Chapter 17: The Grain Elevator

Gia sat in the back of the car with her arms wrapped around herself.

She had stopped crying somewhere on the Skyway.

"Left at the rail yard," she said. "Past the empty tank farm. It's the tall one with the broken sign."

"What is it?" I asked.

"The cousin's. It was a grain elevator once."

She swallowed.

"He keeps his bikes there, and the money, and anything Sandro does not want in the restaurant. I carried the envelope there twice."

Raf drove with one hand and held mine with the other.

He had not let go of it since the alley.

"You do not go inside," he said.

"Raf."

"That is not a rule. That is me asking."

"I know," I said. "I will stay in the car."

I meant it when I said it.

The elevator stood against the black lake sky, six stories of concrete and rust, with one yellow light on the top floor.

Raf stopped a hundred yards short, and eight of his men came out of the cars behind us and spread out across the gravel.

The cousin's men were waiting.

I saw them at the loading dock, four of them, with rifles.

Raf's driver was shot in the first minute, in the shoulder, and went down behind a tire.

The noise was enormous.

I sat in the back seat with my father's pistol in my lap and Gia's shoulder pressed against mine.

"They'll kill her," Gia whispered.

"He told me once. If anything went wrong, he'd cut the old woman's throat."

"Who would?"

"The cousin."

I got out of the car.

I do not remember deciding.

Raf had gone in through the side door with four men.

The four men left on the gravel were pinned behind the cars, and the driver was bleeding behind his tire.

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