I’ve never liked fairs.
Soon, I stop Nico as a more human sound reaches my ears: footsteps. I gesture for him to follow me, sticking to the shadows, and we creep closer after the sounds of several men and hushed voices up ahead.
We come around the corner of what looks like an old haunted house-type ride, complete with a badly painted giant bat looming over the entrance. We get low and stay put, because at the open space up ahead in front of it, I see our targets.
There are five men total. It’s hard to tell who is who at first, but their body language gives them away. Two of them are Cleaners: one of them is receiving a large black bag from the others, and the other man stands close to him, tall and as imposing as I might be at a meeting like this. The other three look a little more nervous as they hand off the bags. They are right to be. The Cleaners aren’t to be trusted. It must have been hard for them to set this meeting up in the first place.
I smile under my mask. Icing on the cake.
Hand on my silenced pistol, I wait until nobody’s gaze is turned toward us, and I raise the weapon to take aim. My sights set on the big Cleaner, but when I get a better look at the other man handing off a bag full of jewels, my heart skips a beat.
That face. I know that face.
I lower my weapon as my eyes widen, and Nico looks at me, puzzled. Any other time, I would swear my eyes are playing tricks on me, but I’d recognize that face anywhere.
One of the smugglers is a cop who was at my arrest two years ago.
Nico looks confused, but I give his arm a warning squeeze and shake my head ever so slightly, so I don’t draw attention. Things just got a lot more dangerous. We can’t risk killing a cop. My head is buzzing with questions, most of all, why is he here?
I’ll have to worry about that later, though. For now, I have to figure out how we leave here without a cop’s blood on our hands, because I’m not leaving without the jewels.
I hold Nico’s arm until the men finish their transaction. Nods are exchanged, and the groups part ways. Thankfully, the smugglers are in a hurry. They’ll be out of the way soon enough. We’re still as shadows as each one stalks off, and the moment it’s safe, I nod for Nico to follow me.
We’re going to have to take down the Cleaners separately.
Nico is giving me a “what the fuck are you doing” look, but I press on. We move as quietly as we can around the building to head off the Cleaners. I’m moving faster than I should, and I have to catch myself to slow down. My thoughts are all over the place, but I have to stay focused. I can figure the rest out later.
We round the corner, and we both freeze in our tracks.
At the far end of the haunted house’s side stands a third Cleaner we hadn’t noticed. A lookout. And he’s looking straight at us.
I have no time to think. I raise my gun, aim, and fire, all in the span of less than a second. The man jolts and staggers back, a bleeding hole in his forehead, and he falls to the ground. We’d be in the clear... if the two men with the jewels weren’t just about to pass by him, each of them carrying bags.
“Fuck!” one of them shouts, and they take off in opposite directions.
There’s no hesitation in me. “You take the fast one, I’ve got the big guy,” I say, and I take off sprinting. Nico takes off the next moment, and we’re on our targets like bloodhounds.
My man goes back the way they came, toward the haunted house. I round the corner just as he rounds the one further down, bringing him around to the front of the house. I curse silently as I go after him, and when I reach the corner, he’s gone. There are no hiding spots nearby that I can spot, except…
My eyes fall on the haunted house, and I grit my teeth. It’s a tight space with many shadows, places to hide, and a service exit somewhere inside. He chose a smart place to hide. That’s not going to stop me, though.
I take my weapon out and move in after him.
It’s hard to stay quiet inside the creaky old building. Each step I take risks making the rusty metal floors groan, and I can hardly see anything. The only upside is that he’s at the same disadvantage. But I don’t underestimate him. He had the luxury of casing this joint. He might know it better than I expect, so I can’t let my guard down.
Every other thought leaves my head. I don’t worry about Nico, or about what might happen outside. I’m focused on my sole task.
Keeping low, I move past the ticket stand inside. If there’s a service exit, it’s probably toward the back of the ride. I have no idea whether the entry or exit tunnel is the fastest to take, so I check the doorways of both before darting down the entryway.
