I just stared at the man.
Eddie’s eyes rounded as he sucked in a quick breath. “Oh no, you can’t do that.”
“Right?”
The chief idiot stopped in front of me. I swallowed tightly when he pointed the barrel of his gun down at me. He held my cell phone in the other hand.
I shook my head. “I’m not making that phone call.”
“Do you understand that I have a gun pointed at your head?” As if to prove his point, the guy pressed the end of the barrel to my forehead.
Tears sprouted to my eyes. As brave as I tried to sound, I wasn’t. I was shaking in my Dolce & Gabbana boots. They had been a present from my mother. They were slate gray.
I tiled my head back just far enough to see into the guy’s eyes, which was all I could see of him through his mask. “I do understand that you have a gun and I don’t want to die, but if you force me to make that phone call, somebody is going to die and it’s not going to be me.”
“Well, I can’t make that phone call,” Eddie insisted when the masked man glanced at him. “This place would turn into World War III. No one would survive.” Eddie shrugged. “Well, I would, but it’s doubtful anyone else would.”
He was probably right.
“I’m not making it,” Lyn insisted. “Can you imagine the ribbing the guys would give me if I had to call in a hostage situation? I’d never live it down.”
Lyn was right. He’d get a lot of shit if he was the go-between in a hostage situation. The guys on Sal’s SWAT team were great guys, but they were still guys. The brain-to-mouth filter didn’t always work.
“Somebody is going to make this fucking phone call or people are going to start getting fucking shot. Now, who the hell is it going to be?”
Okay, the chief idiot was pissed. I got that, but really…“Do you talk to your mother with that mouth?”
“Yeah, he does,” replied one of the gunmen.
Good god, it was a woman under that mask.
“He’s been swearing like that since he was five years old.”
I blinked up at the chief idiot. “Dude.”
Eyes so narrow I could see them through the mask, the gunman waved his gun around. “Why are we even discussing this? I want someone to make this fucking phone call.”
“Ask nicely,” Lyn said.
“And apologize to your mother,” I insisted as nodded my head toward the masked female. “You should be ashamed of yourself, talking like that in front of a lady.”
The woman in the mask snickered.
The gunman raged, turned the gun, and shot Eddie in the leg.
“Eddie!” I rolled to my hands and knees and started putting pressure on the bleeding wound. “Lyn, I need something to stop the bleeding.”
“On it.” Lyn jumped up and raced to the back of the restaurant despite the three gunmen standing there.
“You’re going to be okay, Eddie.” He had to be. As son of one of the city’s—allegedly—most notorious mobsters, not to mention nephew of another prominent—but also alleged—mobster, if he died, there wouldn’t be a sidewalk in the city that was safe.
Eddie wasn’t crying, but I could see that he wanted to. His lips were pressed together so tightly they were white. His hands were clenched.
“It doesn’t look like it hit the bone.” I hoped that would make Eddie feel better. “It’s a through and through.”
“This is going to screw up my art show next week.”
“Oh, Lyn and I can help,” I said quickly at the fallen look on Eddie’s face.
