John Miller - Inside Out

Manelli's blue eyes were suddenly curious. “When was you in my boathouse?”

“Russo told your clowns to drown us.” Winter kept the SIG aimed at Sam's head, wanting to squeeze the trigger.

“I don't believe that,” Sam growled. “Why would he do a thing like that and not tell me? When?”

“Fifteen minutes ago. A creep named Spiro and two guys grabbed us. Russo came to the boathouse and said for them to drown us in your crab cage. One of them shot my partner.”

“Is Hank all right?” Sean asked, genuinely concerned.

“Will be soon as the assault team gets here.” Winter took the handcuffs from his jacket pocket and tossed them onto the bed. “Put those on him, Sean.”

“That's not necessary,” Sean said.

“You're a crazy man,” Sam barked. “How does Johnny know you? What reason would he have to kill you?”

“Shut up, Manelli. Cuff him, Sean, or I swear to God, I'll drop this psychopath right here.”

“Winter, he didn't know they tried to kill me on Rook or in Richmond. It was a mistake.”

“Who the hell else would want you dead? He got Hoffman to send those men after Dylan, didn't he?”

“You can't prove that,” Sam protested.

“He didn't send them after me.”

“So it's all right because they only killed everybody else?”

“I didn't mean it that way. Of course it isn't okay.”

“For Christ's sake, Sean! Why the hell would you believe him?”

“Winter, Sam's my father.” Winter saw a framed picture on the bedside table. In it a smiling child of ten or eleven held a shotgun in one hand and a dead duck in the other.

Winter let that sink in as he studied her eyes. His confusion melted away, leaving him feeling every scrape and bruise on his body.. and completely out of patience.

“Then cuff Daddy or I will kill him,” he said with a certainty that he knew left no room for doubt.

Winter found Johnny Russo standing in front of the wet bar with his back to the archway, holding his cell phone up to his ear. The L-shaped bar, on Winter's left was eight feet long, four deep, and its closed end faced the archway wall. The front was made of stacked cypress beams, identical to those used in the archway, and topped with a two-inch-thick slab of granite.

To Winter's right was a wide gun cabinet filled with shotguns. In front of him, living room furniture faced the stone fireplace, which was centered in a wall of glass.

“Spiro, you bonehead prick. Turn on your damned phone,” Russo muttered.

“He can't get a signal in hell,” Winter said.

Russo spun around to the sight of Winter, standing in the archway aiming two guns at him.

Winter was primed with anger. Russo was responsible for what had happened to Hank and him in the boat shed. He wouldn't hesitate to make this strutting silver-haired prick doornail dead.

“Just a minute!” Russo put his phone on the bar, keeping his hand there.

“Step away from the bar,” Winter commanded. He already knew that Russo wasn't armed. Sam had told Winter that Johnny's. 357 was behind the bar, where he'd set it down when he came in earlier that afternoon.

Slowly Russo smiled. “You're no deputy marshal. Why didn't you just say you was with Lewis? Sam and Sean are in that first bedroom, and you can clip 'em easy-Sam's not packing.”

Who is Lewis? What others? Winter couldn't imagine who he was talking about. He didn't get a chance to ask.

“You're dead!” Sam's voice boomed from the hallway behind Winter.

Johnny Russo's face seemed to sag as Sam Manelli passed Winter and stepped into the room. The fact that his wrists were handcuffed in front of him didn't seem to make Russo feel any safer.

Sean stood at Winter's right side.

“Stop right there, Manelli!” Winter ordered.

“You ain't getting away with this,” Manelli growled at Russo. “You been trying to get Sean clipped! You just told this bird to kill us. I don't know how you got Herman to double-cross me and try to kill my kid, but I am gonna find out. You better talk quick or I'm gonna kill you.”

“It was Herman's idea. He set it all up for the three million.” Russo's face was pale and sweat glistened on his forehead.

“And you knew about it? Why was he going to kill Sean?”

“Sam… you… you were gonna leave her everything legit and I wouldn't have any way to hide my street money. It was just business.” Russo stepped back, hands outstretched in supplication. “We're talking millions of dollars. You'd have done the same thing.”

“She's my kid! I decide what to do with what's mine. You supposed to make your own legitimate businesses-”

“I don't need any more of your money,” Sean told Sam.

“You gonna get it, though,” Sam snapped at Sean. “And that's that.”

“Johnny, I gave you and Rose the cab company as a wedding present, for Christ's sakes, and it's a solid business. My legits was always supposed be Sean's. I never gave you reason to think my niece was gonna get any more of what's mine. I gave you the whole other side of the business.”

“If Herman's men had done it right, there wouldn't be any question about that.” Russo was regaining his composure, knowing that Winter wouldn't let Sam touch him. “You're finished Sam. It's all mine now.”

“I'm gon' kill you, Johnny. By God…”

“Why don't you call your men, Sam? You'll see they won't come unless I call them.”

Sam moved forward. “I'll show you who's done-”

“Not one more step, Sam!” Winter warned. “Who is Lewis?” Winter demanded.

Winter was alerted to activity downstairs by sounds rising up from the stairwell behind him-something shattered, and there were sounds like kitchen furniture being moved. Thinking the downstairs guards were on their way up, he aimed the Hi-Power back at the stairwell behind him while keeping the SIG on Russo and Manelli. “I don't give a damn who they answer to. If those men come up, I'll kill them,” Winter reminded Sam. He didn't trust Sam any more than he did Russo. He didn't believe, as Sean did, that Sam was interested only in protecting her. He had allowed Sean to overhear Sam confronting Russo, but that was the only concession he was willing to make-and that was because he wanted her to hear the truth.

“Who is Lewis?” Winter repeated.

“You can ask him yourself.”

Winter turned just as a pair of armor-clad figures stepped out from the stairwell. He fired the Hi-Power at them before they could bring their machine guns to bear, and he shouldered Sean toward the wall where the gun cabinet stood. He took cover behind the left vertical beam.

Even without their yelling out “police,” Winter knew their weapons and the full-body armor marked them as the enemy. Had he hesitated a fraction of a second before firing on the figures, the cutouts would certainly have killed him and Sean.

While Winter fired down the hall, Sam scrambled after Sean.

Russo took cover behind the bar. “Come get these sons of bitches!” he shouted gleefully. As he got his magnum from behind the bar. Winter knew the wet bar was as bulletproof as the beam he was depending on to keep him alive, which meant he was going to be fighting a war on two fronts. Unless Chet's men arrived soon, it would be a short skirmish.

The cutouts recovered and fired up the hallway into the great room. The sounds of the bullets striking objects was louder than the MP5 muzzle blasts. The fusillade filled the air. The thick glass windows beside the fireplace exploded and sheets of heavy glass crashed to the floor.

Sam kicked the glass out of the gun cabinet and pulled out a long-barreled, side-by-side ten-gauge L.C. Smith goose gun. Sean, understanding that her father couldn't use the shotgun with his hands cuffed, took it from him as he opened the drawer for shells.