Karsen and I used each other for warmth as we huddled on the back side of the room. Unlike me, she wore a thick pair of wool socks that allowed her to easily walk around each side of the shed and examine the walls and boarded windows.
“It’s too secure,” she finally said, shaking her head and curling her hands into her chest. “We can’t get out of here without him unlocking the padlock on the other side of the door.”
I couldn’t bring myself to speak as I sat in a tight ball and trembled fiercely. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do this for much longer. I’d been out here for much longer than Karsen, and the cold seemed to keep intensifying the longer we waited.
She came back to my side and sat against me snuggly. “We have to keep warm. We need to use body heat to do it. It’s the only thing we have.”
I agreed and tucked myself into her. Every surface of our bodies touched, but it didn’t seem to make much of a difference as I considered my extremities and the way that I would undoubtedly get frostbite from this. “How did he know?” I finally managed to ask Karsen. “How did he know we told?”
My voice came out so shaky that I nearly couldn’t understand myself, but somehow, Karsen did. “He had listening devices in a lot of rooms, and he heard you telling Bruce the truth. I don’t know why he came and got me. Probably as more leverage to keep himself alive long enough to kill all of us.”
I didn’t doubt that for even a second.
“None of this makes sense,” I admitted. The exhaustion from constantly trembling had my eyes feeling heavy as Karsen snuggled a little closer, pressing into my calf. The bite of leather there had my eyes opening quickly, and I jerked away from her. I reached down to my ankle, and I wondered how the hell I hadn’t thought to do this before.
I still wore the holster that Bruce had given me, and inside was the gun.
I grabbed it and held it between Karsen and me, the metal a cool bite on my fingers. She looked between the gun and me for a moment before squealing and grabbing it. “We can get out with this,” she admitted. “We can get a feel for where the lock is on the door and shoot it open.”
I paused, my mind swirling around an issue that felt just out of reach for my foggy mind. I latched onto the problem, and the air in my lungs whooshed from me. I had been too nervous carrying too many rounds in the gun, knowing how easily someone could disarm me and take it. If I was in danger, I decided that one bullet would be enough. How could it not be?
Except now, we needed more. One wasn’t enough.
“One bullet,” I told her, shaking my head. “We only have one shot at this.”
“Fuck,” Karsen muttered, shaking her head. “Fuck,” she shouted more loudly.
“We have to be smart about this,” I told her. “If we shoot and miss, we’ll be trapped in here without any defense.”
“But if we don’t get out and he doesn’t come back, we’re going to freeze to death,” she countered. “There isn’t one good answer to this problem.”
I knew that the cold had my brain working much more slowly than I would have liked. Her logic made sense, but I had a feeling that he didn’t intend to leave us out here to freeze. He’d had a plan—an idea that likely hinged on us surviving for at least a little while. “He wouldn’t have locked us both in here to freeze to death. There has to be more to it. We should wait, and if he doesn’t come back soon, we try busting the lock.”
I hated the idea of waiting, but it was the most logical choice. We had to get out of this situation, and we needed to get out of it alive. One bullet didn’t guarantee anything.
Karsen sat at my side again, holding it up to face the door. “If anyone comes and opens this door, I’m going to shoot first and ask questions later.”
I nodded and sunk inside myself. I could only survive so long in this cold, and I hoped we had made the right decision. I waited for what felt like hours, but I logically knew it was only minutes before distant footfall sounded alongside a few voices that were too far to hear properly. Somehow, I recognized Bruce as one of them immediately.
“Bruce,” I shouted frantically. “Help.”
My voice didn’t travel nearly as far as I’d hoped, as the cold air had tightened my vocal cords to a nearly painful level. Karsen shouted Jamison’s name, and I could hear the same strain in her own tone as we looked at each other. A new hope blossomed in my chest as I thought about them finding us and getting us out of this shed before Tucker returned. But that hope quickly evaporated as I heard Tucker responding to something either Bruce or Jamison said.
“They’ll get us out,” Karsen said through chattering teeth. “They have to.”
“Bruce,” I shouted again. I feared that something in my voice would be marred permanently if I continued using it, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. “Bruce.”
The footfall grew closer, and I pulled myself to my feet, careful to avoid any sharp wood chips. I used Karsen to balance myself, and she shouted for Jamison at the same time, holding the gun behind our backs.
