Ruthless: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance by Lauren Landish

matched pistols. "We start with these, and then we'll move on from there. What experience do you have with them?"
    “Does Call of Duty count? No, seriously, not a whole lot, but one of my old co-workers was a gun nut. He was one of those old-school gun fans, ready with his Garand for the collapse of Western civilization or the zombie apocalypse people. He taught me some stuff."
    "Like what?"
    "Enough to tell that those AKs that I delivered to Tacoma a few weeks ago had enough aftermarket parts to obscure that they were old Yugoslavian copies instead of real Russian ones," I replied. Tomasso looked surprised, and I nodded. "The parts on the Yugoslavian ones are stamped instead of milled. Better than the Chinese copies, though."
    "Good catch. Yeah, Dad and I both didn't like it, but those Vietnamese guys insist on having their AKs and being cheap about it. At least with us doing the deal, we know how much they're getting. But back to today's business. How well do you shoot?"
    "Let's find out."
    We set up our target, a dense foam rubber-backed competition target at just about fifteen feet, not far away, but a good start.
    I tried, firing a five-round mini-clip at the target before we paused and checked my progress. "Hey, that's not bad," Tomasso said, looking at the collection of holes on the paper. "Four out of five in the black zone, and all five hit paper. Nice work. Let's have you step back some, and we'll try it again."
    We kept going, and by the end of an hour, he was confident enough in what I could do. We finished with a little old-fashioned plinking, shooting empty cans that Tomasso had positioned on rocks that made a satisfying sight flipping into the air with each hit. Afterward, Tomasso chuckled and went around to the trunk of his car, popping it open. "Now for the fun part?"
    "What's that?" I asked, making sure my pistol was clear. "Rifles?"
    "Nope . . . cleaning," he replied, pulling out what looked like a fishing tackle box. "You know those crappy AKs? If they're cleaned, they can actually work pretty well. But we keep our tools cleaned and ready. I don't know what every man working for my father does, but my crew . . . we're going to be professionals."
    I nodded, breaking down my pistol to its base components and getting to work without complaint. As I wiped down the outside before starting on the barrel with the bore swabs, Tomasso did the same with the other pistol, which he'd fired only a few times for his own practice. "Thanks again. Today was . . . fun."
    "It won't all be fun," Tomasso said. "Tonight, you have a job to do for me."
    My toothbrush, which was getting unburned flecks of gunpowder out of the trigger assembly, stopped for a moment before I resumed cleaning. "Okay. What do you want me to do?"
    "This mission . . . all about getting your respect back," Tomasso said. "I won't have these numb nuts calling you Dumbass Degrassi, or 'âm hộ lớn', or Rat-boy."
    It was that last one that hurt the most, because the name wasn't aimed at me as much as it was aimed at my father. "My dad wasn't a rat. And I'm no rat, either."
    "I know you're not," he said, "and I didn't ever say you were. I want all those names gone by the time the rest of the crew is put together, and you start that tonight."
    "What do you want me to do?" I asked, starting back on my pistol.
    "You're going back to Tacoma," Tomasso said as he grabbed the little can of compressed solvent and sprayed his own pistol's action. "Those guys owe us a payment, and you're going to be the guy who picks it up. If they give you any disrespect, you handle business."
    "As in?"
    Tomasso reassembled his Beretta in seconds and gave me an even look. "Why do you think I brought you out here to see if you could shoot? It shouldn't come to that. Those guys will back down if you show strength. So you're going to go down there tonight and come back with twenty thousand in cash. Oh, and to help you out a little, you're taking one of my cars. No offense. I know you