“Who the fuck cares? Sign the goddamn thing and move on.”
He was on edge. I initialed the bottom with shaking hands, flipped to the next page, skimmed it, and signed. I had another six pages to go, and I hadn’t actually absorbed a single word.
None of it mattered. My heart was beating, my arms sweating. I could smell the ink and I thought I tasted something metallic on my tongue.
“What’s taking so long?” Leonel asked.
“Hurry the bitch up,” Bautista said. “Fuck, it’s hot, it’s late, and I’m exhausted.”
“Honey, you take your time, okay?” Mom’s voice sounded like she was annoyed about the whole thing. “Don’t let these men rush you.”
I looked up, trembling. Julian crouched down next to me.
“You’re stalling,” he said. “You think the Leone family’s going to save you. But listen, little girl. They’re not coming, that much is clear. The rooftops are empty. You’re all alone out here.”
“The rooftops are empty?” I asked, surprised.
They were supposed to be up there.
I wasn’t lying when I told them that.
“Ready,” Luca whispered. “When I say so, you hit the ground. Okay?”
“Our guys are up there now,” Julian said. “So sign the papers, get this over with, and we can all move on with our lives.”
I took a deep breath and looked at him. I nodded, trembling, and initialed another page.
“Down,” Luca said. “Now!”
I threw the paper aside, and hit the ground hard. I covered my head as something exploded above me. I heard a grunt and something wet splashed the back of my neck.
“What the fuck?” Leonel said.
“Fuck!” Bautista’s grunt. “Fuck! Fuck!”
More explosions. It took me a second to recognize gunfire from somewhere close. I rolled onto my side, covering my head, and saw my mom standing there, frozen, her eyes wide. One of the men tried to grab her and pull her away.
Across the street, a blue door burst open. Luca jumped off the stoop, came sprinting over. I screamed for my mom as more gunfire erupted around me. Bautista went down, a handgun in his hand, the barrel pointed at my head. He staggered back as his skull exploded in a blossom of blood, brain, and bone.
Leonel was next, bullets taking him as he began to run.
Luca slammed into one of the men holding my mom. He tackled the guy, slammed his shoulder into the big man’s chest, knocking him to the ground. Luca brought up his Glock, fired twice into the other guy’s chest, knocking him back, then put a bullet in his head. He turned and repeated the procedure on the guy he’d tackled, two in the chest, one in the head.
My mother stood there, her face white, her eyes wide.
“Come on,” Luca yelled. He grabbed me from the ground, pulled me up. I realized I was covered in Julian’s blood. He was sprawled on the ground, riddled with bullets, inches from where I was huddled.
Luca pulled me and my mom away from the parking lot. More gunfire erupted as we turned the corner. I saw two black cars parked on the curb, and people were shooting at them from third-floor windows. It hit me all of a sudden that the Leone people weren’t on the roofs at all, because they were inside the houses.
“Trapped them on the roofs,” he said. “We’ll kill those fuckers soon, but they’re dangerous, so we’ve got to run.”
Bullets slammed into the ground all around us as he sprinted across the street again. He pulled me along, and I pulled my mother. We barely kept up as more bullets sprayed the concrete, sending shards and shrapnel into the air.
We reached the blue door he’d come out of. He made sure I got in, made sure my mother got in, then slammed the door shut behind us.
The living room was empty, a single lamp in the corner lighting the place.
“Where are we?” I asked, breathing hard.
“Safe house,” he said. “This is all Russian territory, and we’re allied with the Russians.”
“What about the guys on the roof?”
“We’ll finish off the guys outside then move up and take them out. They’re trapped now.” He leaned up against the wall and took deep breaths. “Fucking hell, that was close.”
“Are we safe?” I asked.
He met my gaze and nodded once. “We’re safe.”
My mother collapsed onto her knees and began to sob.
I knelt down next to her, wrapped my arms around her, and pulled her tight.
Gunfire popped off for the next ten minutes, coming and going. I heard screams in the night as the Leone family finished off the Jalisco guys on the roofs.
But one by one, they killed them all. Every single man, finished.
“Is this the end of them?” I asked Luca.
He shook his head. “Diego thinks so. He thinks they brought everything to this. That guy out there? The one who said his name was Julian?”