𝐓𝐨𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡

𝟓𝟏 | 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐚𝐧 𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐞

"Do you all remember our plan?" Tom asked after a few minutes of detailed planning.

„The plan we discussed five minutes ago?" Otto said, sitting in the back of the van. His arms and legs were tied with a thin rope. He had a scarf around his neck to cover his mouth for a moment. „Hmm, I don't remember him, will someone refresh my mind?" He joked.

Tom sighed out loud. A gray cloud came out of his mouth because of the cold. It was three o'clock in the morning and we all looked tired on the outside. However, adrenaline flowed inside our bodies, which was slowly followed by fear.

„I'm sorry, I'm a little nervous," he apologized. „I still can't believe I'm going to do it after almost two months. I should have tried it a long time ago. But I was afraid I would come across someone who works for Mercado. The man has under his thumb almost the whole-"

„He had," I corrected him with a stony face, noticing that Leo was frowning. What's wrong with him again?

„He had," Tom repeated, „almost the whole city under his thumb. If they found out about it, it would be over for me. And Andrea too. I couldn't take the risk." Tom confessed anxiously, and I had to work hard to perceive him. With my thoughts, I kept running to our plan and imagining all possible catastrophic scenarios. This had to work, this had to...

„Ria?" Tom asked me. His timing was great. A few seconds more of such thinking and my mind would forever be immersed in a world in which the people I care about die repeatedly.

I forced myself to answer.

„Yeah?"

„I asked if you were ready," Tom explained. "But if you don't want to do it, I'll understand," he added with a faint hint of a smile.

„No," I replied sternly and confidently. „Let's do it. Now or never." Tom nodded, threw a gun at me, and I slammed into the van. I tied a scarf around Otto and Leo's mouths. Otto was calm. At first, Leo twitched himself, signaling that he didn't like it. I almost fell on him. I made sure his knot was much stronger than Otto's.

„Awesome. I'm finally going for what's mine," Tom said happily, moving to the driver's seat. Tom's friend, only seventeen-year-old Patrick, whose he met at Mercado's, sat on the passenger's seat. He had only worked for him for a week, but he hated his boss and waited for him to die so he could escape. Tom called him here when he arrived and asked him to come with a van. His plan was to fool Mercado's loyal companions. He wanted to tell them that he saw me running outside, he was watching me and I led him to Otto and Leo. Although I ran away from him, he stunned the boys, captured them, and drove them back to the McCarthy Hotel to lure me into a trap. I was supposed to hide in the empty boxes in the van and wait for the signal. Leo initially insisted that it was me who isn't supposed to play a major role in this plan.

„I don't understand why she has to go there, too," Leo complained as he divided the tasks. „She is useless. She will be a burden for us."

„Could you stop talking about me in the third person? I'm sitting right next to you," I reminded him. Leo didn't give me the slightest glance and he was looking through Tom. „I'm also not very excited about you taking part in this mission, but I have no problem throwing it in your face," I snapped venomously. The skin on my body stretched like a string. Leo didn't even move. „HEY!" I shouted at him, waving his hand in front of his face. He pushed it hard against the table just seconds later.

He finally looked at me. Leo's left eyes mesmerized mine and blunted the pain of the man's grip.

„Stop it," Tom warned us. At first, he did it calmly, but when he saw that we aren't reacting to anything, he raised his voice. „I TOLD YOU TO STOP IMMEDIATELY!"