CHAPTER NINETEEN

JASIEL

I didn't know how long it had been since I was last conscious. All I knew was that I was in different clothes, tight, but through my groggy eyes, I couldn't make out the type of clothes they were. A suit, perhaps.

A pain twitched in my wrist, and another pain twinged at the inside of my elbow. There was a darkness shrouding my eyes, but it wasn't a mask or a hood, it was just dark where I was. A low bleep with a mechanical hum like I was in a hospital room.

Everything changed once more, seconds later as I became motion sick and felt wheels on the ground. I was in the back of a van, and I was sitting in a wheelchair. People spoke, but their voices were distorted through the heavy sedation.

With two middle fingers, I collected part of the IV tube and tugged it. Immediately, it was a source of pain. I could handle it; I could handle anything they threw at me. And a little pain on my body wasn't something I hadn't experienced before.

Once the IV was free, the tubing came out of my sleeve. I held it in my hand, placing my hand loosely over the side of the wheelchair handle to hide it in case someone would come to inspect. Whatever it was in that tube, it must've caused the sleepy haze in my face and body, but also with the immediate removal of the IV, whatever pain meds they'd been pumping in me was gone.

"Precious cargo," a voice called out before the van doors opened. "Worth half-a-million. C'mon people, move. Boss, where do you want him?"

"I just spoke to Mr. Coronado and he's looking forward to inspecting him," Vittoria's voice was clear. "There's a room down the hall. Wheel him in without causing suspicion from the guests. His words, not mine."

I kept my eyes closed, loosely. I didn't want my facial expression to give away the fact I wasn't knocked out. Slow, deep breaths. I was at the house on Indian Creek Island. I'd been here a million times before. This wasn't going to be difficult to navigate once I was left alone.

Someone climbed aboard and took control of the wheelchair.

"Keep the sedative bag filled," Vittoria commanded. "Our lives depend on him."

It was probably unwise to bet on me, not because I wasn't a good bet, but because I rarely acted or did the things people wanted me to. It was a curse, I was always bound to go against what people wanted me to do, unless I was being paid for it.

Once I was wheeled out of the van, I heard the voices and laughter. This was the birthday party. I'd been knocked out for a week. An entire week, and Daddy hadn't even come to get me in that time.

I controlled my breathing. I knew he would've had his reasons. If I was still here, then he must've been close.

Applause came around me as I was wheeled down a hallway.

"You got him," a voice said.

"Wow. He doesn't look like much of a threat."

"Is he going to kill him?"

I wanted to break the fake sleep I was in to tell them no. But I assumed my life depended on me keeping character until I was alone. I'd been under heavy sedative a couple times before, and in those times, it had been a bitch to come out of. There was nothing worse than the way limbs wouldn't wake up, and I knew from trying to twitch my toes that my limbs were full of fuzzy pins and needles.

The house was huge, and I could've been placed in here at any single point and been able to know where exactly I was. There was an elevator on the premises, but we didn't use it, so I could safely assume we were on the ground floor. It was a large amount of area, and I knew they could've had me taken in through the service entrance underground and placed in one of the underground storerooms, cool enough to keep dead bodies for a little while, and where Benicio would do that.

"I wish I could be around when he kills you," the man who'd been pushing the wheelchair said to me, whispered close to my head.

He pushed me into an empty room. A study, I realized from the brief opening in my eyes. This potentially, wasn't the best place for them to put me. I'd already spotted several paper weights and a letter opening knife on the desk.

Hearing for the door closing, I stayed still for a moment.

"I wonder how he'll do it," the whispering voice came again. "Maybe he'll torture you first. Maybe you can tell me what he wants to know, then I can sit and watch him murder you."

The sound of him shifting around and chuckling to himself as he continued to speak and embarrass himself. He was playing tough. I was in a wheelchair, sedated, it wasn't like he was face-to-face with me. I'd toppled men twice my size. And it was just my luck, he was such a man.

His bald head, polished like a bowling bowl caught my eye as he turned away and looked at the items on the desk in the study.

Now was my time to overcome to the sleep that had settled in my limbs.

I stood on my wobbly legs, the needle end of the IV in hand. His size was clearly an advantage. I swung a leg, whacking at his knee. He fell forward on the desk, impaling himself on the moose head paper weight.

"Ugh, fuck," I grumbled, falling back into the seat of the wheelchair. "I didn't even get to kill him."

