Losing Lila Read Online Free PDF Page A

said, “ It’s your funeral ,” but he’s taking us to see the boss.’
    ‘Great,’ I said.
    ‘I shouldn’t have brought you,’ Alex muttered, frowning as he looked over his shoulder.
    ‘You had no choice, Alex,’ I reminded him, nudging him with my elbow. ‘You’re not allowed to leave me, remember?’
    He put his arm round me in answer, pulling me tight against his side, but I could see the way his jaw was clenched.
    We headed down a back alley and stopped in front of a heavy, reinforced door. The dealer knocked loudly three times. A bolt slid back on the other side and then the door cracked open a fraction. There were raised voices inside – the dealer was talking to someone behind the door. Whoever it was didn’t sound too happy. I clutched Alex’s hand tighter and prayed he knew enough Spanish to get us through this. And that if he didn’t, he had enough bullets in his gun.
    The door finally cracked open another few centimetres and the dealer stepped out of the way, letting the light from inside fall in a strip on Alex and me. I threw back my shoulders and tried to look as relaxed as Alex did. He was veering on the nonchalant, acting as if fronting up to drug dealers was something he did every single day of his life. There was a moment’s silence and then the door swung wide on its hinges. We stepped inside and the door slammed shut behind us with a solid clang .
    Before I could get a glance at the room or who was in it, a hand shoved me roughly against the wall. Other hands started patting up my legs, working their way up to my hips and waist – where the patting became more like groping. I let out a yelp as a hand squeezed my butt, then drew in a deep breath, trying to remember what Alex had said about not revealing my ability unless I absolutely had to. The hand slid round my ribcage and I gritted my teeth, wondering at what point we reached absolutely.
    ‘ La chica no tiene armas! ’ Alex shouted. ‘She’s unarmed! We’re both unarmed.’
    Alex was unarmed? I twisted my head to look at him, forgetting all about the hands groping me. Alex was spreadeagled against the wall next to me, as the biggest man I’d ever seen held a gun to the small of his back and patted him down for a weapon. I gaped at Alex. For an entire week, he’d been surgically attached to his gun and then, when we pay a visit to a Mafia boss, he decides it’s time to detach himself from weaponry? He shook his head at me ever so slightly, a warning look in his eyes.
    The man holding me against the wall let me go finally and I jerked round. I was ready to lash out, could feel the anger coiling inside me, as I tried to shrug off the lingering sensation of fat fingers pressing into my thighs, but it drained away instantly, ice-cold fear flooding my system instead as I registered the four men in front of us.
    The one who’d been groping me had a scar running the length of his cheek. It was puckered like a silk scarf that had snagged on a thorn. He was staring at me, glassy-eyed, his tongue poking out between his teeth. The one beside him had a tattoo flowering from his chest and winding up round his neck of a snake twined round a naked, large-breasted woman. The third man – the one who’d been patting down Alex – was a solid mountain of muscle. It would take a battering ram just to get through him, never mind the door. I edged closer to Alex instinctively as my eyes finally lit on the fourth man.
    He was sitting behind a table at the back of the room. He was older than the others, his hair shaved to the skull, and he had razor-sharp cheekbones below eyes as sunken and dark as pits. His shirt was open to the navel and a large crucifix hung against his tattooed chest. He didn’t exactly look like Tony Soprano, but he was, without doubt, what my dad would have called of the criminal persuasion . He could definitely pass for a Mafia boss. Or a psycho killer. Whichever. Alex took a small step forward, as if he could somehow