Chapter 28 · Live Across the River

Chapter 28: Live Across the River

"It's Sal, don't put a blade in me!" The shout came out of the smoke before the boot did, and then Sal was climbing over the crumpled hood with both hands up, palms out, a headset still looped around his neck. "The truck, Luca. The truck's live. You said hit the feed the second we had the recording in the room."

Luca didn't lower the second knife. Not yet. "You could've called."

"Your phones are dead, remember? Dead-signal suite, dead-signal everything. I had to drive it through the damn wall."

Reyes was still on his knees at the podium, his hand pinned flat to the wood, blood running down into his sleeve where Luca's first blade had gone through. He was screaming for his men to re-aim, and twenty guns swung between the SUV, Luca, and me like nobody could decide who to be more scared of.

"Nobody fires in this room," my father said into the open mic, and for one second his voice still had that silky campaign-ad calm. "We are going to handle this like civilized—"

"Civilized." I said it before I even decided to.