“Twelve million.”
“Is that your apology?” I asked. “Because what would have been a straightforward job is now a lot more fuckingcomplicated. You sent three men to kill one, and he got away. Now he’s in hiding. He’s gonna be harder to kill.”
“You saying you can’t do it?”
“I’m saying I don’t want to.”
“Thirteen,” he countered.
“Money is nice,” I said. “But I think you’re going to have to try a little harder.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to know why you want him dead.”
His eyes darted to the side, staring up at me with surprise. “What do you care?”
“I don’t. But you’re desperate. And sloppy. And throwing money at me like it grows on trees. I want to know what I’m risking.”
“Nothing that thirteen million won’t erase.”
“True. Is that how you got away with killing Salvatore?” I asked.
His face paled in the dark, and his tongue darted out to swipe his lip. “Salvatore was my brother. I’d never kill him.”
“Not even if he was the only thing in your way of taking over this entire region?”
“Fuck you,” he swore. “The cops have no leads.”
“I bet that cost more than thirteen million. I bet it’s also the reason you want someone else to get their hands dirty this time. You don’t want to look to suspicious or else the brothers might come calling.”
His breathing increased, and his eyes darted around the room.
“It makes me wonder, Nicholas. Who is this kid, and why do you want him dead so badly? What threat is he to you?”
He gave a yell and launched up, but I slammed the butt of the gun into the side of his head. He fell backward with a grunt.
The door burst open, and light from the hall flooded into the room, not quite reaching where I stood.
“Boss!” one of the bodyguards yelled, rushing in with his gun drawn.
“Shoot him!” Grimaldi roared, trying to crawl over to the other side of the bed.
I grabbed his leg and hauled him back while a bullet flew over my head. I squeezed off a shot, and the bodyguard went down.
Grimaldi froze when I leveled the gun on the center of his hairy chest. “You could have just answered the question.”
“Incoming!” a familiar voice yelled, and I leaped back just as another man with a gun rushed in, firing off several shots in every direction. I dove to the side, the sound of gunfire ringing in my ears.
Somewhere in the condo, a door splintered, and men started shouting. “Fan out! Shoot to kill.”
Grimaldi launched himself at me, and we slammed into the curtain-covered windows. He swung, and I ducked, catching him around the waist and driving him back. We went down in a tangle of limbs, my gun sliding across the carpet.
He grabbed my face, trying to push his thumbs into my eye sockets, and I punched him in the side of the head.
“Freeze!” the wild-shooting bodyguard yelled, and I glanced up as he took aim.
The back of his head imploded, eyes widening and then going empty in the same second he fell facedown onto the carpet.
