Riding Dirty: Luciotti Crime Family (A Bad Boy Mafia Romance) - Kara Hart Page 0,30

Aren’t you listening? This guy uses people. Got too caught up in the lifestyle. That kind of thing happens all the time. So when I came to him with my crew and a gun in my hand, he started beating that poor woman. I watched it with my own eyes. She had a kid and shit too.”

“So he stole the money from the woman to pay you? Sounds like a real winner. Forgive me. I just want to get your story straight. You watched this woman get beat to a bloody pulp and you took her money? And you did this all in front of her baby? Correct me if any of that is wrong because I’m just trying to make sure I got this right.”

He was shaking his head violently. “You’re not listening! I didn’t do nothing. He did. He’s the asshole.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t do anything about it. You see the issue here? You just wanted your money. You were selfish. It’s alright. You can admit it. We all need to repent every once in a while. Myself included.”

“But I—”

“You took her money, watched her face get broken into a million pieces, and let the baby stay in the room to watch the whole thing. That includes the aftermath. Can you imagine what happened when you left? Look, I’ve heard all I need to hear. This is what I’m going to do. I’m going to take your arm and I’m going to give you a minor spiral fracture, enough to take a bit to heal. Then, I’m—” The son of a bitch had to interrupt me.

“No, fuck! Not my fucking arm. You can’t break my arm.” He growled at me and jumped off the couch, only to fall face first on the floor. I watched him as he tried to crawl like a worm to the back door. I simply put my boot against his back and stopped him from moving.

“Sorry, I just can’t get behind beating a mother for some money.” I grabbed his arm and put it into a stronghold.

“What else could I do? I had to! You guys would have killed me!” He screamed.

“Keep your voice down. We don’t want the neighbors coming over, do we?” I applied the right amount of pressure on his arm. “You had choices. You could have robbed a bank or convenience store. You could have robbed another crew for Christ sakes. I can’t even believe I’m explaining this to you. You fucked up. Now you’ll pay the price.”

I pushed down on the joint and forced it to snap. He wailed like a baby. “My arm! My fucking arm! Why?!”

“Oh, come on. Stop crying. It isn’t all that bad. You’ll go to the hospital and they’ll give you a cast and some painkillers. You love pills, right? Good, it’ll be fun then. You have to admit, it’s a little better than what you did to that woman, right?”

“Take off the zip ties, man.” He moaned, exhausted from pain. I just shook my head. He was going to be left to his own devices on this one. I wasn’t about to help a woman beater.

I got up and collected the bullet casing and any other fragments of shit I might have left in his house. I wiped down the door and door handles, as well as the couch, and made my way to the door. “Pay us the rest. You have ten days. After that, you will take a bullet. You will be buried. And you will be forgotten.”

I slammed the door and made my way to my rental. There was still a lot to be done in Monroe. If Cade was in Detroit somewhere, the family had to be aware. Only, I wasn’t going to tell them. Dad was too old, my brother was too quick to action, and the rest of the guys weren’t in on the job. No, I’d handle this one myself. The next step? The café owner: ‘Carmelo.’

9

Dahlia

Jen failed the test. I picked her up that day after work and she gave me the news. Apparently she was even given an extra twenty minutes to complete it and she failed to answer the last four problems. It was a multiple choice test and she didn’t even guess the ones she didn’t know. She’s starting to worry me. I love her so much, but maybe the bad times with Cade really did mess with her.

“I don’t think I want to go to school anymore, Mom,” she sighed,