Charged (28 page)

This evidence means nothing more than I need a weapon, and I need out of here fast. Pushing the door to the room closed and pry open the last drawer. It doesn’t budge as easily as the rest. In fact it’s so damn hard, I just about bend the knife in half. 

“Bachelor number four, let’s see what you’re hiding behind the curtain.” It finally opens and I peer inside, fearfully.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” I whistle. “Finally a chance at redemption.” I lift the tin ATF badge and cellular phone out of the way and pull up the loaded Glock in its waist belt carrier. “Thank you, Jack.” I laugh to myself that I’m thanking my would be rapist, but the dirty prick has given me a chance to survive. That’s more than he was willing to offer only hours ago.  

Flicking the phone open I find it is fully charged and the signals not half bad. I type out a text to CJ, hoping he’s as close as he said, then shut the phone down and stow it back in the drawer. I know Ryker is out there and he’s probably playing it cool as a cucumber. He’s biding his time and I just hope this plan of mine works. I stuff the pen knife in the top of my bra and place the gun in my front pocket, of course removing the safety first. I’ll need to shoot when I need to and the safety will only hinder me.

Closing all the drawers tightly and rising from the chair, I step close to the door peeking out. Ryker, my uncle Mario, and father are sitting conversing like old friends. I pull back and think about my chances of hitting them from this distance. I’m not a great shot, so I’ll have to be close to make it count. Even at ten feet, it’s just a bit too far for me to be certain. 

For the past few minutes it’s been quiet out in the shop and it’s starting to unnerve me. For a man like Gianfranco Lusi, who’s used to getting his way, I seem to have been given a great deal of time and space to deal with the fact that he and Mario are out there preparing my funeral. Patience has never been one of his strong suits. Where his patience wains, his temper rises. I know it’s just a matter of time before he finally snaps and I’m dragged out, kicking and screaming by my hair. 

“Ok girl, time to suck it up.” I palm the gun, glad for its comfort, then touch the small knife at my breast. Taking a deep breath, I step out of the room with my head held high and my shoulders back. 

They will not crack me and get the USB. It’s my insurance policy and if I have to die to protect it — and Ryker, then so be it.

Ryker

F
or shit’s sake. I just about swallowed my tongue when Georgia walked out of the office. 

When I left her to grab her things, she’d had the shiner, a swollen eye, and that massive bruise on her cheek. If Clit wasn’t dead I’d make sure he was, after I made sure he ate his own balls. 

As Mario and Gianfranco rise from their stools, we all take in the damage to her petite frame. There are welt’s rising brightly across her arms, split skin standing starkly right above her breasts where it’s just visible through the v of my t-shirt. Earlier I’d thought she looked damn near perfect in it. 

As she’s walking with a hitch in her step but trying unsuccessfully to hide it, Georgia crosses her arms across her chest and stands tall. Walking like a regal queen. She’ll give them nothing. Just like she gave Jack, and as far as I can tell, Clit also. 

The hardest thing to look at is those lips. Dried blood cakes at her nostrils, hardening down her face in streams of caked rivers, blending into the scarlet at her chest. She looks like hell. 

“It’s good to see you.” Snapping out of mental cataloging of her damaged body, I listen as Gianfranco Lusi greats his beaten daughter like an old friend. 

“The same can’t be said.” She walks a few paces to stand directly in front of the two most notorious mob bosses in New York. Gotti has nothing on this pair — hell, nothing on her — she’s tough as nails. 

“Now, my daughter, is that anyway to greet me? Come closer. As you can see, they’ve been taken care of.” Gianfranco extends a hand, expecting the gracious gesture of their deaths to be accepted with open arms. 

“Yeah. I’m good right here.” She crosses her arms tightly around her middle, pulls back a step, glaring daggers. “What do you want? I’m tired, beat to shit, and wanting a warm bed where I can sleep without looking over my shoulder every twenty days or so. How about you give me the real reason you’re here, because it isn’t to give me a hug.”

“What if it was? What if I wanted you home where you belong? Would you come willingly?” I swear I almost hear something akin to compassion in his voice. 

“Home was destroyed when I saw you personally throw that Molotov cocktail into the car as it burned around me.” She pauses, pointing to Mario. “Your wife and nine year old daughter.” She points back to Gianfranco. “And you walked away as your daughter sat screaming for you to save her. Is that the home you mean,
Father
? Thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather stay on the run, sleeping in pigsty hotels that are infested with pedophiles and sadistic motherfuckers. They could give me more love than I ever got from you.” 

I feel my dick twitch and even though it’s the wrong time and wrong place, I’m fucking turned on by this defensive, strong ass woman. Georgia is hot as shit. I push my hand into the pocket of my jeans, tucking my dick down. I palm the gun sitting in my waistband, knowing something’s about to go down, and I’m not giving these two a second’s chance to touch her. I’ll fucking shoot them point blank before that happens. 

“Georgia, we’ve been trying to find you for quite a while now. It’s not a secret that we’ve been tracking you. I want you home. I know that when —”

“Cut the bullshit. I’m not your daughter and you’re not my father.” Georgia pulls a gun from her waist and points it at Gianfranco’s head. If she aims true and straight it’ll kill him, ending all of this. “Your daughter died at the age of eleven with her dear mother, at the hands of her father. That little
darling
that you want to come home is long past dead.” 

“Put down the gun, Georgia,” Mario says in a way that contains malice, commands acquiescence and holds just a hint of death on the wind. I see him reach around to grab his own gun. He already killed his own kin with it not five feet away, and as he lays in the pool of his own blood I see things are about to turn bad.  

