NINETEEN
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise,
Than when we’ve first begun.…
The end is now, a voice whispered in my head.
I had a bad feeling. The second we drove through my brother’s open gates and saw the red sports car from yesterday belonging to Org’s men, I knew today was either the end or the beginning.
Even if Org’s guys were supposedly protecting me, finding their car parked inside my brother’s residence was off. One, I wasn’t in there. And two, the residence was gated, so how could they have gotten in, unless with coercion?
“What are they doing here?” I asked Chad.
His tone and entire demeanor weren’t of the man I knew. “I lost them in the hills last night before I drove to my right address. Didn’t want them knowing of that place. They’re just here to find out your whereabouts.”
I leaned forward and opened the glove compartment, took out his handgun and readied it with more aggression than needed so he’d know I was irritated. “Don’t talk to me like I’m a little fucking girl. You know that’s not why they’re here. You know we can’t reverse out now because we’re trapped. I know you counted three suspiciously idle cars parked five blocks within each other on the way here. You know like I know that something is up. So fuck you. Stop trying to spare me.”
Nothing.
Then, “Five. I counted five idle cars.”
“Then why didn’t you turn around?!”
Rolling up beside the sports car and easing the gear in park, Chad turned his head and gave me a look like I was the most inhumane person alive. “Because yourbrotheris here.”
“But these are Org’s men. What do they care about Ricardo being alive or not?”
Providing no answer, Chad reached under his car seat and came back up with aWalther P22semi-automatic handgun, then opened the door to get out. “Stay in the car.”
“That’s it?” I asked, mouth agape. “You’re just going to march in there with nothing but a handgun? You don’t have more weapons in the trunk or something?”
He was irritatingly impassive, eyes stark and accepting. “I can smell him. Just…stay in the car, Tweety Byrd.”
Unfolding smoothly from the low sports car, he shut the door with a simple backward flick of his hand, then strode without falter or uncertainty up to the house, gun held loosely in his hand like it was a cheap accessory he didn’t care for. He seemed resigned, convinced that this was the end.
And what did he mean he could “smell him”? Smell who?
Surely, Rafail wouldn’t come here himself. Rafail did nothing himself. He hid behind threats and manipulations, orders, and money power.
Suddenly I realized it: Chad, if not afraid of anyone, was afraid of his father. If Rafail was really inside that house, Chad would not put up a fight. He would let him kill him. He would let Rafail win.
The prime reason he wanted me to remain in the car. Because if Org’s men were inside, too, they were there to protect me, not him. They would do nothing to stop Rafail from killing Chad.
Stay in the car…
He knew today was not my day to die.
It was his.
Fuck staying in the car!
Renting the passenger door open, I leaped out of the car and tore up to the house.
The front door was wide open, and someone was standing in its frame, facing inside, back facing outside. I made out the overly muscular figure and the military haircut. Sambo.
Walking up to him, I poked him in the side with my gun—not threateningly—and asked, “What the fuck is going on?”
Sambo turned to me, never minding my weapon. Expression one of victory and complacency, he scanned my face and then my body for a minute, before he stepped aside and held his hand out in a gesture for me to enter.
