Page 112 of The Enforcer's Revenge

Without thought, Brianna and Carina took off running together.

From somewhere downstairs, Gino’s loud voice echoed off the marble. “It’s the heat!”

The floor shook again.

The sound was deafening.

Brianna pulled the door to Carlo’s bedroom open, and the two of them scrambled in. She slammed it shut behind Carina.

“What do we do? Should we go down?” Brianna flipped the lock to the door just in case. “If they catch us hiding, they’ll think we’re guilty!”

The house shook once more, and the crystal tumbler on Carlo’s nightstand fell to the floor. Carina looked at the shattered glass as the booming voices drifted from upstairs.

“Get down! Get down! I’ll swear to God, I’ll make you fucking eat it! Get the fuck down!”

Brianna and Carina both ducked at the sound of a gunshot.

“Hurry.” Carina grabbed Brianna’s hand. “We’re hiding.”

Carina pulled on Brianna so hard she stumbled. Then she yanked open Carlo’s closet and forced Brianna inside.

“Are you crazy?” Brianna gasped when Carina shut the closet and turned off the light, trapping them in the darkness. “We’ll end up in lock-up!”

“No, we won’t.” Carina’s voice shook with terror. “’Cause that’s not the heat.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Carlo’s closet smelled like men’s cologne.

It lingered on some of his suits like a memory. Inviting and sexy, reminding Brianna of Tino on a good day, all dressed up and fun. She breathed it in. The scent was comforting, and she was trying very hard to stop herself from completely losing her shit.

“We have to find the laundry chute. All the main bedrooms have them in the closets. It’ll be a small door near the floor. Feel along the wall,” Carina said in a rushed whisper while the darkness pressed in on them. A thin sliver of light from under the door was all they had, and it wasn’t much. “We can crawl down to Nova and Carmen in the basement.”

“A laundry chute? Are you sure?—”

Brianna stopped when she heard more muffled yelling from downstairs. She couldn’t discern what they were saying but could sense the pulse of it, the energy, high-strung and riddled with fear. Whoever was attacking them must be close to the stairs.

“It won’t have a handle.” Carina dropped to her hands and knees and started looking. “It’s just a small notch in the woodabout a foot off the floor. They disguised them, just in case, but I never looked at Carlo’s.”

Brianna followed Carina’s lead, crawling on her hands and knees in the darkness, feeling the walls for something she wasn’t even sure was there. She took one side of the closet, and Carina took the other.

“How do we know it’s not the heat busting in like that?” Brianna barked at her.

“It’s the Brambinos.” Carina crawled over to the door, obviously trying to listen to what was happening. “What cop threatens to make someone fucking eat it?”

“What if they were talking about cement? Dirt. The floor. Maybe they were telling them to get down, or they’ll make them eat it,” Brianna argued in a voice that was barely audible.

“There was a gunshot.”

“Are you saying cops don’t shoot people? Is that your theory?”

Carina was quiet after that, back to listening.

The two of them were so deadly silent that Brianna could feel the feet on the stairs pounding up to the second floor where they were hiding.

“Find it.” Carina crawled back over to the corner, and it sounded like she was running her hands along the wall. “Find it, Bri. Find it. Find it. Find it.”

Carina kept chanting it, her voice getting more and more frantic.