by B. B. Hamel
Bratva Sinner
BB Hamel
Contents
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1. Luke
2. Cara
3. Luke
4. Cara
5. Luke
6. Cara
7. Luke
8. Cara
9. Luke
10. Cara
11. Luke
12. Cara
13. Luke
14. Cara
15. Luke
16. Cara
17. Luke
18. Cara
19. Luke
20. Cara
21. Luke
22. Cara
23. Luke
24. Cara
Preview: The Killer’s New Wife
Also by BB Hamel
Copyright © 2021 by B. B. Hamel
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1
Luke
I was in a rush to kill this guy.
It wasn’t my style, running into a hit blindly. I should’ve spent time planning, setting everything up, getting myself ready, but the reward for Justin O’Shay’s head was too tempting and I knew a lot of guys were after him already.
Fortunately, I had a prior business arrangement with him, and knew where he spent his time.
The bar was called Daly Drinker up in Fishtown tucked behind a working-class neighborhood where all the front porches were covered with that fake putting-green grass stuff and white plastic lawn chairs. Rain pattered against my windshield as I parked and made sure my gun was loaded.
German squinted across the street. He was my number two, my right hand in the crew. Square jaw, light eyes, always a goddamn frown on his face. I didn’t think I’d ever seen the guy happy, which was just as well. He loved getting in fights more than anything else in this world, and I figured if I ever wanted to see him smile, I’d have to let him break my nose.
“You sure he’ll be here?” German asked.
“Pretty sure. He likes this spot.” I leaned forward, peering at the rundown bar over the steering wheel. The door was painted green, though it was faded and peeling, and the sign looked like it wanted to fall off the facade.
“I hear Maher’s coming for him too.” German peered at me. “That gonna be a problem?”
“Not if we get in there first.” I slapped German on the shoulder, which he hated, of course. “Come on, let’s get moving.” I opened the door and stepped out into the rain. I didn’t mind getting my boots wet, but I was wearing an expensive jacket and a pair of decent slacks. I flipped up my collar and hurried across the street.
German caught up with me. “You think he knows about the price on his head?”
“Probably.” I looked both ways as I stepped onto the sidewalk. Quiet, just a couple local guys sitting on a stoop nearby, looking at their phones. “Justin’s got his ear to the ground.”
“A little too close to the ground for his own good.” German grunted, which was as close to a laugh as he ever got.
I headed toward the Daly Drinker with my hands shoved in my pockets. German came behind me, his eyes scanning all around. I stepped inside, wiping the rain off my sleeves, before I looked up at the dim bar room. The place was a real dive, with an old faded American flag hanging up on the ceiling above the bartender, the bottles outlined by cheap string Christmas lights. The table were all round with round stools, and several more stools were lined up in front of the faded and peeling bar top. The walls were covered in wood paneling and old movie posters were plastered along the top half like wallpaper.
The place was nearly empty. A few young guys stood around a high-top on the left, drinking beers and laughing with each other. More older locals sat belly-up at the bar, and at the very end, hunched over a glass of something brown, was Justin O’Shay himself.
Dumb bastard. If I were him, I would’ve gotten the hell out of town already.
Some very important people wanted him dead. In the grand scheme of the city, he was a nobody, some minor bit player that did odd jobs for the bigger families. He was a thief, a forger, sometimes muscle, sometimes a driver, but generally a piece of shit willing to do nearly anything if the money was good enough. I’d worked a couple jobs with him over the years and threw some tasks his way that weren’t all that interesting, and we kept it cordial for the most part.
Unfortunately, he ripped off his last employer, and his last employer happened to be the Lionetti family, the strongest Italian mob in town.
Now there was a price for his head, and I wanted to be the one to collect.
German stuck close. I could practically feel the gun in his hand already as I approached Justin. The guy looked up and flinched back as I smiled down at him, trying to be as disarming as I could. There were bags under his eyes and his skin was sallow like he hadn’t slept in days and hadn’t stopped drinking in all that time. His hair was going gray and his beard was patchy at best, and frankly, the guy looked like shit.
That was what happened when you were a petty criminal and an alcoholic for most of your life. Old age didn’t discriminate and time came for everyone. Especially idiots that didn’t bother to take care of themselves.
“Luke,” he said, smiling up at me with a bland grin. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Hey, Justin.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “Been looking for you.”
“You and the whole damn city.” He turned back to his drink and threw it down his throat. “I guess you heard about the bounty.”
“Yeah, I heard.”
“And you’re here to collect.” He laughed bitterly.
I squeezed his shoulder. “Doesn’t have to be hard, you know.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one that’s got to die.”
I glanced at German. He frowned at me and shook his head once like he didn’t know what to make of it. Justin was drunk, that was obvious, but he seemed resigned to his fate. I almost felt bad for the guy.
