“There!” I shouted, pointing it out.
As I was craning my neck around to see what the hell was going on, Michael turned a hard right, jumping the curb and barely missing a fence before coming to a screeching stop beside the SUV.
My pistol was in my hand before I opened the door and lurched out of the car.
Two suppressed shots rang out.
With Michael by my side, I rushed to the SUV, grabbed my knife, and slashed the front driver’s side tire. No matter what happened, these bastards wouldn’t be able to make a clean getaway. Michael and I circled the SUV, him at the back, me at the front, and I came face to face with the business end of a pistol.
“Drop your fuckin’ weapon,” the wielder growled.
“Fuck you,” Michael said. “You drop your fuckin’ weapons.”
There were four of us. Everyone had guns drawn. I’d heard stories from old mobsters about shootouts like this. Someone always died, usually the guy who shot first, but always the man who didn’t fire at all. My heart pounded so hard I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone could hear it over the traffic on the other side of the vehicles. I watched the guy in front of me, waiting for the slightest indication that he was about to pull the trigger.
“Everyone calm down,” Michael said, using his “boss” voice. “Let’s fix this so we all get out alive.”
No way in hell was that happening. These bastards had just hit one of our deliveries. If we didn’t bring them in or kill them, Father would kill us. But sure, I could pretend to play nice if it meant not getting my brains blown out in some goddamn parking lot.
Two more suppressed shots.
Before I could squeeze the trigger, the guy in front of me toppled. On the way down, he fired a wild shot that grazed my right forearm before puncturing the side of the SUV.
I grabbed my bleeding arm with my left hand and shot the asshole again to make sure he was good and dead. When I looked up, Michael was running to our delivery van. I followed him to find a soldier by the name of Rocco slumped over the passenger’s seat, pistol still in his left hand while he held his bleeding stomach with the right.
“I got the bastard,” Rocco whispered.
Then he leaned back, closed his eyes, and died.
Shit. “What do we do?” I asked Michael.
We couldn’t leave the bodies there. If, by some miracle of a chance, nobody had called in the shots, some cop would eventually drive by to investigate the nice, newer-looking vehicles parked in an abandoned lot, and we’d be screwed.
Gesturing to my arm, Michael said, “Wrap that shit up and help me load the bodies.”
Once we got all four bodies loaded in the back of the van, Michael told me to drive it to the drop point.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said, wiping blood off my hands onto a rag. “Why me?”
He leveled a hard stare at me. “Because I said.”
It was the “boss” voice again. He’d never used it on me before. Stunned, I stared back at him, waiting for him to claim it was a joke or something, but my brother’s expression didn’t crack. If anything, it hardened.
“That’s it then?” I asked, still disbelieving my ears and eyes. “You’re pullin’ rank? We don’t even get to rock, paper, scissors for the shit jobs anymore?”
He turned his back on me, heading for his Acura. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Fuck you,” I shouted to his back, hurt and angry that my brother would treat me like hired help. Michael could be an asshole, but he usually wasn’t a condescending prick. At least, not to me. Wanting to flick more shit at him, I said the one thing I knew he’d hate. “Congratulations, Mikey, you’re turning out just like the old man.”
“Go to hell, Dom,” he said before disappearing around the SUV.
Shaking my head, I climbed into the van full of four dead bodies and a shit-ton of drugs. Knowing that if I got pulled over I was done for, I made myself take a couple deep breaths before turning over the engine and driving the speed limit to the drop point.
A half hour later, with the van tucked safely inside one of our warehouses, there was no way in hell I was getting back in Michael’s car. Still fuming, I walked to the payphone down the street and called Mario to pick me up. Then, because I was angry and coming down from a near-death experience, I dialed Annetta, hoping she’d make everything better. Not quite.
“Thank god you called,” she said with an urgency that immediately put me back on alert.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