He wriggled and writhed, shocking me for a moment at the sudden jolt of movement.

I still had my chance.

Pushing the wheelchair back up against the door, I forced myself forward, leaping on his back. I grabbed the letter opener from the desk and stuck it into the side of his neck. It wasn't my ideal choice of knife, but it could still be inserted and cut through flesh given a nice, forced push.

I sat back in the wheelchair, exhausted already for having to exert so much energy. I couldn't believe I'd been out of it for an entire week. They must've had me hopped up on some strong sedatives, even if there was once a time when I took sedatives recreationally.

The glimmer of a mirror on the wall caught my eye and I became aware once more that I was dressed in clothes I hadn't put myself in. It was a stiff black suit, formalwear, with a tie. Either this was how I was going to look in a casket, or they were trying to get me married off. I didn't like either of those ideas.

I frisked the man slumped over the desk, bleeding out on everything. He had a gun, his ID, and a talkie in his pocket as well as a clear earpiece dangling out the side of his ear. I yanked the comms piece from him and listened closely to the muffled echo inside. The chatter was lively, I wondered if any of them knew what I'd just done.

Kicking the man away from the table, I rested on it, coating my hands in his blood. It quickly became cold in my touch. I applied a single smeared line of the blood beneath each of my eyes like war paint.

As the large man, splayed out of the ground, I saw a bulge in his jacket pocket. It was a flask of alcohol. At first sniff, I wasn't sure what it was, but as I took a gulp, my mouth realized it was spiced rum. It was practically part of my blood at this point.

"Ok," I said, taking a much larger gulp of the liquid.

I needed to get my energy back up. I paced the box study room for a moment, stretching out my limbs until the long fuzzy feeling like my skin was covered in thick wooly socks disappeared. I didn't have long until Benicio would come to the room for his goods inspection.

The wheelchair was rammed up against the door handle, so I knew that bought me a little extra time to figure out if I was going to escape from the window or up into the vent.

I moved the blind an inch to glance out of the window before decided on the air conditioning vent. Today was Benicio's big birthday, everyone was here, from police chiefs on his payroll, to the underbosses in control of smaller areas around Florida. Everyone was armed with a gun, and while I had the dead man's gun, I didn't have my knives or my lighter, so I was basically useless against them all.

The vent system was easy to navigate, but difficult to move in the suit, so I stripped to the vest and my underwear. I'd been in these vents before, so coming back to them was nice. I could work my way along the pathway until I found another room. The storeroom. It was visible from a purple UV light in the lamp. This is where they put everything, they had on men they killed, and with any luck, some of my stuff would've been here too.

Pushing the vent open, I swung on the hinge, smacking the wall.

It was a dark room, locked from the outside, much like an evidence cupboard, this place was damning. The blood on my hands was visible under the UV black light, and on all the clothes there was any speck of blood on. It was strange to be in here after all this time. Plus, it smelled like I'd walked through the doors of a retirement home.

I came across a garment bag with my name on. And there it was. My onesie from Halloween. I was a mouse, duh, except, unlike Karen from Mean Girls, it was a pink and gray mouse with ears and a tail. But this was also covered in blood. It was old, dried on the fabric blood. That was out of the window.

Then I came across Daddy's name on a bag. It was a vest top, a pair of shorts, a baseball cap, and shades. This must've been from one of the beach days when we went to kill those two men and make it look like a boating accident. And from what I could see, there was no blood.

Dressed in his clothes, I didn't know where to put the gun, and I knew Daddy would scold me if he saw me shove it down the front of back of the shorts. His voice snapped through my mind, telling me that's how people shot themselves.

I heard voices outside the door. That wasn't my way out. I climbed back on the ledge of the storage rack, barefoot, and back into the vent, pulling it shut as well as I could before the door bleeped and opened.

Two men entered, dressed similarly to the man I'd shot.

"He has a huge surprise for us," one of them said, pressing a garment bag on the hook. "I need to get on his protective detail so I can watch."

"I don't think he'll kill him," the other said.

"I do." They chuckled. "He killed Luis last year. I'm surprised he let him live for as long as he did."

That wasn't completely fair to say. Luis threatened me and Daddy. We were trying to leave this life, but they wouldn't let us. We weren't running away; we were just trying to leave without any trouble. He brought this on himself. They all did.