Page 81 of The Bronze Garza

“There’s something really important I need to tell you. It’s about the—”

Tillie’s shriek drowns out her words, pulling my focus to her. “Who are—what are—”

It takes me a cold second to process what’s happening.

“Shut the fuck up and don’t.fucking.move.” A masked man stands outside Tillie’s door, a gun pressed to the side of her head through the window.

“You havenoidea who you’re fucking with!” she screams at him, though the tremor in her voice belies her courage.

“Ly?Ly? Who’s that?” Holly is saying on the line. “What’s going on? I thought—”

I end the call and immediately dial 911. But before it can even begin to ring, two other armed masked men storm up on either side of the back doors. And it’s then that I know—they’re here forme.

I did this. Left myself unprotected and wide open for the taking.

As both doors are wrenched open, I make the decision not to resist or fight. If I go with them, Tillie will no longer have a gun to her head. The last thing I want is for her to get hurt because her brother was dumb enough to bring a tragedy magnet like me around his loving family.

Tillie is young and vivacious and has a promising life ahead of her. Me? I already died in Russia. Long before Kristie blew her brains out. There’s nothing left to save here.

So when rough hands grabs my upper arm and drag me out of the car, phone flying from my hand, my flip-flops falling off in the process, I go willingly. The sunbaked tar pavement is like a hot stove under my bare soles.

Something hard digs at the center of my back, liquored breath growling at my ear, “Move it, bitch.”

The handful of onlookers in the lot scatter in the opposite direction of the gunmen as I’m hauled off to a patchy black van and thrown in.

I face-plant onto the seats, eating a mouthful of cracked pleather.

Tires screech as the van peels out of the lot, and my head slams into the side of the van when it makes a sharp turn.

Motherfreakingshit that hurts!

When I’ve finally managed to right myself from the awkward position they’d thrown me in, I find the men have removed their masks. It’s like deja vu, except this time the menaren’ton my side.

The heavy-set one who’d dragged me out of the car has me caged in the corner. He reaches down into a backpack on the floor and comes up with a duct tape. “Hands,” he orders.

Used to the drill, I hold my hands out in front of me, wrists pressed together. As he starts wrapping the tape around them, I say, “You know, you really didn’t have to make such a scene back there. If you’d simply knocked on the door, I would’ve come with you, no resistance.”

Heavy Set looks at me like I’m loco. “Keep talkin’ and I’ll tape ya’ mouth next.”

“Not yet,” the man in the front passenger seat says, twisting around to look at me. His voice is like gravel in a glass of sand. Rough, course, and hoarse all at once. It’s wicked cool.

“You have an awesome villain voice,” I tell him. “Have you ever considered acting?”

He looks to Heavy Set, then back to me. “Who are you to the Castellos?”

Now it’s me who’s looking to Heavy Set, hoping he’ll explain whatever the hell Villain Voice is on about. “Who?”

“Who’s bitch are you?” Heavy Set growls by way of elaboration. “Stefano’s or Lorenzo’s?”

“I don’t—” My eyes dart back and forth between the two men. “Am I supposed to know these names? Who’s Stefano? Who’s Lorenzo? Who or what is Castellos?”

Villain Voice looks at Heavy Set again. “You sure we got the right one?”

Heavy Set reaches down into his backpack once more and comes up with a folded-up paper. When he unfolds it and holds it up next to my face, I realize it’s a picture of me.

Villain Voice nods. “Yeah, that’s her.”

“They trained her well,” Heavy Set mumbles, pocketing the picture before I can get a glimpse of it.