Page 10 of Poisoned Promise
In the same second, I spin and kick my heel into the ankle of the man on my right. He stumbles with a cry of pain and immediately releases me.
As soon as my hand is free, I get my foot underneath me and surge upward, closing my hand around Tee’s gun and wrenching his hand to the side just as my head collides with his chin.
He stumbles back with a cry and grips the gun tighter, causing it to fire directly into the floor.
Lifting his hand and gun, I turn and brace his arm over my shoulder, slam my other elbow into his gun, and twist his wrist sharp enough that pain forces his fingers to open.
The gun falls directly into my other hand and I shoot the first guard twice in the chest.
He collapses with a grunt and I duck back down to the floor as the other guard gets his weapon out of his belt and aims it.
“Don’t shoot me!” Tee screams, picking himself up from where he fell against the fridge door. “Shoot her! Shoot her!”
I dive through the cooking station, knocking pots and pans out of the way as I go.
The loud clatter makes the last guard jump and he aims down as I jump upward, then brace my foot on the top of the counter and use the momentum to get even higher.
We collide as I come down on him, slamming my raised knee into his chest and punching him across the face with the back of the gun.
He falls. I’m thrown forward into a roll that I rise from on one knee, turn, and shoot him twice. Then I aim at Tee, who holds both hands up.
“What was that you said about fucking me?” I ask, slightly breathless.
He takes a breath and I shoot him twice before he can answer, gaining comfort in the awkward way his body slides down the door and slumps at the bottom.
“Cunt. who the fuck kills a cat,” I spit out as I pick myself up and wince. Pain radiates from my wrist and knee, but it’s passable.
Silence falls and I groan softly, then step over the bodies and walk slowly back to the fridge.
Michael.
I expected a call from his parents about keeping our boys apart or even accusations that Alex was a bad influence. I’d give anything for that kind of argument.
Instead, I had a dead kid and a dead mafia family.
“Shit. I’m sorry, Michael,” I murmur, fighting not to imagine what he must have gone through. Judging by his clothes, they must have snatched him right from the hospital and intended the same thing with Alex, except I was already there.
The stains of my old life creep toward my shoes, pools of blood mingling across the tiles.
It takes twenty minutes to cover up my assassinations and make it look like they all died shooting one another, Michael included. I add a few sloppier shots to their dead bodies to make it look like Michael tried to defend himself.
No one will look too closely at this because no cop wants to admit they let known criminals kidnap a kid from a hospital.
This’ll be swept under the rug like all the others and Michael’s family will be well compensated.
With Tee dead, the Rossi reign is over and some other poor family low on the ladder will take over this territory.
I leave the restaurant with sickness in my gut, trying not to think about Michael’s body left in the freezer.
After calling the cops and reporting gunshots from a payphone a few blocks away, I trudge back to my car and drive slowly backhome where I spend twenty minutes burying the poor cat in the back yard.
Then, with a heavy heart, I head to Mary’s.
“Here.” Mary sets a hot cup of sweet tea down in front of me, then eases her aching bones into the seat next to me. “Drink.”
“I’m not?—.”
“Don’t even think of refusing,” she mutters. “Drink.”
