“Isn’t that right, Enzio?”
The other men all turned to glare at the gloved one. He shook his head vehemently.
“I don’t know what that bitch is talking about,” he sputtered. “Come on, Tony, you guys know—”
Slappy strode forward and lived up to the name I’d given him on the fly. He smacked the apparent Enzio a good one in the mush.
“Don’t use names, you stupid fuck,” Slappy warned. “Awful convenient, she found out about Father Gilberti.”
“And he’s been flashing that new watch of his around,” another masked man quipped.
Masked heads bobbed in agreement as Enzio’s voice grew high pitched and cracked.
“C’mon, guys. You can’t take anything she says seriously. She’s a lawyer, fer Crissake! She gets paid to lie.”
“Yeah, but where did you get that watch?”
“My girlfriend bought it for my birthday,” Enzio sputtered. “I already told you that.”
Slappy glowered at him, then shook his head and returned to me. He dragged another chair, a wooden one, over in front of me. With a twist of his wrist he turned it around to face backward and seated himself, arms resting on the backrest.
“Start talking, toots.”
“It was so obvious,” I said, trying not to panic. Slappy was so close to me he could have reached out and snapped my neck in a heartbeat. “I mean, the Loggias have bristled under Maloik rule of the Sinister Six for ages.”
His eyes narrowed. “That name is a dirty word. We don’t like being called that.”
“So, you are working for the Loggia family?”
He glowered, and one of his friends laughed.
“Yo, this bitch is good! Maybe we should hire her to defend us from now on.”
“Yeah, who’s interrogating who here?”
Slappy glared them into silence, then turned his attention back to me.
“Seems to me like we have ourselves a little situation here. You’ve stumbled onto something that’s real hazardous for your health to know. Now, this could go a couple of different ways.”
“I’m listening,” I said.
His lips twisted into a smile. “You’re a real cool chick, aren’t you? I like that. It’s the tough ones like you what scream the loudest when I’m having my fun.”
I swallowed hard. “But it won’t come to that, will it? You said it could go a couple different ways?”
“Indeed. You could play nice, tell us what we want to know… or I could get my toolkit out of the van, and we could have some fun. Personally, I kind of hope it’s the latter—”
A stack of pallets collapsed to my left. Slappy leaped up so quickly he knocked over his own chair.
Then, all hell broke loose.
Chapter Thirty
Indro
While the Loggia goons went to check on the stack of pallets, assuming I was over there, I took careful aim at the big guy’s back. Thanks to a little ingenuity, a length of rope, and lots of luck, my diversion had gone off without a hitch.
I squeezed the triggers, the Berettas coughed and spat out bullets, and the big man’s back erupted into a bloody spray. He jerked about and fell to the concrete, twitching and gurgling as his sightless eyes stared up at the ceiling.
“Ambush!” The Loggias ducked for cover as I rattled off a few more rounds. To my frustration, I didn’t hit shit but wood and concrete.
“Sophie, come on!” I shouted.
She leaped out of the chair and flopped down to all fours. Sophie crawled rapidly toward me, her eyes wide and frantic.
“Shoot the bitch!”
A pang of fear ran through me. I leaped out from behind the stack of pallets I’d been using as cover and fired at the man who’d shouted the command. I figured if I made myself a target the Loggias would leave Sophie alone.
Unfortunately, my plan worked. I scrambled back behind cover as they lit up the warehouse with a hail of bullets. I thrust my arm between two slats and fired away at their position. A cry of pain greeted my efforts, bringing a grin to my face. I hit one of the bastards.
Sophie’s scream split the air. I turned about, head on a swivel as I tried to locate her. I saw her vanish behind one of the towering pallet walls, one of the masked men in hot pursuit.
I realized an open patch of floor more than fifteen feet wide separated me from that relative safety. Their guns rang out again, sending sparks flying near my feet. As a testament to how worried I was about Sophie, I didn’t even worry about my Bruno Maglis.
I hated to give away my position, but my fear for Sophie’s safety made me shout her name.
“Sophie? Where are you?”
I heard her cry out above the din.
“Indro, I’m here!”
“End of the line, bitch!”
I stretched my legs out and ran for all I was worth. This wasn’t like when I ran down Diego. I was running all out, without caring about exhausting myself. I skidded around the corner of a pallet tower and saw a masked Loggia thug grabbing the lapel of her gray blazer. I’ve got to say, my girl fought hard. She scratched his hand, leaving trails of blood.
“You stupid bitch!” My heart stopped when he cracked her across the mush with his pistol.
I ran toward him, screaming as I emptied one of the Berettas into his torso. He jerked and spasmed about as the bullets ripped through him, leaving gory red holes in their wake.
I dove to the floor and checked on Sophie. “You all right?”
“I think so,” she said. Her lip had been split, but not bad. She turned her dazed gaze on me. “Are you all right?”
“Me, I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
I followed her gaze to my shoulder, where a dark stain spread over my leather jacket.
“Aw, what the fuck? This coat set me back two grand!”
Yeah, that’s the kind of guy I am. More worried about my threads than my flesh and bone. Thing was, the wound didn’t even hurt until she pointed it out. Then it hurt like a mother fucker, but I still had plenty of functionality. I figured it was just