Except he was worth ten grand dead and it wasn’t like the world would miss a piece of shit like him.
“Fair enough, Justin,” I said softly. “How about you finish that drink then we go outside.”
“How about you just kill me here?” He grunted but threw the whiskey back. “Shit, you know what’s awful about all this? I don’t even got enough cash to afford the good stuff. Just this rotten garbage, you know what I mean? I steal from the Lionettis, right, but I don’t even get away with enough to live on, so I’m fucked. Can’t run, can’t stay, I’m just dead, dead man walking.” He laughed, his words slurred and heavy on his swollen tongue. “What the hell am I gonna do?”
“Come outside,” I said. “That’s all you gotta do, all right? I’ll do the rest. Doesn’t got to be hard on you, Justin.”
He looked up at me, his eyes watery and cold. “Shit, Luke. You were always all right, you know?”
“I’m a professional. Come on, let’s go before this gets any worse.”
He slowly stood up, swaying slightly. He was drunker than I realized. I moved to help him, but he suddenly shoved me hard in the chest, knocking me backwards slightly. It surprised me, which was why it worked at all, but then he was off sprinting across the ba
r. He made it three steps before German slammed into him from the side, knocking him sideways.
The bar went dead silent. I pulled my gun and held it up pointed at the roof. “All right, it’s fine, everyone, stay calm. My associate and I are going to take this guy outside and you should all keep on going like nothing’s happening, all right?”
“Who the fuck are you?” one of the old locals grunted. “Put the damn gun away. We all know Justin’s a dead sack of shit.”
“Bastards,” Justin said from the floor. German pulled him to his feet and he swayed. “You’re all a bunch of bastards.”
The local guy, a craggy old man in a brown shirt and jeans, spit onto the floor. “We won’t miss you, asshole. You owe me fifty bucks.”
“You owe me twenty,” another guy said.
“Fuck you all,” Justin said, flipping them off, then he tried to run away. This time German grabbed his wrist and yanked it around behind his back. Justin groaned in pain as German shuffled with him toward the door.
“Sorry for the interruption,” I said, waving to everyone. “Enjoy your evening.”
German wrestled Justin out into the rain. I stood in the doorway, glaring at the water. “Where to?” German asked.
“There’s an alley around the corner.” I nodded to the left. “Take him there.”
“God, oh, fucking God,” Justin said. “Please don’t kill me in some filthy alley. I want to die like a man, you know? Take me to the Schuylkill, shoot me in the head, let me drop into the water.”
“Shut up,” German said, applying more pressure.
Justin gasped in pain as German dragged him along. I followed them, annoyed at this situation, but pleased we caught Justin before anyone else. The alley wasn’t far and Justin didn’t put up much of a fight, especially not when he realized German was like a pit bull on steroids, while he was an old, washed-up, drunk asshole worth way more dead than alive.
I held my gun pointed down at the ground as German shoved Justin up against the wall. The alley was narrow with a dumpster toward one end and trash strewn on the ground. Puddles formed with strange, sticky liquids floating on their surface. I sighed and faced Justin as he cowered away from me.
“You got anything to say?” I asked. “Last words?”
“Tell my daughter I’m sorry.” He stared up at the cloudy, rain-strewn sky. “I wasn’t a good father, but I tried.”
“Didn’t know you had a daughter.” I held the gun up and pressed his against his head.
“She’s nice. Not like her old man.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Deserved better than me, but ah, well. That’s how it goes. Tell her I said sorry and I love her, and that she’d better get out of town.”
“I’ll do that.” I pulled the trigger.
Justin’s head exploded against the wall. Gore and blood splattered the brick and he crumpled down to the ground. Thunder rumbled in the sky and I snorted once, grinning slightly as I shoved the gun away and wiped blood from my hands. Even God didn’t seem to mind if this fucking asshole got killed.
“That’s done,” I said, looking over at German. “Let’s get this body to the car and—”
German’s eyes were wide. He took a step back and pointed, like he saw a ghost. I turned around and froze.
Standing in the alley mouth was a girl.
About twenty years old. Pretty auburn hair, full lips, light blue eyes, high cheekbones. She wore tight jeans and a simple but flattering shirt that showed off her surprisingly nice figure. Rain flattened her hair and made the clothes cling tighter against her chest, but she barely seemed to notice.
She stared down at Justin with horror in her eyes.
“What did you do?” she whispered, taking a step forward.
Then I saw the resemblance.
It was hard to tell really, but she had her father’s eyes. Light blue, like the sky on a clear, sunny day. She reached out like she wanted to touch the corpse, but pulled back in shock when I stepped toward her.
