“Yeah,” Nick chuckled. “I owe you guys.”
“Don’t sweat it,” the young man beamed. “We’re practically brothers. I mean, you spent more time with our mom growing up than we did.”
I turned to look at Nick expectantly as my confusion at the situation reached an unbearable level.
“Jase, this is Dante.” Nick finally explained as he gestured toward the young man. “And this is his brother, Benny. They’re Colletta’s sons. You remember Colletta, right?”
“Yeah,” I replied. Nick had told me before about how she’d been something like a surrogate mother to him after his real mother had died. I’d never actually met her, but I knew from the way he spoke that Nick was really fond of her.
“How d'you know we were here?” Nick asked seriously.
“Word travels fast within the Family.” Dante shrugged. “You’ve caused a really big ruckus with everything you’ve been doing, you know.”
“Sorry.” Nick frowned apologetically.
“Eh, don’t be,” Dante scoffed. “It’s kind of hilarious. Anyway, why don’t we take them for you?”
He nodded toward Mia and Jenny, and I gasped as I realized what he was suggesting.
“What?” I snapped. “I really don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Relax, suit.” Dante grinned. “I just meant we’ll take them over to the station for you or wherever you were planning on taking them. No one in the Family even knows we came out here, so no one will expect them to be with us. That way, you two can run off and do what you need to do to settle this. As funny as it’s been watching everyone freak out, it’s going to start affecting business if it goes on much longer.”
I pursed my lips, still unsure whether it was wise to entrust the three of them with this.
“It’s fine,” Nick assured me. “We can trust him. And he’s right. If the Family comes after us again, they’ll be in danger. They’ll be able to fly under the radar if they go with Dante.”
“Fine,” I agreed reluctantly. This was definitely skirting the line over whether I was breaking protocol or not, but I could always make the argument that I was acting in the best interests of the victims.
I gave Dante the address of the safehouse we’d prepared before coming out here and watched as Mia climbed into the back of their car with her two small kids. She looked so worn out and shell-shocked as she sat there that my heart ached for what she’d had to go through.
“We should head to the motel ASAP,” I declared once the car had pulled away. “I’ll call the police and report the shooting. We can leave right after.”
“Don’t.” Nick grabbed my wrist to stop me from dialing the number on my phone.
“What do you mean, ‘don’t’?” I asked incredulously as I gestured over the four bodies lying dead on the lawn. “I can’t just leave a bunch of corpses here.”
“Yes, you can,” Nick replied darkly. “If we leave now, then this is just some mafia squabble. It probably won’t even make the news. If you report it, there will be questions about why you were here. It’ll be publicly known that you were involved with this. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I stared at him in shock at what he was suggesting for me to do.
“I can’t just abandon a crime scene,” I protested. I understood where he was coming from, but every fiber of my being was screaming at me to go through the proper protocols.
“Report it to Flint if you want,” Nick sighed. “But seriously, calling any more attention to this than necessary isn’t going to help anything.”
I looked back over the carnage on the lawn as I struggled to figure out what the right decision was.
“Fine,” I sighed. “Let’s go. I’ll call Flint from the car.”
We hurried back into the car and pulled quickly away from the house. As the scene grew smaller behind us, I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling I had that I’d just made a decision I couldn’t come back from.
35
Nick
The motel was a shabby little building off the side of the highway, about an hour outside of Downtown Miami. Honestly, it looked like the setting for a horror movie. It was dark, worn down, and out in the middle of nowhere. It was no wonder they were having trouble paying their bills if they only ever got the odd traveler stopping by on their way to or from Miami.
“Are you ready?” I turned to look at Jase as he parked the car and turned off the ignition. He’d told Flint about what had happened on the drive over. Flint had told Jase that he would handle it, and he’d also let us know that he would send some officers over to the motel to help us.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Let’s go.”
The atmosphere around the motel was eerie as we got out of the car. It was quiet, and aside from the large electric billboard by the road, the only source of light around us was the yellow glow spilling through the main office’s windows.
A bell chimed as I pushed the door open and stepped inside. A short, balding man in a light blue sweatshirt was sitting behind the reception counter, his eyes glued to the television mounted on the wall behind the desk.
“Welcome to the Cactus Motel,” he called lazily without taking his eyes off of the screen. “It’s forty per night or fifteen by the hour. Cash or credit card only, no checks.”
“I’m not here for a room,” I replied coldly.
He took his eyes off of the television and turned to stare at me, annoyance