Then I hear the sound of a shuffling footstep some ways ahead, and I know I made the right choice. If he moves too fast, he’ll alert me to where he is. My eyes slowly begin to adjust to the dark, and I look in the direction of the sounds.
As if on cue, though, I hear the sounds of running footsteps down the winding hallway, and I take off after him. To my sides, I see the old deactivated skeletons and rusty monsters used to pop out at people on the ride. They’re more unnerving when still and lifeless.
There’s the sound of a gunshot, and I come to a halt and dive into cover, pressed up against an animatronic werewolf in a nook as I raise my weapon, ready to fire back. But there are no more shots. I peek out just long enough to look into the darkness. If he can’t see me, I can’t see him, but if he’s blind-firing back at me, he’s starting to panic. I have to use this to my advantage.
Moving as silently as I can, I hold my gun out and start to feel my way along the wall toward the source of the gunshot.
As my hand runs along a wall, I feel it brush against something cold and metallic. I feel it more and realize that it’s a switch. An emergency power switch? Brakes? Security? I hesitate a moment, but I know I need some kind of distraction, anything, so I pull the lever.
The whole building seems to shudder as the last sparks of energy course through the place. Down the hallway ahead of me, loose wiring overhead pops loudly and rains sparks down, and it lights up the room enough to show me my man, white-faced at the end of the hall.
We raise our guns at the same time and fire off, and I feel the sting of the bullet grazing my shoulder. I sprint forward and start zig-zagging my way down, but when the wires spark again, the man is gone.
The sounds of his footsteps are muffled by the mechanical whirring I hear all around now. Some generator somewhere must have a little juice left in it. I curse my luck. The half-working haunted house is a lot creepier than a dead one.
I get to the end of the hallway and halt at the corner. Behind me, I hear a rolling sound, and I turn to see one of the empty ride cars clunking its way down on the metal tracks. I let it roll around the corner, cobwebs hanging overhead, and as soon as it appears in the next hallway, I hear two gunshots ricochet off the empty car, followed by a curse.
He’s waiting for me. I have to think of something.
My eye catches something across the deadly hallway that’s frankly, horrifying. The ride has sparked to life, which means the animatronic monsters within are trying to move like they did when the fair was running normally. Across from me is a robotic mummy, and every few seconds, it starts to jolt around awkwardly as if trying to pop forward and scare a guest, but a big loose cable running across its chest is holding it back. That gives me an idea.
Just before the next time it pops out, I aim my gun at the cable and fire. With a spark, it’s cut in two, and a second later, the mummy pops out of its plastic sarcophagus, arms raised and jaw hanging open.
“Fuck!” comes a shout from down the hallway, and there’s a gunshot, and part of the mummy’s head comes off from the gunshot. I take the distraction and pop out of cover myself.
Just as I planned, the man’s wide eyes are fixed on the mummy, and by the time his face turns to me, my gun is trained on him, and I squeeze the trigger.
Two quick shots, and the man falls to the ground, dead. I race forward with my gun pointed at him, and I make sure he�
��s down for good before I take the bags and sling them over my shoulder.
That went well, but I don’t have any time to celebrate: Nico’s still out there.
I race out of the haunted house and listen for the sound of fighting. It doesn’t take long before I hear the gunshots of the other man. Nico’s using a silenced pistol like me, so I can’t figure out his location by listening.
I reach the gravity-spinner ride and move carefully around it before I finally see movement. Nico is blind-firing, ironically pinned down in the shooting gallery booth. Judging by where he’s shooting, I can get an idea of where the Cleaner is.
I should be able to flank him. I move around the opposite side of the gravity-spinner, and I can make out motion just beyond a merry-go-round. I clench my jaw. I can’t deny that the big, badly painted plastic horses will make for good cover if I want to approach quickly. I can see the shooter crouching behind an overturned popcorn stand.
No time to think of alternatives. I rush forward, still close to the ground, and before I can give the other man a chance to react, I use one of the fake horses as both cover and a rest for my arms to take aim, and with the squeeze of the trigger, the man goes down, slumping over his bag.
