Page 66 of Knocked Up by My Dad's Mafia Boss

“Shipment.”

“This late?”

I nod slowly. I don’t tell her that Elio’s going, too. I don’t want her to worry. “Be careful,” she murmurs, and my heart stutters.

“Always.”

She keeps walking down the stairs in her bare feet. I want to turn and watch her go, but I don’t, heading to my room instead with a deep intake of breath.

I text the cleaners to come by tomorrow and take Pete out of the panic room, and then I dress simply in a pair of black slacks and a black t-shirt, placing my gun in the back of my pants and sliding a small dagger into my back pocket.

By the time I come back downstairs, Elio’s waiting for me. He grins. “Been a while since we’ve done a job together.”

Elio’s actually excited. He’s always liked the adrenaline of the life. It’s not the same for me. I do my job and I do it well, but I wouldn’t say I enjoy it.

“Did you learn anything from Grice?”

I nod. “Says it’s an enforcer, but he doesn’t know which.”

He frowns. “Alright. That narrows it down.”

“We’ll find him.”

He looks at his watch. “We gotta go.”

Elio nods his head along to the radio on the way downtown, and I shake my head at him, smiling. I guess it’s not too bad, working with Elio again.

We arrive around eleven-thirty, parking a block away and walking the rest of the way.

As soon as we approach the warehouse,I know something’s off. There’s nothing obvious, but it’s quiet. Too quiet. I know Elio has men stationed out here, and they should be talking, shifting around,something.

Instead, it’s silent.

I pull my gun before Elio reaches the door. Elio slowly opens it, and gunshots ring out. I curse, shoving him back behind me, but not before I see the blood on his shoulder.

He fumbles for his gun but I’m quicker, firing blindly into the dark warehouse.

They’ve turned the lights off, and it’s pitch black. I can only see bits and pieces in the gunfire. One face. Two. Three. There might be more hiding in the darkness.

“Fuck!” Elio shouts, ducking behind a crate.

“Stay down, you’re hit.”

“It’s nothing,” he says, as more gunshots crack the air.

I crouch behind another crate and Elio grins at me, laughing wildly. “I needed this.”

I shake my head. “You always were a crazy sonofabitch. Put pressure on that wound.”

I can’t see him to see how bad the wound is, how much it’s bleeding, and he probably doesn’t feel it due to the adrenaline.

Elio does as I say. Footsteps alert me and I pop up from behind the crate, firing off three shots. A grunt and thud tells me I hit one of them. “Saw three!” I shout to Elio over the gunfire as I duck back behind the crate.

Elio stands up easily enough and fires a few times before crouching back down. A yelp. Another hit. “Two down!” he says, sounding absolutely delighted.

The gunfire stops and it’s silent except for Elio’s heavy breathing. How bad is he hit? How much blood is he losing? “Stay here.”

“Hell no.”