Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 115964 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115964 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
“Look through it, you fucking asshole!” Abram yelled instead. “You piece of shit, making me choose!” He paced and flailed as he kept shouting. “You threatening to take me out? Who do you think you are? You’re not above my paygrade. You goddamn—I helped you back there. I chose you over Oscar. You. I chose you and who are you choosing—”
“Shut up.” Raize moved back to the truck.
I lifted my head to see Abram swinging his fists in the air. He paced back and forth, fists forming and unclenching. He shot daggers at Raize.
He growled, “You fucking asshole. Don’t have any feelings in you.”
Raize stopped thumbing through the phone. A sudden stillness came over him, and Abram felt it, too.
Both of us watched Raize again. A hot breeze blew over us, brushing the back of my neck, but I barely felt it. Different world, different life, I would’ve welcomed that breeze. Here, I worried what was trailing behind it.
Raize looked up at Abram. “You’re working for Estrada himself.”
Abram sighed, looking utterly defeated. “About keeled over when you threw that out, but yeah. Oscar reached out for a meet. I’m assuming he was going to tell us about you, about Macca. I knew nothing about any of that until Oscar dropped Macca’s name. We never sent Macca. He hasn’t been working for Estrada for two years. He’s sloppy. You know that.”
Raize glanced my way before returning to the phone.
The air lightened, or maybe that was just me. I could breathe easier.
Abram would keep breathing for another day.
He shook his head, rolling his eyes. “You’re seeing everything, Raize. Everything. I need something back. I want to work with you, but if you don’t reciprocate, then we got a problem.”
“I’m working for the Russians in Philly now.”
Abram was quiet. Then, “Marakov?”
Raize nodded, his thumb going back to the phone. He pressed a few buttons before he tossed it back to Abram. “I need to take Oscar out,” he said. “All of his operations.”
That perked my ears. Those girls—they could be set free.
Abram glowered, going through his phone. “You’re such a dick. You sent this shit to your phone, didn’t you? Normal guys would die for doing that.”
Raize ignored him. “Tell me the rest of Oscar’s operations. Set up a meet with my employer and Estrada.”
“Right. Yeah.” Abram’s tone was mocking. “I’ll just, you know, marry the Pope at the same time.” His eyes went mean. “What are you smoking? You left Estrada. He will kill you if he knows about you. Those were the terms, Raize. You leave and never come back. You’re violating those terms.”
Oh.
OH!
Oh.
This was why Raize had to be forced to come back down, and it was because of me.
He watched me, waiting for my reaction, but I just blinked at him. What did that mean? For him to throw down like that for me?
A new intensity sparked between us. This was a whole new level. We weren’t going to survive it, whatever this was.
I just wanted to find my sister. She’d been taken in by the Russians. We were going to get killed by the cartel in Texas, and I’d never get back to Philadelphia—if that’s even where my sister was.
I grimaced, remembering the searing panic I’d felt when we left those girls back there, how I thought my sister could be in one of those rooms.
I felt Raize’s eyes on me, but he was replying to Abram. “Estrada still wants to know if Jorge killed his brother, right?”
“Yeah, but he’ll never find out. He needs proof before he can make any move, and if he did, we’re talking about the Estrada Cartel splintering in half. That ain’t gonna happen.”
“But he still wants to know?”
Abram waited a moment. “He still wants to know. He thinks it, but I don’t think he knows it for sure.”
“Set up the meet with Estrada. I have a bargaining chip for him.”
Me. He was talking about me.
Shit. Shit!
They’d ask me a question about someone’s life and… Okay... The pain wasn’t there, not as much as usual. Thank God, my numbness was sliding back in place. I’d been feeling so much, too much.
Because of Raize.
He had to be the reason I was feeling things, remembering things, because he was making me feel like I was safe to feel, remember.
I wasn’t.
I could not forget that.
“You sure about this?” Abram’s voice quieted.
“I’m sure.”
“You go in, you’re going to need men at your back. Estrada knows you, knows what you can do. He’ll have planned for that.”
“I know. Make the call, Abram.”
He walked away, putting his phone to his ear.
I could feel Raize’s gaze back on me.
“He’s going to come back, saying he needs to take a trip,” he said softly. “His boss will want to see him up close and personal before deciding what to do, and then he’ll make a decision. Abram will text me a time and place, and we’ll go. I don’t want Cavers to know anything about this meeting, and that means Jake can’t either. I’m going to make a call to my boss and ask for more men. But I have to know, before I walk in with you at my side, if you’re going to go fucking crazy again?” He ground out the last three words.