Nico and I are both still for a moment, as if expecting something else to happen, but after a few beats, we both stand up, grinning at each other, and Nico shakes his head as we make our way to the corpse to get the bag.
“Shit, man, I’m glad we didn’t tell the others about this after all,” he says, taking the bag and slinging it over his shoulder while I check the dead man. “All this? Nobody would believe this bullshit.”
We get the bags together and make our way back to the car as silently as we came in, and in a few minutes’ time, we’re driving back into town.
“Goddamn,” Nico says as he looks over the insides of the bags. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen this much money in one place. Even if it is in rock-form,” he jokes, not daring to touch the glittering stones even now.
“Jewel thieves have the right idea,” I chuckle, glancing at the payload. “You should just skip buying a ring and use one of these rocks for the engagement ring. Find a nice jeweler to do it for you on the down low.”
“No shit,” Nico laughs. “Nah, Rafaela would kill me.” He glances at my arm and notices a dark patch in my black sweater where I’m bleeding. “Hey, you get hit, man?”
“Nothing serious,” I say, shrugging my shoulder. “Got a little more muscle to absorb the sting there now. You all good?”
“He couldn’t get a shot in on me,” he says proudly, “but you still saved my ass back there. Reminds me why I keep helping your ass out.”
We chuckle, and I jab him with my elbow. When he stops laughing, Nico looks over at me with a thoughtful look on his face.
“You’ve been pretty quiet about all this, though. Just what are you thinking about doing with all this cash? ‘Keep Serena safe’ is a little vague.”
“I’ll worry about that,” I say, smiling. “I’ve got something special in mind for my share of the cash.”
SERENA
I t’s a beautiful day, with the kind of crystalline blue skies and puffy white clouds that would look more natural on a painting than in reality. The sun shines down cheerfully over the winding road in front of us, and a delicious earthy breeze filters in through the rolled-down car windows.
Bruno has his elbow resting on the window frame, gripping the steering wheel with one hand while the other reaches over to hold mine. He turns to smile at me, looking absolutely gorgeous in his shining aviator shades and just a hint of a prickly five o’clock shadow. He’s wearing a white t-shirt with the sleeves slightly rolled, blue jeans, and brown boots. He looks like a rugged, sexy woodsman heading out for a day of tromping through the forest. And I guess that’s not too far off from what we’re about to do.
The drive up here from Riverdale has been amazing; perfect weather the whole time. Ever since I was a little kid I’ve loved road trips, and I always dreamed of going on a long drive like this with a handsome man who made my heart flutter. I smile and think, wow, young Serena would be so happy if she could see us now.
Of course, everything isn’t roses and sunshine. Bruno more or less disappeared for about a week after that day at my house in Riverdale. He kept in touch this time, sending me updates from a burner phone, just like old times. Only now he doesn’t keep me waiting in such dreadful suspense.
I don’t know what kinds of shenanigans he got into, and I didn’t dare ask (honestly, I don’t know if I even want to know), but when he turned up to collect me for this trip upstate, he did look a little worse for wear, like maybe he’s been in some kind of fight. I know he leads a dangerous life, and now that he’s a fugitive, danger lurks around every corner. But I have to swallow down my fear. After all, you can’t love a dangerous man without expecting some rough patches, right?
Besides, he’s with me safe and sound now, and that’s what matters to me: collecting these precious little moments together when they come along. I used to think I wanted stability, calmness.
Now I know I just want Bruno, regardless of what that might mean.
“God, it’s a gorgeous day,” I remark, gazing out the window at the trees and other vegetation starting to thicken around us as we drive.
“Perfect,” Bruno agrees. “I can see why your family used to vacation up here.”
“It’s been so long since I came here last, but it doesn’t even look any different. Well, some of the trees look bigger, but otherwise it’s all the same. It’s weird to think about how much I’ve changed, how different my life is now, but it’s like time didn’t touch this part of the planet,” I muse aloud, dangling my arm out the window for a moment to feel the breeze.