Pulling out my own, I point it at the back of Mario’s head, cocking the trigger loudly. “I wouldn’t,” I say as I put my hand on his, halting Mario. Lifting his hands in surrender, I pull it out of his waistband and sling it into the back of my jeans, far away from his reach. 

“Ryker, this isn’t any concern of yours, son. Put it down and go about your business. This is a family affair.” 

“Well, I don’t see Georgia wanting to go and the odds are against her without a bit of help. Plus to be honest, you aren’t my family and seein’ as Jack is sitting in a pool of his own blood right now, I don’t care. I’m on a bit of a streak, so try me.” Gianfranco hasn’t made a move yet. He stands unfazed by the gun directed point blank at his forehead by his daughter.

“That right, Ryker? Well colour me surprised, son.” 

“I am
not
your son.”

He ignores my comment with a quirky smile and continues. “We’ll talk about Jack later, but right now we haven’t done anything to hurt my daughter. On the contrary, Mario here killed the pieces of shit that aimed to hurt her, violate and destroy her in that office. I’d say we’re her best —”

“Freeze!” 

Shit timing, Carlo. Truly shit timing. 

“Put the guns down. All of you.” Two agents slink out of the corners with guns at the ready. The Feds have more firepower than Mario and I do combined, but it doesn’t stop me from worrying this can go south really fast. Gianfranco is the wild card.

Both men look bored and uninterested with the new inhabitants of our standoff. They’re both sporting wide, proud and full of ‘I’ll get away with this’ knowing smirks. The menacing, gleeful, harm inducing,
cut your arm off and feed it to you, psycho motherfucker, laser gun glaring holes in my head
stare, tells me shit is about to get real. I chose my side a long time ago, and right now I’m no better than a skeezy-lowlife druggie on the street, begging for a meal. I just signed my death warrant with the Lusi brothers because by siding with Gianfranco’s daughter — and I guess in turn the Feds. 

“Stand down, back away from Mr. Lusi, and put down the gun,” the agent to my right announces coldly. 

“Not to be rude, but do I look stupid to you? If you think I’m puttin’ down my gun until these two are fuckin’ cuffed, you can go fuck yourself. And I doubt she’s about to give up hers either. Nice gun by the way, Georgia. Government standard issue — pretty nice.” I’m guessing she found it in Jack’s office someplace. How he ended up with a federal gun is a story I can’t wait to find out. If I live, that is. 

“Oh, now I get it, kid. Makes total sense,” Gianfranco says to me matter of factly. “That fuckin’ snitch o’father shows up and we don’t mean shit. You’re sidin’ with blood before family. Not slick I tell ya’, not slick Ryk. We’re the ones that took you in and looked after you when he bolted. You chose the wrong side, son.” 

Carlo rounds the corner he was hiding in and stands to the right of Georgia and Gianfranco, pointing his gun. “Ryker and Georgia are not the target, Agent Hill. Same goes for you, Gunner. Keep it trained on the other two.” He’s still a ways away but he has a perfect shot — if he has the balls to take it. One in the chest or the head from here, and there’d be one less Lusi for Georgia to worry about. 

“Maybe by you and yours, Agent, but by me,” GF points to his chest accentuating the threat, “he’s dead. Whether I’m in chains dragged outta here or not, Ryker is going to hell.” Glaring at me coldly, I know he speaks the truth. Threats are not his style. This is a promise in blood. I still hold a gun to his brother’s head. Gianfranco isn’t afraid of anything. Not
one living soul
frightens this monster, and right now he’s calm and cool. The real party hasn’t even begun. 

“Carlo, I’m not taking chances. This motherfucker is armed, and he goes down if the safety comes off, ya’ hear me. This is the last warning to both of you. Stand down and hand over the weapons.” The agent with his sights trained on me is close enough that his shot will kill me. “And don’t think I won’t. Carlo’s son or not. You let that off and you’re going down.” 

GI Joe doesn’t put the fear of god in me. That was sucked out ages ago — but the situation is fucking tense. 

I laugh heartily. “I’m not workin’ on a body bag for me today, sweet cheeks. So back the fuck up unless you want a kiss.” He grins sideways, steps back one step but never takes the gun off me. I hold mine tight to Mario’s skull and I’m not about to let it down.

“Georgia. Step down darlin’. Put the gun away. I have him.” Carlo closes in on her and Gianfranco and he’s trying to get her to give in. Good luck. I may have only known her a few days, but with Gianfranco she’s hit her limit.

“You knew the deal. I told you time and again if I ever,
ever
had a chance to take my revenge, and my life back, I would.” She’s adamant that somehow, someway Gianfranco is going down today. 

“You do and I have to arrest you instead of him. Put it down and step back.” You can see she’s thinking about it, weighing the consequences, the remorse and the anguish of taking a life. Jack was one thing, he was trying to harm her, and she was ok with it, but Gianfranco is a piece of her past. And even though she doesn’t like it, he’s family, so this is totally different. 

The only way this Mexican standoff is gonna change is if someone takes the first step. “Fine, I’ll drop mine.” 

Clicking the safety and slowly bending down, I place my gun on the floor behind me and take Mario’s from my back, placing them together. 

“Kick them away and place your hands on your head.” I’m more concerned about the trigger happy commando that thinks he’s tough shit than I am about either of the Lusi’ pulling a hidden gun and starting a fucking war. 

I know for a fact that GI Joe will be the one to light the tinder, setting this scene aflame if he doesn’t back the fuck up. I know these two. Gianfranco is a loose cannon on the best of days, and a Bonnie and Clyde on the worst. No warning will be given, just a bullet to the punk ass newbie’s head before he hits the floor.