“He didn’t tell me you were here.” Which didn’t matter, since I would’ve killed him anyway, but at least I would’ve had German keep watch.
“You killed him.” Tears rolled down her cheeks, mixed with rainwater. “Oh my god. You killed him.” She stepped forward again, hands coming up to her mouth.
“Ah, shit,” I said softly, looking back at German for help, but he only shook his head.
A car screamed to a stop in the street. Doors opened and slammed. German came up next to me, body language tight again, hand gripping the gun in his waistband. He stepped past the girl and looked out around the corner then cursed.
“Maher’s here,” he said.
“Fuck.” I pulled my gun. “How many with him?”
“Two,” German said. “They’re headed into the bar but they’ll be here in a second.” He looked back at me then nodded at the girl. “What do you think? Looking for her?”
My head spun. Justin was dead, and he was the real target—but the daughter might be worth something to the right people. Justin owed a debt, and sometimes that debt passed down to immediately family, especially when the Lionetti were involved. They always got paid one way or the other.
But I didn’t know if Maher would be that deep with them. He worked for the Doyle family, another strong mafia in the city, but he wasn’t Lionetti. He still might try to take the girl and sell her back to them though, if only to recoup some of the bounty he missed out on.
I turned to the girl. She was staring at her father’s body, hands still at her mouth, not moving. I crouched next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, you, listen to me.”
She shrugged me off like my fingers were made of lava. “Don’t touch me,” she hissed. “You murdering piece of shit.”
“Okay, fair enough, but listen to me. There are more guys coming, and they might want to take you since they missed out on your father’s bounty. You might be worth something is what I’m saying, so if you want to avoid getting turned into a fuck slave for some mobster assholes, you should come with me.”
She gaped at me like I grew a second head. “You’re a mobster asshole,” she said. “You murdered my father. Why the hell would I go with you?”
“They’re coming back out,” German said. “We better move.”
“I get it, I just murdered your dad, but someone was going to. And you should be goddamn happy that someone was me.”
“Happy?” She stood up suddenly. I got to my feet and stared down at her as she clenched her jaw, hands balled into fists. Her anger was almost comical, considering she was half my size at best, except for the fact that her father’s corpse lay bleeding at her feet. “You murdered my father and you want me to be happy.”
“If you want to avoid getting thrown into some sex dungeon, shut your mouth and follow me.” I stepped toward her, impatient now. “Do you understand what I’m saying to you? I’m trying to save you.”
And I didn’t know why. Maybe some misguided idea about protecting women and all that bullshit, or maybe just because I wanted to keep her for myself.
The girl was beautiful. Absolutely fucking stunning, in a way that made me believe in higher powers. How some scumbag like Justin could’ve produced a miracle like his daughter, I’d never understand, but she was incredible. If Maher got his hands on her, he’d use her up, turn her into an emaciated, drug-addled wreck, and I couldn’t have that.
I couldn’t let him ruin something so goddamn perfect.
“Fuck you,” she spat and tried to slap me.
I caught her wrist and pulled her against me. She gasped, surprised, and kneed me in the thigh. I grunted, wrenched her arm behind her just like German did to her daddy, and walked her forward.
“Let’s go,” I grunted at German and led her toward the street.
German paused long enough to get pictures of Justin with his phone before jogging to catch up. We reached the car seconds before Maher and his two goons stepped out from the Daly Drinker and looked around. Maher spotted me, sai
d something, and strode over.
“Get off me,” the girl said angrily. “What’s wrong with you?”
I shoved her into the back seat and slammed the door. “Trying to save your life,” I said and jumped behind the wheel. “German, get in.”
German hesitated, gun out, standing next to the passenger’s side. For one wild second, I thought he might open fire, but instead he got inside.
I started the engine.
“Running away?” Maher yelled. “Looks like you grabbed a prize, too.”
“Fuck off, Maher,” I shouted back as I pulled into the street. “You can have my leavings. He’s in the alleyway.”
“Clean up your own mess, asshole.” Maher leered at me. He was a skinny guy, tall and dark with a mess of brown hair. “If that’s his daughter, you should know that I want her. She’s worth something, damn you.”
I drove off without dignifying that with a response.
German sighed and wiped at his face before turning halfway around in his seat to glare at the girl. She glared back, soaking wet and shaking with grief and fear and a million other things. I could only guess what was going on in her mind.
I could only guess at what was going on in mine.
“What’s your name?” I asked, looking in the rearview mirror.
“Cara,” she said. “And as soon as I can, I’m going to the police and you’re going to pay for what you did.”
I sighed and shook my head. “You really shouldn’t say shit like that if you want a chance to escape. Now we have to make sure we keep you.” I sighed and rubbed my face. “I’m Luke, by the way, and that’s German.”