Authors: Cassia Leo
The darkness of night doesn’t provide enough cover once we get closer to the farm. From our hiding place behind a large oak tree on the eastern side of the property, I can see that the entrance to the farm is fortified with a well-lit guard station. I can’t actually see the guard inside the station from here. For all I know, John may have taken him out. Or the other way around.
We could hop the wooden perimeter fence, but the goats are bedded down near a large building just thirty yards to the south. It’s summer and they’re enjoying the cool evening breeze while cuddling with their kids. If we wake even one of them, their brays will alert everyone.
“We have to go to the rear of the property,” I whisper to Bruno.
“That’s where the house is. You don’t think it’s crawling with guards back there?”
“No. If there’s one thing I know is that Tony Angelo is a fucking idiot. I’d be surprised if there are more than two guards back there. We can take them out.”
The second we move out from behind the cover of the oak tree, we begin to take fire. We both drop onto our bellies on the ground next to the wooden fence.
“We’re gonna have to crawl to the back of the house. Cover me.”
I begin crawling along the edge of the fence, but I don’t hear Bruno crawling after me. I don’t have to turn my head to know he’s been hit. I can’t turn my head. Someone can come at me from any direction. But I can’t leave Bruno.
Fuck!
I turn away from the fence and crawl back to Bruno. He’s been shot in the clavicle at the base of his neck. There’s no tourniquet that can stem the blood gushing from his artery.
I feel around for a pulse on the other side of his neck and it’s so weak I can hardly find it. Fucking Bruno.
“You motherfucker,” I whisper. “I’ll be back for you, buddy. You just sit tight. I’ll be back.”
I can’t get pinned down here. I can’t die on the fucking side of a goat farm. And I ain’t crawling nowhere.
I stand up and the first bullet whooshes past the right side of my head. I take off running toward the back of the house.
Just sixty yards.
Another bullet takes a chunk out of an oak tree on my right. I keep moving. Faster than I’ve ever run before.
Ten yards.
Another bullet slices through the wooden fence and shoots a fat splinter of wood straight at my ear.
“Motherfucker!” I cry, but I keep going.
Then I’m there. The back of the house where there are two cars parked in a large dirt lot. The back porch is unguarded. Either this is a trap or I just lucked the fuck out.
I race up the steps and that’s when I see Billy laid out on the other side of the porch steps. Dead. A gunshot to the fucking eyeball.
I wrench open the back door with enough force to rip it off its hinges. Where the fuck is John?
I race across the kitchen and into a living room area. He’s in the basement. Where’s the door to the fucking basement?
It’s too dark in here to see shit. I keep bumping into tiny tables. Knocking over lamps and decorative plates. People and their fucking knick knacks.
The gunshot comes without warning and from the space on my right. My eyes begin to adjust a little to the darkness and I see the door to the left of the staircase. It must lead down to the basement.
I pull my .45 out of my waistband and head for the door. I walk slowly at first, but the sounds of moaning urge me on. Please don’t let it be John.
Turning the doorknob, I expect gunshots to come immediately, but they don’t. I throw open the door and stand to the side, waiting for the shots. Nothing.
Peeking my head around the doorway, I see nothing but a carpeted flight of stairs leading down to more carpet. I creep down the first few steps slowly, my heart pounding like a fucking jackhammer in my ears. When I reach the second to last step, I see him.
John Veneto lying dead on the carpet not more than eight feet away from me. I take the final step and duck when I see Tony Angelo pointing a gun at me. The shot rips through the drywall above me. The wall coughs up chunks of gypsum all over my head.
“Give it up, Tony. I’ve got guys all over this place. You’re dead.”
“Bullshit! Your guys are all dead!”
“You can walk out of here, Tony. All I want is Rebecca. Tell me where she is and we’ll let you go.”
I press my back against the wall and move my head a little to the left. I think I see a mirror. I inch sideways again and he blows off another shot. This one clips my jacket and leaves the skin on my left arm searing from the heat.
“I’ve got every reason to kill you!” I shout at him. “Do you know who I am?”
“Do you know who
I
am?”
“Of course I know who you are. You’re the low-life cum-dumpster who killed my mother ten years ago.”
He laughs at this description. “I like that! Cum-dumpster. Very funny.”
“It won’t be funny when you’re getting cum dumped all over your spleen at Rikers.”
“Oh, Jesus fucking Christ. That’s hilarious.”
This fucking asshole is begging to be shot.
“Enough bullshitting, Tony. Where’s Rebecca?”
He finishes his laughing fit. “But you still haven’t let me tell you who I am.”
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Have you watched Star Wars, Marco?”
My heart drops into my stomach as I realize what he’s implying. “You’re a fucking liar.”
He continues to laugh and that’s when I hear it. The same laugh I’ve heard come out of my own throat for twenty-eight years.
No. There is no fucking way Tony Angelo is my father. This is fucking bullshit!
He won’t be my father anymore if I kill him.
But I need to find out where Rebecca is first.
I clutch my hair in desperation. John was my father. Not Tony. And he just killed him. Which means he killed both my mother and father.
I’m gonna kill that motherfucker.
Before I can take the final step down into the basement, the door above me opens and the gunshot hits me square in the chest.
Thank you for reading KNOX: Volume 3!
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Other books by Cassia Leo
EROTIC ROMANCE
CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE
Relentless
(
Shattered Hearts #1)
Pieces of You
(Shattered Hearts #2)
Bring Me Home
(Shattered Hearts #3)
Abandon
(Shattered Hearts #3.5)
Black Box
(stand-alone novel)
PARANORMAL ROMANCE
Parallel Spirits
(
Carrier Spirits #1)
About the Author
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author Cassia Leo loves her coffee, chocolate, and margaritas with salt. When she’s not writing, she spends way too much time watching old reruns of
Friends
and
Sex and the City
. When she’s not watching reruns, she’s usually enjoying the California sunshine or reading – sometimes both.
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KNOX: VOLUME 3
by Cassia Leo
Copyright © 2014 by Cassia Leo
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Cassia Leo.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without expressed written permission from the author; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.
All characters and events appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.