Murder in the Magic City: A Micah Brantley Story, G.P. Sorrells [reading comprehension books TXT] 📗

me?” Medina stood up, a vein pulsing in his forehead, as he contemplated throwing his glass at Micah. A single, futile effort to give him even the slimmest glimmer of hope that he could make it out with his life. But reality hit him like a ton of bricks almost immediately. He slumped back into the seat and gulped the amber liquid. Chasing it soon after with a swig directly from the bottle.

“You’re delusional if you think anything started once I came into the picture.” Medina opened the envelope and removed a cellphone and a set of keys. “Right now, you’re probably wondering who’s outside. Curious as you may be about the contents of the envelope, that question just keeps nagging at you. The answer is simple. It’s the Good Ole Boys.”

“What the hell do they want? I don’t have any beef with them.”

“Oh, but you do. A little while back, Jimmy had me run a job with him. We met up with some of those guys on a little gun deal.” Medina looked at him, perplexed. “Yea, I had a feeling you didn’t know about that move. It was a bit too quiet to have been a sanctioned gig. Well, things went south while we were conducting our business. A few of their guys ended up dead and we left with all their valuables. Drugs, guns, the whole nine. Jimmy had been doing this for a little while and only brought me in once he knew he could trust me.”

“That turned out to be a mistake,” Medina said. The rum coursed through his veins at rocket speed; its effects bringing a bit of calm to his being. “Still doesn’t explain the purpose of the phone and keys.”

“The keys are for the padlocks on the storage units where we kept everything. Couldn’t exactly take it back to my place without arousing suspicion from the misses, and Jimmy didn’t want to risk having it in a spot so obviously tied to himself. The phone? That’s got GPS tracking for the Good Ole Boys. I texted them the number before I came in here and let them know how to find their stuff. Said the keys were going to be in the same spot as the phone.”

The gunshots were close enough that the two men could hear the accompanying thuds of bodies with an unpleasant clarity.

“You really are a motherfucker, Micah.”

“I’ve been called worse. Truth be told, that’s probably letting me off easy.”

“Just answer me one question.”

Micah looked down at his watch, estimating how much time Medina had left before his rope frayed into nothing but loose strands. “Shoot.”

“Why’d you do it? Why throw this all away to appease some redneck, cousin-fucking idiots that probably can’t even afford to pay you back for the tip?”

“How about I answer your questions with one of my own,” Micah said, standing up and walking around to the backside of the desk. The throbbing headache hadn’t abated, but he was determined to take advantage of the moment. To find answers to a question he only recently searched for answers to. “Did you order Jimmy to boost a lockbox from some poor schmuck’s house? Guy had a daughter. Didn’t make it. From the way things looked, the guy probably wasn’t supposed to make it either.”

Medina sat quietly. At first, Micah assumed he had been deep in thought, racking his brain for a reason he had made the call. Or, possibly, formulating an excuse for why it didn’t happen. A full minute later, he was still silent, and it became glaringly obvious that he wouldn’t willingly share the information. Micah removed his pistol from its holster, pulled back the slide to chamber a round, and aimed it squarely at Medina’s chest.

Medina let out a hearty chuckle. “I’m already dead, pendejo. You saw to that. Only thing that gun is going to do is speed up this process.”

“Tell me what I want to know,” Micah said, his grip tightening. Medina smirked. In an instant, the gun spun around in Micah’s hands, his arm raised up, and then crashed down, the cold steel connecting with the side of Medina’s head. “Why did you do it? Tell me, and I’ll allow you some peace before the hillbillies arrive.”

“Piece of shit,” Medina choked. He placed a hand on his head and glared at Micah. “Why the hell does it matter to you? It wasn’t your kid.”

“There’s a time when I would’ve agreed with you.” Micah raised a leg, rested his foot on the front edge of the chair Medina was sitting in, and kicked it over to a nearby window. “I’m not so sure that’s the case anymore.”

“Unless this is some body snatcher shit, you’ve got zero paternal claim. The kid who died in that shitshow of a job…”

“Murdered. The piece of shit you had Jimmy hire to do the job murdered her in cold blood. Whole life ahead of her, only to have it snatched away so you could sleep easy with a few extra Andrew Jacksons in your mattress.”

“It wasn’t supposed to go down like that. The house was supposed to be empty, so the guy Jimmy hired could get in and out with no witnesses.”

“But you didn’t make sure someone scouted the place beforehand. No, that would’ve made too much goddamn sense.”

“I still don’t understand what any of this has to do with…”

Micah raised the gun and shot Medina in the leg, obliterating his kneecap. “That’s for Madeline.” He holstered the gun and walked toward the back door.

“Just kill me, you piece of shit,” Medina seethed.

“You don’t deserve the satisfaction.”

As Micah stepped out onto the balcony, he heard a loud pounding on the door to Medina’s office. He hurled himself over a nearby hedge and trotted away from the home. Moments later, a barrage of gunshots filled the air.

Chapter 57

Micah casually walked down the street, averting his gaze from passersby, and attempting to appear oblivious to the commotion coming from inside Medina’s home. To curious onlookers,