Break For Him (Volkov Crime Family 2)

I couldn’t wait to get started. But she was right, I had to put her through one more test.

This was her chance to try something stupid. She’ll spend all day thinking about it, weighing her options, making up plans. She might even follow through with something. Before I actually began selling out of here, I had to be sure she wouldn’t make this difficult.

So I dangled freedom in front of her and let her figure out what path she wanted to take.

I was an optimist. I believed she’d do the right thing and keep her mouth shut. But I’ve been wrong in the past, and I might be wrong again.

That was the fun of it. She might let me down, or she might not.

Only one way to find out.

I left the store, walked to my SUV, and drove off.4LeighThe first ten minutes alone in my store were surreal.

It almost felt normal, like it was any other day.

Except of course it was anything but normal, since I started the morning as a captive, and likely would end it that way, too.

Owain played games. I could see it already. He liked it when I attacked him because it proved something to him. He wanted me to lash out and he wanted me to fight.

He thought it was fun.

I had to use that against him.

I didn’t know how though. He still held all the cards. He knew I’d do anting for my mother, and all he had to do was keep threatening her life to keep me in line. So I spent the afternoon trying to come up with ways to get out of this.

Customers came and went. A woman tried to bring her dog inside and I had to kick her out. Some kids bought shirts with Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangster on the front in white lettering. I wondered if their parents would even care.

Time slipped past, morning turned to afternoon. I took cash from the register and bought lunch at the deli a couple doors down. The guy behind the counter was overweight and balding, and he smiled at me. “Sell a lot of shirts?” he asked, and I laughed, although he said that to me every time I stopped in.

After lunch I packed shirts in the back. Late afternoon was always slow. As I finished getting the online orders ready to go out, I realized that I’d stopped thinking about Owain and let myself settle into my normal daily routine.

It felt easy to do. I’d been coming to work and going through these same motions for months now. It was comfortable, and right now I craved comfort and something normal more than anything else. I could so easy see how I could fall into his trap.

Selling his pills wouldn’t be hard. I could fit it into my typical day. Not much would change in my life and I could drift along on an eddy of routine and easy comfort until he got what he wanted and didn’t need me anymore.

He said he’d let me go. But I knew better.

There was no way out. If I ran, my mom died. If I tried to bring her with me, we’d both get caught, and we’d both die. If I stayed, I was dead sooner or later.

By the time four o’clock rolled around and I had three hours until closing, the realization hit me like a punch to the gut.

I had to kill him.

There was no other option.

If I killed Owain, there’d be nobody to hunt me. Maybe his men might take it up, but I had a feeling they’d be too busy fighting with each other to try and avenge their leader. I could be wrong about that, but I didn’t see any other options.

I had to kill him. And I had to do it today, this evening, right at seven, right at closing. Otherwise I’d never do it.

I sat down in the back on the computer chair and stared at the shelving racks and the shirts in neat piles. My heart beat so fast I felt like I might hyperventilate and pass out. Sweat beaded along my back.

I never killed anyone before. I’d never been in a fight. Killing a man, even a man like Owain, felt horrible. It felt like the end of the world, like the end of myself.

But I had to do it. I had to do it if I wanted to survive and if I wanted to save my mother.

I needed a weapon. My eyes scanned the room. Owain was way bigger and stronger. Attacking him like I did that morning wouldn’t work. I needed an edge.

The racks. They were made of long metal tubes. I remembered how heavy they were from when I built them with Jason all those long months ago.

I walked to the nearest one, cleared off the shirts, and began to take it apart. I only needed to remove the top most shelf since I only needed a single support strut. I unscrewed it and got it off in about ten minutes then stood there weighing the long metal rod in my hand.