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“I will. Right after you call off the hit on my club tonight. I know you went to Sinaloa and met with the Brothers.”
“Careful, Dom. I might start thinking you’re holding my wife hostage.”
“Oh, come on, Corrado, we won’t call it that or take it that far. She walked in here on her own. I had nothing to do with that, and I’m simply using the opportunity as it presented itself.”
“You understand that if you don’t send her home safe and in the same condition she walked in there, I’ll come to collect her. I promise you that if I have to fetch her, you will regret it.”
“You betrayed my family,” he hisses into the phone.
“I’m preserving your family. The legal assets I gave the cartel will save your family’s legacy and preserve it within the Order. The moment the cartel moves in, you can simply gather your men and leave. They won’t come after you, only your assets.”
“I’m not handing them my operations without a fight.”
“You must stand down,” I order, and go to stand at the window. I can’t push him harder for fear he’ll take it out on Michela. “Your father is trafficking people. We don’t allow that. You’ve been comprising cartel operations and making us launder their profits as our own. In order to save you and yours from certain death, I told them you will be reasonable and make amends.”
“You gave them all our businesses?”
“All of them, yes.”
“We’ll have to start over.”
“Starting over is perfect seeing as how you would have had to start over after you eliminated your dad. The timing is perfect. All you must do now is escort my wife to her security detail outside.”
Screaming and gunshots prevent Dom from answering. He curses and hangs up.
The cartel’s in the club.
36
ARE YOU HURT?
MICHELA
One minute, I’m sipping a virgin piña colada with Daisy in the VIP room, and the next minute, I’m hiding behind the couch so I don’t catch a stray bullet from whoever is shooting up the club.
Dom, the son of Domenico Benvenuti, somehow recognized me as Corrado’s wife almost the moment we walked into the club and offered us the VIP treatment. Daisy and I have been hanging out in the VIP room, having a great time. I danced. She flirted with Dom.
Win-win.
Until now.
Dom rounds the couch and grabs my hand, starts pulling me toward the back. Pacho and the other three men in my security detail are shooting up the VIP door, trying to get in, and the last thing I see before Dom drags me out back is Pacho tumbling down the stairs.
We run down a narrow hallway. The neon lights flicker on and off. Dom’s men from the VIP room run behind us, shouting and shooting at someone. The gunshots, the shouting, the flickering lights, and the speed at which Dom’s moving and dragging me along all feel as if it’s happening to someone else.
“Daisy,” I hear myself saying.
Dom rushes down the steps, and I try to keep up, but slip and barely manage to catch myself before falling. One of my heels breaks, and I tug at Dom’s hand for him to stop. He doesn’t. Thankfully, my shoe comes off on its own, and the other follows, so I’m running barefoot across the parking lot, following Dom, who’s begun to sprint.
Again, I’m grateful for inheriting long legs; otherwise, I doubt I’d be able to keep up.
We reach a black SUV with tinted windows. Dom opens the door, grabs my arm, and forces me into the passenger seat. “Get in.”
I sit, expecting him to slam the door closed. Instead, I hear several muffled popping sounds. Something thuds on the ground. I look down and catch sight of Dom’s twitching feet on the concrete.
I hold my breath.
The flight, fright, or freeze response? Yeah, I’m frozen, holding my breath, awaiting my doom, thinking I’ll share Dom’s fate and bleed out in the parking lot. For a moment, I wonder how long it’ll be before my mom asks about me and they tell her I’ve died. Gordon will be devastated.
