Read Gangsters with Guns Episode #3 for Free Online

loading dock open and froze to the spot. Someone was coming. Someone might catch him.  
    Heart racing, he tiptoed to the door. He leaned his head against the frame and prayed that whoever had come in would walk right past, that they wouldn’t notice that the door was slightly ajar.  
    “Uncle Aleksei!” his daughter squealed with delight.
    “Masinka!” Cutie .  
    “Want to see what I made?” Becca asked.
    “Of course,” Aleksei said.  
    “This is my mommy and my daddy,” Becca explained.
    With any luck, Aleksei was across the hall in Jack’s office and bent over Becca’s picture. Taking his chance, Jack eased the door open and slipped out.  
    Luck was in short supply. Aleksei stood in the hallway, looking in on Becca and pretending to admire her scribbles from afar.
    “Do you have candy for me?” Becca asked as Jack shut the door behind him. The soft click made him jump. Had Aleksei heard? The last thing he wanted was for his brother-in-law to catch him sneaking around.
    “Let’s go to my office,” Aleksei said and turned.  
    Jack’s paperclips still poked out of the keyhole. He tried to palm them, but fumbled the move and dropped the slim wires to the floor. He stepped on them, hiding them with his shoe.
    “You’re here,” Jack said.
    “You sound surprised.”
    “I was looking for you, that’s all.” But he was surprised. Aleksei was hardly a partner. He strolled in casually, whenever it suited him, in his ridiculous leather pants and partially opened silk shirt, dressed for partying and not for working. He drank more than his share of vodka. He took for granted that Jack would do all of the real work—manage the menu and the deliveries and the waitstaff schedules—and then acted as if he were doing Jack a favor by letting him be his business partner.  
    “I wanted to talk with you about what happened the other night.”
    “Come into my office,” Aleksei said, his usual affable self. How could he be so sunny when his own sister had been raped upstairs? “I promised Becca candy. That’s okay, isn’t it?” He looked guilty. Because of the sweet or because of what had happened?
    Jack dragged his foot along the floor as he moved aside so that Aleksei could unlock the door. He didn’t manage to move the paperclips with him, though, and the unbent metal gleamed accusingly in the hall light.  
    “Your father’s security guy came by last night,” Jack said. If he kept talking, maybe Aleksei would be too distracted to notice Jack’s makeshift lock pick winking at them from the dark carpet runner.
    “You mean Vlad.” Aleksei paused with the key in his hand.
    “Yeah, him,” Jack said. “He asked about the security cameras.” He felt like a child about to get caught at some mischief. But why should he feel guilty?
    Jack and Aleksei had agreed to have security cameras installed throughout the club. Now, when the cameras would have been most useful, after a rape and murder in the ballroom, Jack learned his brother-in-law had skimped on surveillance.
    Surely not because of the money.
    “What about them?”
      Before Jack could formulate his question, Becca inserted herself between them. She rubbed her little hands together. “I love candy!” she said and danced with the enthusiasm of a small child.
    “How could I forget?” Aleksei tossed her in the air and caught her in one arm. Holding her like a shield, Jack thought uncharitably.  
    Aleksei opened the door to his office. He perched Becca on his desk and opened a crystal dish there with chocolate candies, giving her one.
    Aleksei unwrapped the candy for her, showing such affection and attentiveness that Jack suddenly doubted himself.
    Guilt compelled him to turn his head and glance at Katya and Aleksei’s wedding picture. He and Aleksei were drinking buddies, friends, business partners. Aleksei was the uncle to Jack’s children. Jack had come so close to getting caught moments ago. He would have ruined all of that and for what?