Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80014 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80014 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Tears tumbled down my cheeks. I couldn’t have stopped them if I tried. “I didn’t know if you were alive or dead. There was blood, and you weren’t moving. I was so scared.”
He wiped my tears away and kissed my forehead before saying, “You can’t get rid of me that easily. Now, we’ve got to get you out of here. Can you walk?”
I nodded, and he produced a pocket knife and sawed through the ropes that bound my wrists behind the pillar. My arms burned as feeling began returning to them, and I leaned on him heavily as he helped me to my feet. I had so many questions, starting with, “How did you find me?”
“I had a lot of help from your brothers. I’ll tell you all about it later, but right now we need to hurry. Greco and his men don’t know we’re here, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“Brothers? I only have one.”
“You have five, and three of them are part of this rescue operation. I know this is confusing, but I’ll explain everything once you’re safe.”
We rushed out of the garage hand-in-hand, but there were two huge guys with automatic weapons waiting for us. They almost looked like twins, except one had glasses, and the other had a beard. I pulled back a fist to hit the one closest to me, but Jack caught my arm and exclaimed, “No, they’re on our side! They’re your brothers, Dante and Vincent Dombruso.”
I scrubbed a hand over my forehead. I had a pounding headache, but it didn’t explain how confusing this was. Just then, we heard shouting in the distance. One of the guys, the one with the beard, said, “I think they just discovered the guard we knocked out, so we won’t be able to leave by way of the side gate.”
“This way,” Jack said, and we hurried back into the garage.
Two of the three bays contained vintage muscle cars. Jack effortlessly vaulted over the door of a black 1964 Corvair convertible, yanked down a bunch of wires from below the dash, and began hotwiring it. I climbed into the passenger seat, watching him closely as I muttered, “That’s so sexy.”
He grinned and said, “It’ll be sexier if I actually succeed. It’s been a minute since I hotwired a car, but let’s think positive.”
The guy with glasses locked the door and slid a large tool rack in front of it, and then he and his brother climbed into the back seat. A moment later, someone rattled the door handle, and we heard them yell, “We need the garage door opener! Hurry up!”
Jack took a deep breath and concentrated on the tangle of wires, and I told him, “You’re a fucking rock star, and you’ve got this.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” He knit his brows in concentration and kept working as he told the men in the back seat, “I’d suggest calling Romy and his team and telling them to clear out. They should take both SUVs, because we’ll either drive out in this thing, or we’ll get caught. Either way, they shouldn’t wait around for Greco and his men to discover them.”
The guy with glasses said, “Good idea,” and placed a call.
At the same time, I asked, “Romy? My kid brother’s out there with the bad guys?”
“Don’t worry,” Jack said, without looking up from the wires. “He and Charlie and the boys are about half a mile away, just off the main road. There’s no cover leading up to this house, so the three of us hiked and biked in. Shit, why isn’t this working?”
“Tell them to hurry! Greco’s on his way back from New York, and he’ll be arriving any time now,” I said. “If he sees someone parked nearby, he might stop to investigate.”
“Go now, Josh. Hurry. Take both SUVs, because we found a new ride,” the guy with glasses said into the phone.
My heart leapt as the garage door behind us began to rattle open. The guy with the beard turned around and knelt on the seat with his machine gun at the ready, and he said, “Now would be a great time to get that engine started, Jack. Otherwise, this is about to turn into a Quentin Tarantino film.”
Jack muttered, “I’m trying,” as he stripped a bit of wire with his pocket knife.
Glasses guy dropped his phone back into the pocket of his suit jacket and said, “They’re safe and on their way back to town.” Then he too turned around in his seat and pointed his gun at the garage door as he told his brother, “I would have said John Woo, or maybe Robert Rodriguez. Their films have a much higher body count than Tarantino’s.”
“That’s a good point,” the other guy said. “You know what’s funny, though? I recently read an article that claimed the director with the highest body count overall is actually Peter Jackson.” How the hell were they so calm?