CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

JASIEL

I rarely admitted being wrong, if ever. I didn't like to think I ever did anything that was wrong, because I was so good at protecting myself and I've been known to get out of some tight situations with only a little spit and a very tough fist.

Tonight, maybe I was wrong for ignoring Daddy's wishes and leaving the apartment safe house to go get a slushie. But in my defense, if it pleases the court, I didn't want to wake him. He was so peaceful and asleep. And I didn't want to ask Midas or Trojan to come with me, like I needed a babysitter.

Except, maybe a babysitter wouldn't have been so bad right about now.

Strapped to a metal chair, a blindfold tight around my face, and the low hum of people around me speaking. I knew I was in trouble. I'd done such a good job, so far, at not being caught, and now, I had no idea where I was, and I didn't even have my slushie to show for it.

"Finally," a voice snapped, letting out a series of tuts. "We've been trying to get you for a couple days now, and every single time, my men die."

Wiggling around in the chair, I wanted to see the person behind the voice. It was oddly feminine, with a vocal fry. "Because your men suck," I scoffed. "Like, what am I supposed to tell you? They put up a good fight. No, they didn't. And I'm guessing the fake gun was your idea. Well, that was laughable."

"We don't want to hurt you."

The blindfold was removed. My eyes quickly adjusted to the light. We were in a warehouse. I didn't know how far out I was, but it couldn't have been long after they'd whacked me on the back of the head and drove me here.

"You know who I am?" The woman came into focus. She was an older woman, dressed in black with a veil sitting on top of a graying bouffant of combed back hair like she was fresh off the pageant circuit from fifty years ago. A small leather bag swung from her arm down to her wrist.

"No," I said, half a lie. I assumed she was the woman from the Agosti family. I knew they were looking for me. "Do you know who I am?"

She chuckled, as did several other men around her. "You're the escaped prisoner," she said. "You're a wanted man." She came closer. I saw more of her face than I'd wanted. The fine lines and fake tan on her skin. "And you're going to be very useful to me."

"Why?" I asked. "I'm not a doctor. I can't tell you if your use of tanning beds is slowly killing you or not. But, if I had to say, I'd probably guess that they are, in fact, killing you."

She ignored me, turning her head and gesturing to someone else with a nod.

"So, what are you going to use me for?" I asked.

She turned back to me. "I'm Vittoria Agosti," she said, as if revealing something important, she waited for me to look surprised. I knew this already.

"Ok, well, I'm not sure where we are, but I hear there's a lovely retirement village up the road," I told her. "They probably have name badges too, so you won't have to reintroduce yourself every five minutes."

Pulling away one of her white leather gloves by the fingertips, I watched as she prepared to slap me. "I hope he kills you," she said before delivering a mediocre whack against the side of my face. Even if I had use of my hands, I wouldn't have gone to touch it. I'd felt more pain from a mosquito bite.

"Who?" I asked.

"Benicio Coronado," she said, slowly slipping her glove back on. "I'm delivering you to him on his birthday. It'll be a gift so that he stops coming for my family."

"Oh, you're the one stealing his drug turf," I said. "I'm surprised you're not already dead." Although, if Daddy was still working for Benicio, she probably would be dead. When we worked for the man, he would order people dead at the slightest whiff of them gaining control of traction on any of his drug empire.

"Well, we're not the ones who stole from him," she said, smirking. "I heard from a little birdie about a theft, someone stole a big chunk of fire power from him. He'd smuggled it into this country for someone else."

"He smuggled it in to kill you," I said. "You think if you give me to him, he's not going to just shoot you dead?" Although he probably wouldn't shoot her at all, he'd have someone else do it. "What's your play here?"

My question stumped her. I knew Benicio. He didn't give anything to anyone, it didn't matter how valuable you were, he wasn't going to part with anything that belonged to him, including his territory.

"You," she said. "In exchange for you, we get everything this side of Miami to sell on."

I shook my head at her. "It's not gonna happen like that."

"Benicio has given me his word," she said. "He knows we didn't kill his people, and I know he didn't kill mine. So, I'm sure you and your friends who helped you escape are planning this masterful idea about how we're going to fight and kill each other off because we think we're killing each other already."

She wasn't completely far from the truth, but that wasn't what we'd planned. We'd just assumed that's how those chips would fall; it had no bearing on what we were going to do. "They'll be coming for me," I told her.

"Whatever. Knock him out, have a doctor called in to put in the IV," she said. "We need him subdued for transport."

One of the men came close and as he extended his arm, I lifted my legs and wrapped them around it. Yanking him closer, I twisted his arm until it popped. I knew they weren't going to hurt me. She'd told me as much. I was needed alive. After the pop, a sharp crack splintered.

Vittoria watched as I used my feet to grab the gun. "Well, aren't you a slippery one?" she snickered.

I pulled my hands out of the rope. It was easy once I'd built the momentum and adrenaline through me, my body didn't think about the pain. I grabbed the gun and shot the man in his chest as he laid on the ground, cradling his arm.

"I'm leaving," I said. Looking around, more men flooded through the open warehouse door. "I—"

"You're not going anywhere," Vittoria said. "In fact, you'd do well to not make this harder on yourself than it already is."

I held the gun to her. "How about I do Benicio one last job and kill you?" I said, stepping closer. I hated using guns, but guns were the one language these people knew.

"You do that, and you're dead," she said, unphased by the gun in her face. "Now, I don't know about you, but if you didn't want to live, you wouldn't have tried so hard to escape prison."

"I—"

"Don't worry," she said. "If Benicio wanted you dead, you'd be dead."

A heavy whack thudded at the back of my head, throwing me forward. I tried to recoil and shoot, but the gun slipped from my fingers and skidded across the concrete.

I watched from the ground as Vittoria left and the men picked me up, putting me back on the chair and hauling me out. I took one last look around as my vision went dark around the edges.

In the floor, the man I'd shot was dead. There was also my slushie on the floor. I didn't even recall the taste of it on my tongue, or being captured, it all happened so quickly, and now I wasn't even able to conjure the thought at all.

Slapping my tongue against the roof of my mouth, there wasn't any taste there at all.

The darkness took over my vision. It was both painful and easy to slip into a sleepy state.