AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His voice was deceptively calm, but his hands curled into fists on the table.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Give me the baseball and I’ll go.”
“Do you have any fucking clue, whom you’re speaking to?”
“I have an idea. So, unless you want me to go to the police with this, I suggest you hand it over.”
This time, he laughed. “Apparently, you don’t know a thing about me.” He stood up. “This is your last chance. Leave and take your father with you.”
I shook my head.
He sighed and nodded to one of his men. He moved to grab me, but I skirted away. I raced toward the black knapsack, but the boss snatched it up.
Two sets of arms pulled me away. “Fuck you,” I hissed at him. “I won’t let you get away with this. I’ll tell the cops everything.”
The man walked toward me, slowly rubbing his jaw. “I really didn’t want it to come to this, but now with you threatening me, I just can’t let this go.”
“Giancarlo, please, she doesn’t understand. She really doesn’t even know anything. Just let her go.”
“I know enough to get the feds crawling all over this house.”
I was bluffing, but my words hit their mark because Giancarlo put his hands on his hips.
“Shut up, Laura,” my father screamed. “You’re making this worse for the both of us.”
But I couldn’t let it go. I wasn’t leaving here without that baseball and my pride.
“Do you want me to shut her mouth for you, Pete?” one of the dumb goons asked.
“No. Please, let me just take her home. I’ll calm her down.”
“I’m not a child anymore. I’m done playing this game for you, Dad. Do you hear me? This is over.”
Giancarlo nodded. “You’re right. It’s over for you, Laura.”
My eyes locked with his and every fiber of my being felt numb. He wouldn’t kill me over this, would he? He must know that people expected me at work and at school.
“You can’t kill me. There will be—”
He put his finger to my lips. “You really do talk too much, you know that. I think you need to learn a lesson. And the best place to do that is with some of my old friends.”
“What?”
He picked up his phone. Who was he calling? Some more goons? Someone who would kidnap me? Torture me?
“Yes. I’d like to report a break-in at my home. I have the trespasser here.”
Oh, no. This was worse.
I was going back to prison.
18
Laura
My body shivered against the cold cement wall of the jail cell. The stone bench beneath me wasn’t any warmer. But the worst part wasn’t the cold, it was the smell. The stench of unwashed bodies, stains on the floor, and a broken toilet at the end of the communal cell all stunk worse than I’d remembered.
“Stevens,” the guard called as he approached the cell. “You’re up for your one phone call.”
