Poker Face ✔

Chapter 22

I walked down the stairs slowly. In the distance, I could hear the screams bouncing back and forth between the walls.

"Cotton!" I heard Aunt Kat cry.

I ran through the house where I found them all arguing.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"You can't stop me" Cotton exclaimed, storming out of the mansion with a Colt 45 caliber.

My eyes widened.

"What the fuck is he doing?" I cried.

"Shit" Aunt Kat screamed in fear.

"What the fuck is going on?" I repeated.

"He's going to get himself killed!" Aunt Kat yelled, grabbing her coat and black desert eagle.

I thought I knew exactly what was about to happen. I didn't know it was worse then any of us could have foreseen.

My body then overwhelmed with fear.
"Don't tell me-"

"He wants to blow the heads off of the Larrunzarios" she cried.

My cousin Cotton was going to avenge Chris and Zac by killing some Larrunzario's. In the history of Ashtons vs Larrunzarios, it always ends up in blood shed.

"He's what?" Uncle Donny gasped, entering the room with wide eyes.

Uncle Donny was the peacekeeper in the family. All he wanted to do was prevent all of us from being harmed.

"Where's Aunt Christina?" Michael asked, entering the hallway with Miranda and my dad.

Aunt Christina was Cotton's mother (and my dad's sister). She needed to be updated on what was happening.

"Russia" Dad started "assassinating-"

"What are we going to do?" Miranda asked with fear in her voice.

"What else can we do?" Michael shrugged "we've got to stop this!"

"Wait, what about uncle Nate?" Miranda pointed out.

We never did anything without Uncle Nate's approval. That night demonstrated exactly why that was.

"If we leave now he won't know a thing" aunt Kat clenched her jaw as we begin exiting the mansion.

"Do you actually believe that?" I whispered in her ear.

We both knew very well, that Uncle Nate knew everything.

"No, but if we leave now he'll be fifteen minutes or so behind us," she said.

I knew that it wasn't a good idea. We were walking into enemy territory without a plan. We were just going to grab Cotton and leave, but that was never going to work. I had to be there to watch it all unfold, if not, I would have never forgiven myself.

I remember the feeling inside of my stomach as we drove our BMW to Crimson Lake. Crimson Lake was near the Larrunzario mansion, which is where we knew Cotton had gone. It didn't even occur to me until we were getting out of the car at Crimson Lake that Gabe could be there. For the first time in a long time, I felt an uncontrollable fear. I had seen Gabe hours earlier that night, I was hoping that he was still in New York.

We quickly jumped out of the car, took our weapons and went onto Crimson lake where we heard a gunshot. My heart sank as we all exchanged looks. Uncle Donny looked the most fearful, and rightfully so. Uncle Nate made us all we promise after Jason's funeral that none of us would associate ourselves with the Larrunzarios again — and this was why.

We didn't intend to kill anyone or to cause any trouble, we just had to get Cotton out of there. I kept telling myself that what we were doing that night was completely different to what my Aunt Jess did years earlier. She got herself mixed up with gangs and pulled jobs that weren't planned by uncle Nate. We don't know for certain if the Larrunzario's were behind her murder but Uncle Nate was always pretty certain.