Dante stood up and squared off with me. “That’s bullshit, and you know it.”
“I’m not Luc, Dante. I’m a mobster. That’s me. Sure, I would do anything for her, but if you’re going to tell me to be Luc, then I wouldn’t be me.”
“Jesus Christ, what the hell?” Dante smirked. “I wasn’t going to say that. Luc’s a real badass, but you two are different to each other. That’s not the issue here. Has it ever crossed your mind that she must have known what she was getting herself into went she hooked up with you?”
I didn’t want to think about that. My mind was made up. It was just as I’d said to Ava. If you love someone, you have to know when to let them go.
“It’s the right thing to do.”
“She might not think so,” Gio added. “She saw the darkness our world could have more than once and didn’t run from you.”
Fucking Gio and his wisdom. There. That was one thing I’d never factored in. It still didn’t matter though.
“Asshole.”
He laughed when I frowned. “And you’re a fucktard, boss. Also, while we’re name-calling and being jerks, you should have just asked us straight if we were the rats. What you goin’ to do about Alex and Jude?”
“I don’t know. I’m thinking. That’s the part I hate. I don’t want to be right.”
“It’s too coincidental for you not to be right,” Dante added. “I don’t know if it’s the both of them though. That’s the part that bothers me.”
“I think it’s fucking Alex. Jude has better common sense than that. Alex is an opportunist.” Gio scowled.
“Hey,” Dante cut in before I could answer. He motioned below. “Looks like we got movement.”
I turned to see two black sedans pull up in the complex parking lot. The cars stood out against the other family-type cars like station wagons and hatchback Vauxhalls that had parked around.
I held up my binoculars to get a closer look at our new arrivals.
Dante was right. Barabbas stepped out of the back of the car. The driver, his cousin Freddo, out of the front. On the left was my dear friend Joe Manello with Cousin Corey, arm bandaged up.
On the right side of the back though was someone who made my blood freeze.
Goliath.
Goliath!
I dropped the binoculars, and my hands reached down to grab my guns on instinct like I was programmed to do that. Reach for my guns and end him.
End the fucking bastard before he could draw another breath.
I charged in motion like a bull ready for action. Ready to kill.
But hands held me back. Two very strong arms held me back.
Dante and Gio.
“Don’t fucking do it, Claudius,” Dante snarled.
“Let me go,” I growled.
Gio tightened his grip on me. “Claudius, we are vastly outnumbered. Look.”
I’d been looking, but all I could see was Goliath with that smug expression on his face. Dressed in one of those hooded coats with fur around the collar and a mohawk lining the middle of his big head. Tall as fuck.
With my eyes on him and my soul telling me to end him because it had been my mission for so long, what I didn’t see was the envoy of sedans that had pulled up. Ten more cars, and out of them stepped some of the worst people I knew of.
More Antonellas, Manellos, and fuck, even a few Salvatores.
Those were people above me.
I owned Chicago, but next to them, I was a small fish flapping against an ocean of sharks.
It was them and their bodyguards. Men who looked like my Four, just more of them.
I didn’t care. I wanted Goliath.
“Claudius, they will end you before you get a bullet in his head. One of him amongst a sea of mobsters. And we just have our guns. We’re not prepared.”
“This is my chance.” I wrenched myself free and pointed my guns at them.
Both of them looked at me, with their hands down at their sides but palms up and out to show me they would never reach for their weapons against me.
“You know he’s here. We know where to find him now. Let’s do it properly.” Gio nodded. “You can’t hit him from here, and if you charge down guns blazing, you’re dead. Us too, because we won’t just stand here and let them kill you.”
My shoulders slumped. I whirled around to face the scene before me. Goliath was laughing as he talked it up with Freddo.
They walked into the biggest cabin.
Goliath, the killer I’d been looking for, for the last seven years just walked into a cabin, and I allowed him to.
Chapter 26
Claudius
* * *
Seven years ago…
It was that tension in the air that woke me, and I realized Marissa wasn’t next to me.
Again.
Last night, I’d found her downstairs watching TV. She was watching some documentary about the Ottoman Empire. I hated history, but I sat and watched it with her. The night before, I’d found her in the nursery just looking at the crib. Neither of us had had the heart to change the room or just…
I didn’t even know. The two of us had been like this for the last eight months.
People said time healed. I was waiting for that part to happen, because every day held its own new task.
