Page 4 of Dirty Hearts

Marissa was my priority. I had to get her back.

“She has nothing to do with this,” I cried, slamming my fists down on the kitchen counter.

I’d come home in my search for her, looking everywhere like a maniac, refusing to believe that she’d been taken.

“She is yours. That means she’s your price. The price you will pay for messing up my plans. Plans that lost me money. Millions, billions, who can say?” Goliath bellowed into the phone. “So, Claudius, you know how I love games. The last one was so much fun.”

My blood boiled then froze. The game he was referring to wasn’t a game. It was evil.

There was a difference between being bad and pure evil.

I was a bad person, a criminal at best. But I wasn’t evil.

This guy was.

The other day, one of his bodyguards allowed a cop to get too close to him. It was no fault of the bodyguard; it just happened.

However, Goliath blindfolded the man and made him walk near the edge of a cliff.

I tried to stop him from falling over the side, but I was too late.

When I actually saw what was happening, I was too late. Goliath told the man to step backwards and walk toward him, making the man believe that by stepping backwards he’d be on the ground still. One step back, and he went hurtling down to his death.

“You ready?” He laughed.

“I’m ready, asshole.”

“Testy, testy, considering it was me who you wronged. This is mild. You could be dead with your head on display someplace or hanging from a mountain.”

“Goliath, you tell me where my wife is!” I had no patience left. I didn’t have any in the first place.

“Fine, calm down. So, here’s the thing, I got confused, so I took your wife and her sister. Twins can be so tricky, and you’re a mobster. Those can be tricky too.”

Everything stilled inside me.

He has Ava too.

Fuck, no!

No.

Nooo...

Mindlessly, I walked outside the house, my legs weak, my heart barely beating, my soul…

My soul screaming so loud it was deafening, and I couldn’t think straight.

“Why?” The word fell from my lips.

“I just told you, Claudius. Mobsters are tricksters. Can’t trust them. You could have put the twin in the safe house. Sure, I doubted it, but best to be on the safe side, right? They’re at the docks in two different warehouses. I have a glorious bomb in one, as to which you have to guess. Bomb’s set to go off in half an hour.”

I was moving before he could finish.

Fucking bastard. He knew it would take me at least twenty minutes to get to the docks, and at rush hour it would be crazy.

I jumped on my Harley and tore down the streets like a demon, driving around the traffic, driving on the pavements, driving where I could that had a path that could get me to my destination.

I couldn’t believe this, and Goliath wasn’t by any means right. It wasn’t greed that got me mixed up with him.