The padlock on the door jingled, and I listened to the guys on the other side. “We’re coming,” Bruce repeated. “We’re here.”
The door swung open, and the bring night outside had me squinting after adjusting my eyes to the light there. I could tell that Bruce tried to do the same as he stepped toward us, but Tucker was faster. He shoved Bruce out of the way and stormed forward, grabbing me around the waist and holding me in front of him, pressing the barrel of the gun at my stomach.
I gasped and kicked out, but he held me in the air. The warmth I got from his arm seemed to defrost my aching skin in the places he touched me, but that was the least of my concerns right now. “Let her go,” Bruce demanded, but I noticed that he raised no weapon at his brother. He didn’t even step forward.
I realized at that moment that Tucker had the upper hand. If I were a betting woman, I’d say that he’d disarmed Jamison and Bruce before bringing them out here. He’d done all he could to give himself the upper hand in this situation, and holding me in front of him only cemented that upper hand.
Only, he didn’t know that Karsen held a gun behind her back, waiting until the perfect moment to end this.
“You’re not going to gain anything by doing this,” Bruce cemented. “Killing them will get you nothing. And if you kill us, our people will not follow you. I was the one out there building alliances while you didn’t do shit to make a name for yourself, and nothing is going to change that.”
I felt Tucker’s grip tighten on me, but it didn’t faze me. I was so cold, and all I could think about was the warmth that any of these bodies would offer. Even Tucker’s.
“I’m a Trullo, just the same as you, and people will honor that name as they have for years. We have power because of our name, and you’re delusional to think it’s more than that.”
Bruce shook his head, and even I could see the fault in Tucker’s logic. Bruce had certainly done more than exist as a Trullo. He’d shown his strength in a dozen different ways since I came here, and he did everything to make sure his people trusted him and respected him. I’d seen the way people looked at Tucker. He was nothing, and there was no way he’d ever keep the Trullo mafia as powerful and united as Bruce and his father had.
His empire would fall just like the Rizzo’s had.
Bruce shook his head, and the look of hopelessness in his eyes was clear as he looked between his brother and me.
“What do you want?” Bruce asked. “Name your price, and it’s yours.”
“I wanted you to listen to me for the past ten fucking years. I wanted the power that you were handed, and this is the only way I’m ever going to get it. Taking what I’m owed is the only thing I can do, and that’s what I intend to do now.”
Bruce took a step forward, but a click sounded, and he stopped.
Tucker loaded the gun. He was going to shoot me. I knew I’d be the first one to die if everything went sideways, but I couldn’t bring myself to do anything about it. “Stop,” Tucker shouted, and his voice had my ears ringing. “Stop defending yourself. It’s been years, and you’ve never cared—not until now that you stand to lose something. You’ve never stood to lose a fucking thing. Sabrina is going to die today, and you’re going to know that it’s because you were an ignorant man.”
Bruce’s jaw was so tight that I imagined his teeth cracking. “You’ve always been entitled. You’ve always thought that the world owes you something, but nobody ever has. You’ve done nothing to deserve fair or decent treatment, and when I’m dead and gone, you’ll finally see how little you have on your own.” He shook his head. “You have nothing because you are nothing.”
In an instant, I felt myself falling. Then, I felt my body hit the ground with an intense, breath-stealing thud. I shook my head to try to clear the haze from my vision, but black spots were everywhere as I shook uncontrollably. I lay, curling into myself, as I stared up at the barrel of a gun pointed in my face. The cold had entirely consumed me, and no matter how much adrenaline ran through me, it couldn’t convince me to move even an inch.
“And you’re about to have nothing, either.”
A rush of motion came from the side. I couldn’t tell if it was Bruce or Jamison, but one of them rushed into the room and slammed into Tucker. A gunshot exploded, and Karsen screamed. My eyes struggled to track everything that happened in front of me as a second shot exploded, and Tucker cried out in pain.
I closed my eyes, hoping to focus on my vision so I could see who was wounded. Did Bruce jump in front of the bullet for me? Did Tucker shoot me, and I just didn’t feel it because the cold had me numb?
The world continued darkening, and my senses continued dulling, no matter how hard I tried to focus on what was happening around me and who was hurt. Someone was hurt. I could tell from the frantic shuffling all around me and the frantic, muted voices, but everything went black before I could see.
