Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 132791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Luca was the first to look up and acknowledge me. “Jesus fuck, were you mauled by a pack of wolves on your way here?”
He referred to the scratches, love bites, and sex hair.
I plopped on the seat opposite him and lit myself a joint. I didn’t usually smoke. I did now. I needed to take the edge off.
“Who tried to kill you?” Achilles asked. He looked somber. Probably pissed that the assassination attempt failed.
“Your sister.” Smoke skulked out of my mouth, crawling in the air, invading his space. “Fucks like a champ. Thanks for making me spell it out for you.”
Their smug smiles melted away.
The rest of the journey was blissfully quiet.
Time to paint Las Vegas red.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
TIERNAN
And there he was.
The motherfucker.
The spawn of the man who’d taken my childhood, my innocence, my memories.
Alex Rasputin was a red dot slowly moving on my screen.
Each of the Bratva’s four Mercedes vans that drove from Vegas to Indian Springs had a tracker installed. Achilles and I huddled in front of the screen in our own van, watching the red dots moving toward us.
“Do we know which van Alex is in?” I asked Sam through our radio. He was back in Switzerland, playing house with his wife. Sam did legwork and hacking, but he no longer engaged in actual combat or exposed himself to heat. “Too many fucking children to take care of. And I’m not selfless enough to allow my wife to remarry if I kick the bucket,” he once explained.
“Third one,” he provided from the other end of the line. “And they’re heading your way. Should be there in the next ten minutes or so.”
It was a one-lane road in the middle of the Nevada desert with nothing but golden dunes on either side of it. Our vans were parked behind a large knoll concealing a curve in the road.
On top of that knoll, Luca and three other snipers were laying low with M16s angled at the road.
Alex and his crew were headed to their weapon warehouse. Little did they know, we were going to tag along and do some shopping ourselves.
“Do you have everything you need?” Sam asked through the static humming of the encrypted radio.
Achilles peered around the mountains of semiautomatic firearms and grenades we were sitting in. “Got enough ammo to blow up the entire Strip.” He turned to me, wrinkling his nose. “Ever heard of taking a shower, Callaghan?”
“Sure have.” I pulled my balaclava down my face, shoving a loaded magazine into my AK-74. I favored it over the M16, because it was the rifle I was taught to use in the camp.
“And?”
“And I’m not washing your sister’s juices off me till I’m back in New York where she can rub them right back.”
“My sister’s…” Achilles tapered his eyes, snarling. “Now you’re just begging for me to stick a grenade launcher up your ass.”
“Since when do you care?” I double tapped the mic connected to my Bluetooth to cut the sound off for Sam. “Last I checked, you were eager to hand her off to your unfriendly neighborhood psychopath when you tracked me down.”
Achilles scratched at the tattooed side of his neck pensively. “I knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That she was deaf, not mentally challenged.”
“What?”
He shrugged. “Found out when I caught her reading War and Peace when she was twelve. I came to see her and my mother in Ischia. Wanted to surprise them. When I caught her reading, I turned back and walked away.”
“Why?”
“Figured if she wanted me to know she could read, she’d have told me herself.”
I couldn’t fault the logic, but I could fault the asshole for doing jack shit about it.
I stared at him, dumbfounded. “Why the fuck didn’t you help her escape your mother’s claws?”
“I did.” He cracked his knuckles. “I supported your marriage. It was the perfect way out for her. She and my mother aren’t good together. Chiara projects all her trauma on Lila.”
It was the most profound shit he’d ever said to me, yet I wanted to punch all his teeth out of his mouth. He sat around and waited for Lila to suffer in order to help her. What kind of brother was he?
“Besides.” He flipped his firearm cloth open, revealing his own rifle. “Once I heard you didn’t kill her on that fountain the night I scooped your eye out, I knew she had you in her pocket. That sealed the deal for me. She’s your exception.”
“My exception?”
He nodded. “Your Achilles’ heel. Everyone has one.”
I’d ask him what his was, but I suffered from an acute case of not giving a fuck.
“Speaking of sisters.” I struck the bottom of the magazine to ensure it was locked in, giving it a tug. “Mine wants you to get off her back.”
“And I want James Dean’s face. We all want the unattainable.” He grabbed his M16, making sure that it was cocked, before pulling his balaclava down his face. “What else is new under the sun?”