I look back at the trail of footprints I’ve left in the sand. They’re hardly visible, and I doubt anyone is going to follow them. It’s just me out here in this insufferable heat, and nobody is coming to capture me or save me. My only company is the buzzards circling over me in the sky.
Fucking buzzards. I’m not even dead yet, and they already want to swoop down and pick the eyes out of my skull. I use my anger toward them as a way to push myself further, clambering through the ocean of sand toward civilization.
I can get there.
I know I can get there.
I have to get there, or I’ll die.
“Honey, it’s me,” a voice says from beside me, as clear as day.
I look to my right to see my mother standing in the sand, a smile on her face.
“What?” I groan, baffled that she would be in the desert with me. What the hell is she doing here?
Wait a second. Isn’t she dead?
“You’re going the wrong way, Honey. You’re going backward. Your face is moving backward. Backward toward the hands that are backward in the sun. Go back. Go back to Bheka.” She fades from my vision, shimmering with light as she leaves, but she was never there in the first place.
I’m losing my fucking mind in the Kalahari Desert, and there’s nobody here to shake me back to reality. My mother died years ago, my father is dead, and I’m about to join them, floating through the hot desert as a ghost, or at least as a hallucination for the next stranded soul to encounter.
How do I know that the blurry buildings in front of me are even real? They could be another hallucination, ready to float off into the cloudless sky the second I get close enough to cry out for help.
But what does it matter? I’m not going to have any luck by moving in a different direction, and I’m certainly not going back to Bheka’s camp. I could go around in circles for ages and not know it because everything here looks the same. My only hope is to keep going in the direction I believe I came from, and pray that it brings me back to civilization.
Chapter Ten
Carter (Present Day)
Getting Honey to agree to climb into bed was the difficult part. After that, she fell asleep before I had the chance to turn the light off. She’s cute, breathing with her puffy pink lips parted, and her eyes closed gently. I’d like to kiss her again, but perhaps that would be too bold. She’s my wife, but I’m not even sure that she likes me.
It doesn’t matter. My mind is on other things now, such as figuring out who killed George and why. I’d like to smash their head like a watermelon, but I’m powerless to do so until I figure this mess out. I doubt it will be easy, but it must be done.
I don’t usually hold meetings in such casual attire, but this is an emergency. I’ve already called the leaders of each section of the Calandro and Dormer Mafias, and they will be joining me in the war room in a moment. There is no time to waste.
I’m quite familiar with many of these men, as I’ve worked with them closely in the past. Even some of the Dormer men I know in passing, but this is the first time I’ll have everyone in a room together. I hope they all get along. This would be a poor time to discover that they all hate each other, and that the merging of the two mafia groups won’t work. I married Honey specifically to keep them together.
I’m standing next to the long oval table, drumming my fingers against the glossy white surface when Amy enters the room, walking with long steps in her too-tall high heels. It’s a wonder she doesn’t break both her ankles wearing those things, but she always dresses that way. She doesn’t smile, but she does give me a nod before sitting down at the table.
Amy is a woman in her forties, thin, but with the muscle of someone who could’ve been in the military at some point in their life. I’m pretty sure she was, but I’ve never asked. Most people in the mafia are pretty hush about their lives before joining. It’s almost always better to keep your mouth shut about your personal affairs, especially when you’re surrounded by criminals.
I used to have someone else in charge of managing weapons distributions, but ironically, they ended up shooting themselves by accident. They lived, but they never were much good after that, considering they only had half a face remaining.
Amy became the replacement, and she’s damn good at her job. Typically, women don’t fare all that well in the mafia, but Amy doesn’t play games. She goes by “sir” and will slap you silly if you question her. I respect that.
“You’re the first one here,” I say to her as she sits down.
“Better early than late,” she replies.
“True. I wonder where Dean is, though. He’s usually the first one to any meeting,” I ponder aloud.
“I passed him in the hallway. He dipped into the bathroom. Pretty sure the spicy noodles hit him wrong,” Amy explains, keeping her sentences short and choppy, just like her blonde hair.
I chuckle. “He needs to stop eating at the places he launders money through. What’s their sanitation rating these days? A C-minus or something?”
“Just a C. Any less and the state would revoke their food license,” she answers.
“You know, it wouldn’t be hard to hire a cleaner at that place,” I say, shaking my head.
“That’s what I told him, but you know he doesn’t listen.”
“True,” I say, feeling the weight of stress starting to lift from my shoulders. It feels good to be back to business, including participating in the traditional banter before meetings. It almost makes me forget about the women I
