Kai asked the others, “Any objection to the execution of the Guaranno family?”
“What? No!” She was rising, her hand in the air. “I said no! No. Don’t do that. They’re innocents. They aren’t a part of this world. My granddaughter—”
While she’d been talking, one by one the council members held up their right hands. As soon as the last one was done, Kai nodded to Tanner.
Taking out a gun, he pressed the muzzle to the back of her head and—I turned away.
Bang!
Jillian stopped protesting, and I heard a thump.
I held firm, my eyes tightly shut as I heard a soft sniffle. I couldn’t tell if it was in this room, if it was me, or if it was someone on the other side. The chair scraped against the floor, and I heard another hard thud followed by the sounds of a body being dragged across the floor.
A door opening.
A door closing.
And silence.
Another sniffle.
A man coughed.
A second cleared his throat.
Kai still waited.
I couldn’t look. Maybe I should’ve, but why? Why see what I knew had happened?
The door opened and closed again. I didn’t hear footsteps, but I heard the chair moving again, the sounds of something wiping over the table, the floor. This went on for a minute before the door opened and closed one more time.
“None of the Guaranno children will be harmed,” Kai said. “The grandchildren either. Only Jillian, her two brothers, and the two eldest sons will be greenlit. They are the ones involved in their family’s business. I am within my rights as leader of the council to make this order, but are there any objections?”
A beat.
One more.
No one objected.
Finally, the oldest man said, “You do what you need to. We will follow the Bennett family.”
“As of this moment, the Guaranno family is no longer a member of the council, but we need a ninth person to vote on this next matter so there can be a majority. I’d like to request my brother Tanner vote in her place.”
“We have a personal matter?” the third woman spoke, the one who had remained quiet throughout all of this.
Her face came into the light. She was in her mid-forties, with dark hair that hung down to her shoulders and pearl earrings. She wore a light sweater over a shimmering top, and her face had the slightest blush, matching her soft pink lips.
She didn’t seem angry or shocked, just aggravated. “I thought that was enough for the day.”
“One more, Rose.”
She nodded, leaning back in her seat. “Very well.” She looked to one of the other men, one with a full head of black hair and a rough glint in his eyes. “Richard, you okay with this?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” He nodded. “Get on with it.”
Kai turned to one of the guards in our room, and he opened the door.
The third prisoner was dragged inside and put in the chair, but he wasn’t strapped in like my father. There was little to no fight left in him.
The bag was removed, and unlike the other prisoners, this one seemed content to merely sit there. There were no bruises on his face. No bloodied lip or swollen features. He didn’t even seem tired. What I had mistaken for no fight was just an acceptance. It was as if he’d been asked to come in for an interview he didn’t want to give.
He was young, maybe twenty-four? He had light brown hair that looked as if he’d just run his hand through it, honey brown eyes, a tilted mouth that made it seem as if he were permanently amused, and dark eyebrows that somehow gave him a rounder-looking face with chubbier cheeks than he actually had.
He would’ve been a cute-looking frat boy if this had been another life.
“State your name,” Kai said.
The guy grinned up at him, that top lip curving in a lopsided grin. “Levi Barnes.”
“Why have I brought you into this questioning today?”
Levi shrugged, lounging in his chair. “Probably has to do with the fact you don’t want me with your sister, but more likely it has to do with the fact that I was turning evidence on my family.”
A hush fell over the council. They had begun to talk amongst themselves, but they all perked up at that last bit.
“Why were you turning evidence on your family?”
“Is this from the Barnes family in Milwaukee?” one of the council members asked.
Only Levi seemed to take offense at that statement. His grin slipped, and his eyebrows drew closer together.