28- Inevitable trigger

“They are,” he responded. “I don’t think your father means the government or the police. He means the bank will want extra confirmation.”

“Fine. Let’s all go upstairs, and you can wire the money to the accounts I tell you,” I said. “Stefano isn’t the only one with foreign bank accounts.”

“Morrison, that’s not a good idea,” Stefano said.

“Do you have a better idea? I don’t think you do. Don’t worry so much. I’ll send the money from my accounts to yours as soon as we’re done here. It’s one hiccup. We’ll get everything back on track,” I assured him.

My father sat at the laptop and wired the money to the account numbers I fed him. Fortunately, I’d had them all memorized just in case something like this happened. I learned a long time ago not to count on other people.

Once the deposits were made, I confirmed with the bank that the money had gone through. It didn’t take as long for the transfers to finalize because I didn’t have the same protections in place that Stefano had. It was a concern, but nothing that couldn’t be dealt with once my father was out of the picture.

“I don’t want to shoot you, so you’re going to leave and forget you ever had a son,” I said.

He laughed. “You’re more like me than you want to believe but you’re not very bright. You think if you walk out of here with the money that it’s over? You killed Luigi Farelli. You’ve forced my hand. I’ll have no choice but to hunt you down, and I won’t be the only one.”

“You’re going to make sure that no one actually finds me,” I said. “I’ve put together a little information packet for your friends at the Department of Justice. If you come after me, I’ll have no choice but to make sure it gets to the right hands.”

“Little boy, you’ve made a serious mistake. I have plenty of friends at the Department of Justice. There is nothing you can do to me. You can delay the inevitable but you can’t stop what I’m going to do to you,” he said.

“You’ve got your gun on him, right?’ I asked Stefano. “Yep.”

I put the gun Stefano had given me back in my waistband and walked over to one of my father’s men. I leaned down and plucked his gun from his hand.

“No one will ever know that Stefano and I were here. It will just look like you clashed with Luigi Farelli and nobody made it out alive,” I said and aimed my gun at my father.

“Morrison, please,” my father said, but it wasn’t a plea. He was mocking me. “You should let me go. I’m sure we could work something out.”

“If I let you go now, it will just be delaying the inevitable,” I said and pulled the trigger.

We left immediately. Fortunately, the car was still where we’d left it and we didn’t have to steal one to get to the airport. Morrison called in a favor and said there would be a jet waiting for us on a private runway.

Just to be safe, we ditched the car a couple of miles from the airport and walked the rest of the way. Inside the private area of the airport, I could see that there were actually two jets being fueled on the runway.

“Someone else is leaving too,” I said as we walked past the window.

“No. Those are both for us. One for you and one for me,” Morrison said and stopped at the edge of the window.

“We’re not going together?” I tried not to sound disappointed. I’d obviously read the situation with Morrison completely wrong. He’d played me too. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to leave together, and I believe it’s best if I don’t tell you where I’m going.”

“So that’s it then?” I asked. “We are over?”

“It was fun and games, Stefano. You and I both know that. You wanted to escape and now you can. I can too. We can both have a new life but it can’t start with us together. This is goodbye.”

He put his hand on the back of my neck and tilted my head down. Morrison’s lips met mine and I wrapped my arms around his waist. I pulled him close, as if I could trap him in my gravity.

“Morrison,” I said when our mouths parted. “Yes, Stefano.”

“You haven’t transferred my half of the money.” I mean, kissing him was fun and all, but business was business.

“I was hoping you’d forget,” he said with a wicked smile.

“Everything about you is amazing, Morrison. But even your lips aren’t enough to make me forget five million dollars.”

“Give me a second,” he said and reached for his pocket. “Oh right; I don’t have a phone. Do you have a phone?”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to give you my phone.”

“Oh, come on, Stefano. After everything we’ve been through? I just need to use the internet to transfer you the money. You can stand there and watch me. I’m not going to run off with your phone.” He threw his head back and laughed. It made me smile and let my guard down a bit.

I handed him the phone and watched Morrison furiously type something. “I need an account number,” he said.

I gave him an account number that would hold the money until I could transfer it into one of my safer accounts. It took him a couple of minutes but he finally handed the device back to me.

“You can check. My bank said the deposit went through.”

I punched in the codes and could see that the deposit had completed. It shocked me a little to see that he’d made good on our arrangement.

“My plane leaves in a couple of minutes. Yours will be ready in ten,” he said and kissed me on the cheek.

“You gave yourself a ten-minute head start... For what?” I asked, but Morrison was already walking away. He threw a wave over his shoulder and sauntered off like an Omega without a care in the world.ega without a care in the world.