Page 51 of Hate to Love You
I’d really hate for her to be right.
Although, I bet she would get a little satisfaction saying it over my casket.
“We don’t get to choose when we die, Roman, we’re just guaranteed it will happen.”
That was what my father said to me at my mother’s funeral.
At the time I was furious with him because I felt that it was specifically his over-publicized antics with his stupid whore that had pushed my mother into an early grave. And perhaps it was.
But now, I realize he was right. In a way.
Unlike most of the bullshit my father fed me over the years, this little nugget of advice has stuck with me. Every time we’re deliberately heading into a dangerous situation, and I feel my nerves start to strangle the air from my lungs, I’m reminded that we aren’t owed shit from life.
…Which is why we must take it.
Silently, Lev hands me a fresh loaded clip, and we pull up outside of the warehouse. The first thing that strikes me as odd, is the fact that there are no other cars here.
“Is this the right one?” I ask, looking around before touching my ear. “Niko, do you have eyes on us?”
“Roger that, Ro,” Niko says, the wind from his rooftop position breaking up his transmission. “But there really doesn’t appear to be anyone else here.”
“You’ve got the thermal imaging that Pace sent?”
“Yeah, and it’s amazing!” Niko calls back. “I’ve got it on the drone, but the only heat signatures are coming from your car.”
As he says this to me, I get a text from the same phone number as before:
Hairless Twat
11:25pm: Come on in. We’re waiting.
The hair on the back of my neck stands up.
“Cal, are our little aqua-troops ready to go?”
“Yes, Boss,” he replies with a short nod. “They’re in the boats, on standby.”
“...And I’ve got you, Ro,” Niko says in my ear. “I’ll let you know if any red pops onto the screen.”
“Well then, what are we waiting for, ladies?”
As the three of us climb out of the vehicle, the potent smell of fish mixed with gasoline and dirt hits my nostrils. But confirming what Niko said, there doesn’t appear to be anyone here. It doesn’t even feel like there’s anyone here.
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always been able to feel when there was danger nearby. Almost like a sixth sense. When we were younger, Cal used to call it my superpower, because I could just feel when something in the energy was…off.
It feels off now, but not in the way it usually does when there’s an armed gunman approaching me from the shadows.
“Keep your eyes open,” I say softly.
I listen carefully, trying to catch a single sound out of place. But all I can hear is the faint hum of the drone above the waves splashing in the harbor or the groan of empty old fishing vessels bumping into the dock.
As a birthday gift, Jaxon Pace, a mafia don from Chicago, and longtime friend of mine, sent me the state-of-the-art imaging software that one of his tech men had designed. My brother Niko was fascinated and spent hours with Ana figuring out how to upload it to his drone.
“Do you have anything now, Niko? Since we’re out in the open?” I ask as the three of us on the ground approach the old warehouse door.
“Not a blip, Ro,” Nikolai replies in my ear. “No sigs.”
“Are you sure this is the right place, Cal?” Lev asks.