously, calling any more attention to this than necessary isn’t going to help anything.”
I looked back over the carnage on the lawn as I struggled to figure out what the right decision was.
“Fine,” I sighed. “Let’s go. I’ll call Flint from the car.”
We hurried back into the car and pulled quickly away from the house. As the scene grew smaller behind us, I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling I had that I’d just made a decision I couldn’t come back from.
35
Nick
The motel was a shabby little building off the side of the highway, about an hour outside of Downtown Miami. Honestly, it looked like the setting for a horror movie. It was dark, worn down, and out in the middle of nowhere. It was no wonder they were having trouble paying their bills if they only ever got the odd traveler stopping by on their way to or from Miami.
“Are you ready?” I turned to look at Jase as he parked the car and turned off the ignition. He’d told Flint about what had happened on the drive over. Flint had told Jase that he would handle it, and he’d also let us know that he would send some officers over to the motel to help us.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Let’s go.”
The atmosphere around the motel was eerie as we got out of the car. It was quiet, and aside from the large electric billboard by the road, the only source of light around us was the yellow glow spilling through the main office’s windows.
A bell chimed as I pushed the door open and stepped inside. A short, balding man in a light blue sweatshirt was sitting behind the reception counter, his eyes glued to the television mounted on the wall behind the desk.
“Welcome to the Cactus Motel,” he called lazily without taking his eyes off of the screen. “It’s forty per night or fifteen by the hour. Cash or credit card only, no checks.”
“I’m not here for a room,” I replied coldly.
He took his eyes off of the television and turned to stare at me, annoyance clear in his eyes. He froze as he saw the two of us standing on the other side of the desk, and I noted that his gaze lingered on me as though he was trying to figure something out.
“What, uh… what can I do for you gentlemen?” he asked nervously.
“Lorenzo Russo, correct?” I asked as I stared him down. “I don’t recognize you. Did you join after I left, or are you just a part of one of the outlier families?”
He shot me a puzzled look for a moment. Then his mouth fell open comically as he realized what I was talking about.
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbled weakly.
“Of course not,” I scoffed sarcastically. “You know, I’ve met some real scum in my life, but you? You really put a hit out on your own family in order to blackmail your nephew.”
He snapped his mouth shut, and his face went pale.
“I don’t you who you’ve been talking to, but--”
The bell mounted above the door chimed behind us and cut him off. I turned instinctively, worried it might be one of his other men preparing to ambush us.
“Hey, how much for a room?” The man who entered called as soon as he was inside the office. He reeked of alcohol, and I was a little concerned that he might have driven here.
“Gun!” Jase yelled, and I snapped my head back around just in time to see Lorenzo pull the trigger. The bullet sailed straight between Jase and me and struck the man who’d just entered. The man fell to the ground with a pained grunt, and Jase rushed to check on him.
I lifted my own gun instinctively and flinched as pain lanced through my injured shoulder. I pulled the trigger, but the shot sailed completely wide
and missed Lorenzo entirely. I aimed again, but Lorenzo was already escaping through a door behind the desk.
“Damn,” I yelled as I scrambled over the edge of the desk and gave chase. I’d been so concerned about watching my back that I’d let myself get distracted.
The door led to a small backroom. Lorenzo was already at the other end, heading straight for another door that I assumed led outside. I lifted my gun again, but my arm was shaking, and I was unable to get a clean shot for the second time.
Lorenzo ran outside, and I sprinted through the backroom after him. I crashed through the door and looked around frantically to see where he’d gone. I spotted him a few feet away, running along the side of the motel, past the room doors. I hurried after him, pushing past the pain that was now radiating down my arm.
“Stop!” I yelled as I raised my gun again. There weren’t that many obstacles around. Even with my shoulder burning the way it was, I had a better chance of hitting him here.
Just as I was about to pull the trigger, a door just ahead of Lorenzo popped open, and a small boy came toddling out. He stopped in his tracks and turned to look at Lorenzo with wide eyes. Lorenzo skidded to a halt as the child stopped in front of him, and then, in a flash, he suddenly lifted the boy by the arm and held him up in front of himself like a shield.
“What are you doing?” A woman screeched as she stepped out of the room behind the boy.
“Stay back!” Lorenzo warned as he pointed his gun, first at her and then me. “Don’t move, or I’ll shoot him.”
As if to emphasize that he was willing to make good on his threat, he turned his gun on the boy who was now openly crying and calling for his mom.
“Just calm down, Lorenzo,” I called steadily. “You don’t want to do that.”
“Shut up!” he yelled. The hand holding the gun twitched against the boy’s head, and I froze entirely. His mom was standing about a few feet away, shaking but silent. “Put your gun down! Now!”
“Okay.” I nodded as I stretched my arm out away from me before slowly crouching toward the ground. “Look, I’m putting it down right now.”