My hands fly to my head in a panic. This is getting out of control.
“There… there is someone else,” he stammers through his fear.
“Where?” Stace replies.
“He calls himself Wesley Snipes.”
I roll my eyes. “Now I have heard it all,” I mutter under my breath.
Stace slams his head again into the table. “Where?”
“You’ll find him in the high rollers room at the casino. You can’t miss him. He has bright red hair and dresses like Usher.”
“Do you think this is a joke?” I snap. “I’m not risking my life by going to the high rollers room in the casino and looking for Wesley Snipes dressed as Usher. Let’s go,” I order nervously as I watch Stace hold this guy in a death grip. He’s going to kill him if I don’t get him out of here. “Stace! Let’s go,” I urge again. We have got enough shit to deal with already without him going nuclear on me.
“How long does he take?” Stace snaps.
“Same day.”
Stace thinks for a moment as he holds him in his grip.
“If I could help you, you know I would,” Vernon adds. “You have already put me in shit just for being here. I’m supposed to ring him the moment you arrive.”
“Give us twenty -four hours before you do.” Stace growls. “Or I will be back to finish you off.”
Vernon nods once.
We turn and Stace grabs my hand. We walk as fast as we can up the corridor, through the office, and out into the sunlight of the parking lot. We both look around nervously as Stace unlocks the car and we dive in. He starts the car with a roar and throws his phone at me. “Google gun shops.”
With my heart hammering, I quickly Google Gun shops in Vegas. I wait for the page to load. “There’s one called A-ammo,” I stammer.
“Where is it? Hit maps,” he instructs me.
I hit maps and wait for the little red dot to load. “It’s just up here,” I cry excitedly. I turn and look behind us. Are we being followed? “Second on the left, after this street.”
Stace races toward the shop, and with a couple of turns and with renewed purpose, he parks the car in the street.
“You stay here.”
I look around nervously. The street seems industrial and deserted. I can’t see a soul. “I’m not staying out here on my own. I’m a sitting duck.”
He watches me for a moment and then his eyes flicker around. “Okay, come on, let’s go.”
We get out of the car and casually walk into the shop and straight up to the counter.
“I would like to look at your hand guns, please,” he asks the man behind the counter.
He nods emotionless and retrieves a gun from the glass cabinet and hands it to Stace. He pulls it back and inspects it, and then hands it to me. I look at it and turn it over.
I nod. “Feels good.”
“We will take two with ammunition.”
The guy nods and still while showing no emotion retrieves two boxed up guns. “That will be $389. 00, thanks.”
Stace hands him the cash, and before I know it we are on our way.
The drive back to the Venetian is made in complete silence. We’re both lost in our own thoughts, our own dread of what’s to come. I hold the loaded gun in my hand on my lap in case the unimaginable happens. Funny how the unimaginable has turned into the most probable.
They will come for us eventually, and with no passport, I have no idea how we are going to get out of this.
“What are we going to do?” I eventually ask.
Stace keeps driving and doesn’t answer.
“Did you hear me?” I repeat.
“Yeah, I heard you.” He thinks for a moment. “We can’t go anywhere undetected without passports. We need to be able to get around between countries or we can’t sell the diamonds.”
“I don’t care about the money.” I frown.
“I know, neither do I, but it will make it a lot easier to disappear forever.”
I turn back and stare out the front windscreen. “We shouldn’t even need to be thinking of this, Stace.” My eyes fill with tears. “We are good people. Why have we had to deal with such shit in our lives?”
He grabs my hand and brings it up to his lips. “Shh, it’s okay. It’s going to be alright.”
“H-how?” I stammer. “How is it going to be alright?” The tears are now running down my face. “You heard Vernon. He is threatening peoples lives if they help us. How the hell are we going to get out of here? We can’t catch planes. We have millions of dollars in diamonds in another country that we can’t get to.” I shake my head in disbelief at the situation we are in. “We will run out of money sooner or later. What then?” I ask. “What the hell are we going to do?” I cry.
He thinks for a moment with my hand still in his. “We have two choices.”
I watch him as he drives. “Which are?” I ask.
“We stay and try to get passports to disappear forever.” His eyes flick to me. “Or we run.”
I stare out the car front window as raindrops start to fall. “If we run.” I pause at just how final this feels. “We will always be running.”
“Yes,” he answers honestly. “That’s why we stay and sort this once and for all. I’m not spending our lives on the run. Fuck that.”
Nerves flutter around in my stomach at how angry he is. What’s he going to do if the next guy won’t give us passports?
We drive for ten minutes in silence.
His eyes glance between the road and me. “Prepare yourself. This could get ugly.”
His eyes meet mine and I know he is trying to give me an option to run.
“Stace, I want a life with you. A normal fucking life, not hiding and running, and being unable to hold a job or have children out of fear.”
His eyes watch me as he processes my words.
“We find fucking Wesley Snipes and we get the damn passports and get your mom and we get the hell out of America.”
He nods as he grips the steering wheel, his eyes staying on the road. “I’ve done something.”
What’s he talking about now? “Like what?” I frown.
“I don’t know if it will happen and I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to get your hopes up.”
“But?” I snap.
“I ordered a hit on Vikinos.”
My mouth drops open and I screw up my face. “How?”
“My friend works for the United States Government. I offered thirty million, fifteen million each to two snipers, if they could kill him.”
I watch him with my face filled with horror. What?
“They get at least half of the diamond money if they kill him,” he adds.
I swallow the lump in my throat. “I don’t care about the money,” I whisper.
“I know you don’t, and that’s why I did it.”
I put my head into my hands as the rain starts to really come down. “Do you think they are going to pull it off?” I ask hopefully.
“Nobody had accepted the job last time I checked.”
“Fuck,” I whisper.
He shrugs. “By the time someone accepts it, it may be too late.”
I close my eyes and my mother’s death runs rampant through my mind. “Stace, promise me if they catch up with us that you won’t try and be the hero. I need you to run and not look back. It’s me that they want.”
“And you are a part of me. You’re the part I can’t live without.”
Tears fill my eyes and he kisses my hand again. “We will go back to the hotel and tonight we hit the high rollers room and get those passports.”
I nod as the rain comes down around us, bringing with it a sense of doom.
The end is coming and I know that soon, I will either kill my father… or I’ll be killed.
Either is a nightmare.
God, help me.
Stace lifts his chin triumphantly as we travel in the elevator up to the high roller room in the casino. We are both dressed to the nines and I have my boobs out to sweeten the deal. The stupid blonde wig is back on. I may as well look the part, I suppose. This is the one place it does suit the surroundings.
“You look beautiful.” Stace smiles as he leans in and kisses me gently on the lips.
I smile stupidly up at him as an idea comes to mind. “If we get passports tonight.” I kiss him again. “Can we get married tonight by Elvis in the chapel?” I widen my eyes in excitement.
He frowns down at me and wraps his arms around my waist. “You want to marry me in an Elvis chapel in Vegas?”
I shrug. “Well.” I laugh, it does sound ridiculous when he says it out loud. “Yes, kind of.” I kiss him again. “We haven’t done anything traditional so far. It seems like a shame to start now?”