Page 41 of Deceitful Oath
Hello, I’ll be 10 minutes late tonight. Sorry!
Hey Mr. Mancini, we need more Bacardi. Also, can you order those little maraschino cherries?
Lux, I need you for inventory on Sunday. Double-check the tequila this time.
And on and on it goes. Nothing incriminating.
I rub my eyes, shutting the laptop, and lean back in my chair. I just spent the last two hours reading absolutely innocent messages between a bartender and her employer.
Could Vince be wrong? Maybe she really didn’t do it. But if it wasn’t her, the only other suspects are my father’s closest associates.
My phone rings and I snatch it up. “What is it?”
“Are you at the office?” Vince asks, sounding the slightest bit more animated than usual.
“Yeah…”
“You might want to meet me at the docks,” he says, short of breath. I hear tussling in the background and something heavy crashes.
“Are yourunningright now?”
“Rafael, get your ass to the docks,” he repeats. “We have a problem.”
I stare at my phone in shock. The call disconnected. I’ve never heard Vince so stressed. I grab my jacket and strap my gun on underneath it, nearly sprinting to the elevator.
My body buzzes with anticipation and adrenaline as I race to the docks, dodging morning traffic. I try calling Vince back but get no answer. Enzo doesn’t pick up either. I have no idea who else is down there and don’t want to cause panic, so I go in blind.
When I pull up to the docks, I swing around into our private parking lot. My father’s warehouse—mine now—looms in front of me, dark and silent. The sun sits high in the sky, making the old metal structure shimmer like the water that surrounds it.
I step out of the car, keeping a low profile. Since I have no idea what I’m about to walk into, I stick to the shadows as much as I can.
I’m flattened against the back wall of the warehouse, peeking around the corner to assess the entrance when a huge arm grabs me.
I nearly shoot off Vince’s foot but stop myself in time.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I growl, glancing around us. There’s no one here from what I can see. He pulls me against the building, silencing me.
“We have intruders,” he says, his voice low. “They’re inside. They have four men keeping watching, but they’re crafty fuckers…positioned them on different boats so that the entrance looks clear.”
“And I almost walked out into that.”
“You couldn’t know,” he assures me, “I would have given you more information, but I wasn’t fully informed either.”
“How many of our guys are here?”
“We have ten of ours,” he answers, glancing down at his phone. “And Enzo just informed me there’s at least six of theirs inside, according to the cameras.”
“Who the hell would be ballsy enough to walk into my warehouse in broad daylight?”
Vince glances up at the sky skeptically. “It’s a good time as any if you’re confident enough.”
“Is it Mancini’s crew?” I wonder. Fuck, I spent all morning searching through Lux’s messages when I should have been focused on Mancini.
“Doubtful, but…”
A gunshot rings out, interrupting his words. We drop to the ground, unsure of where it came from. I hear a flurry of activity from the front and start army crawling to the side of the building. I can hear Vince grunting and moving after me.
I peek around the corner, keeping myself low as another shot rings out. A body flies off a nearby boat into the water. Someone runs out of the warehouse and they’re instantly shot down. I glance back at Vince, his phone glued to his ear.