“Like stepping back in time,” he says.
“Exactly.”
The car rumbles over a rough spot and I notice the paved road has given way to gravel now, the tires crunching as we roll along. “Sorry about your tires. I forgot about the gravel.”
“This car has definitely seen worse times than this,” Bruno laughs. “Besides, I’m an excellent driver.”
I raise an eyebrow and glance at him, amused. “Well, you’re not lacking for confidence, are you, Mr. Tokyo Drift?”
“Trust me, when you’ve worked the kind of job I have, you quickly learn to be an expert with all the tools of the trade. Tactical driving is just part of the necessary skill set,” Bruno explains.
“Oh, up ahead! Look!” I exclaim, scooting forward in my seat and pointing toward a small wooden structure just barely peeking out from behind the trees down the path.
“Is that it?” he asks. “Where do we go to check in?”
“Oh, it’s not that complicated. There’s kind of a scout’s honor type system up here. You just leave the money in an envelope in the mailbox when you leave,” I tell him. “Come to think of it, I’m starting to understand why my dad liked this place so much. Privacy and convenience. A property owner who doesn’t ask questions and couldn’t be bothered to care anyway.”
“A Mafioso’s paradise,” Bruno agrees, grinning.
“So many things are starting to make sense looking back now,” I sigh, shaking my head. “But whatever the purpose was, I have a lot of great memories here. It’s so nice to be back. I can’t wait to show you around and frolic in nature with you.”
I squeeze his hand and he laughs. “This is definitely more your speed than mine, but it will be interesting to say the least.”
“Oh, you’ll love it, I promise.”
Bruno pulls the car up to a spot next to the cabin and as soon as he turns off the engine and the doors unlock, I burst out of the car and take off toward the dense woods, unable to keep a grin off of my face. Bruno takes off after me, but when I look back I notice he still looks a little tense, glancing over his shoulder like he’s afraid someone might randomly appear behind us. Like he’s still worried that we might be watched or followed, even all the way out here in the
middle of nowhere. I decide to make it my mission to distract him and get him to relax by whatever means necessary, and I already have a few ideas in mind.
“Come on!” I shout back at him, heading down a barely-there path in the forest. I’m navigating more by instinct than logic, hoping my memory will lead me in the right direction. Just as I stop short at a little babbling creek, Bruno catches up to me and grabs me in his arms, swinging me around as I cry out in mock fear. He sets me back down and kisses me, cupping my face in his huge hands as we stand on the mushy bank of the creek.
“Are we going to cross this thing?” he asks, gesturing toward the water.
I take note of a few smooth, large boulders in the creek and nod. “Of course! We’re just going to step across those rocks there.” I break away from him and deftly hop across to the other side of the creek, beckoning for him to follow. Bruno looks a little skeptical at first, but then he easily leaps across.
“Fun, right? Hopping around the streams was one of my favorite things to do here as a little kid. It’s easy to do nowadays, but when I was small it was way more intimidating, I swear,” I admit, laughing.
“I bet you were the cutest little girl,” Bruno says. “I can just picture you tiny and courageous, crossing a creek like some brave adventurer.”
“I definitely felt like that’s what I was,” I say, smiling widely. “Well, let’s keep going. I think we’re on the right path.”
“To where?”
“You’ll see!” I exclaim, bolting through the trees again with Bruno close behind. My heart is racing, my lungs filled with fresh forest air. The sun reaches down in golden-white streaks through the canopy, illuminating patches of earth. I feel happier than I’ve been in a very long time, like I’m finally free. Despite growing up as mostly a city girl, with my Manhattan apartment, designer clothes, and trust fund friends, I think I’ve always been a country girl at heart. Or something like that. I feel so at home here in the woods, running free and wild where nobody is around to judge me for my lack of composure. I can be myself here, and only the trees and lurking wildlife can watch.
Bound to the Mafia (Bound to the Bad Boy Book 2) Page 16