Marissa’s depression had only gotten worse, and I was still stuck on what I could do to help her. It was hard when I felt like shit myself. The only thing that kept me occupied was this thing with Joe Manello. It didn’t take up enough time to distract me, but I did wonder what the hell kind of plans he had that took eight months of planning.
I wasn’t given any specific details of the grand plan, just my part. It suited me fine since all I wanted was the distraction. I knew well enough that in the underground you didn’t ask too many questions. If you had a job like mine, you did what you’re told. You got the intel you were supposed to have and anything else was on a need to know basis.
Besides, Joe and his men didn’t give me the sympathetic look everyone else had. Luc, Pa, and even Raphael. I didn’t want sympathy. I just wanted to get on with life as best as possible.
Marissa sat on the window bay seat, gazing out to the shadowy outline of the trees swaying in the storm. In her hand was a single white rose from the bunch of flowers I’d bought earlier and left for her in the sitting room.
When we first got married, she told me she liked having flowers in the house. Apparently, her grandmother believed it attracted good luck. Back then I really didn’t care to know what she liked or didn’t like. I didn’t want to know. In my head I’d already taken time to know Ava because I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her and the damn universe dealt me a rough deal by twisting things up in worst way.
I couldn’t get past the fact that I’d ended up with Marissa. The woman who tricked me into sleeping with her and got pregnant with my child. I’d resigned myself to talking to her only when I needed to, and doing my best to look happy when we were around other people. In my silence she’d offered small talk to ease the horrible awkward situation.
She’d stopped buying flowers after we lost our baby, but I continued to get her favorite ones. At first the gesture was lost on her, then she started responding. More so when I bought white roses. She’d always take a single one and keep it with her.
I glanced at the clock on the wall and barely made out that it was three a.m.
This was the time we’d been waking up over all the last few months.
She looked over at me when I sat up and tucked my hair behind my ear. Then she looked away, back to the dance of trees outside the window.
I made my way over to her and rested my hand on top of her head.
She returned her gaze to me, and I noticed the sunken, sallow skin under her eyes. She’d been crying again.
“I’m sorry,” she said just above a whisper. “With these continuous three-a.m. wakeups, you’ll leave soon.”
I frowned. She always found some way to sneak that i
n. Her fear of me leaving. I’d been with her for her for eight months. Eight months of being a husband, not because she was carrying my child.
If I was honest, I’d have to say that I’d even surprised myself. I’d stayed, and I’d learned to love her. It wasn’t the kind of love I had with Ava, but I was trying. I was here, and I was trying.
I’d blurred the lines of the past and decided to move forward.
I crouched down in front of her and tilted my head to the side. “Marissa, if you want me to get you that ice cream you like, just say so. Pretty certain there’s a place open at this hour. If not, I’ll steal it.”
She looked surprised by my answer. The other day, I’d put a spin on her words too, and it worked. She’d said something similar about me leaving.
“What?”
“You said leave soon. The only thing I could be leaving at this hour to get is ice cream.” She’d loved ice cream when she was pregnant with Jack.
Jack. That was what we named him. She liked the name. I did too.
In her second trimester she’d get through a few tubs of Ben and Jerry’s a week and I was proud to say I was the kind of guy who left the house at two a.m. to get it for her when she’d craved it.
She just stared at me, and I felt an ounce of triumph when the hint of a smile tipped the corners of her mouth. She only smiled when she was with Ava. Not for me or anyone else. Sometimes she barely looked at me, and when she did, it was with some element of embarrassment. Like she thought I pitied her.
“You’re a really good guy. You know that?”
“God, don’t let anyone hear you say that, Doll. They’ll think Claudius Morientz went soft,” I sneered, and she actually smiled, but the smile was gone just as quickly as it had appeared.
I stood and sat behind her, settling myself so she could sit between my legs and rest her head on my chest. This was us being intimate. It was all I could do. All I could offer.
Crazy, definitely. We seemed more like roommates, rather than husband and wife.
What man had a marriage without sex? Me, that’s who.
But… I couldn’t. Not yet, and she knew it. She knew I couldn’t get past the one and only night I’d slept with her after she fooled me into thinking she was Ava. I tried but, the memory wouldn’t leave me and it wasn’t exactly the kind that was easy to forget.
We’d been together for close to sixteen months. One year and four months. Married for ten of those months and this was us, sitting like this with me holding her.
Maybe one day it would change.
“I went to a support group today… for women like me.”
She’d never told me she had any kind of plans like that.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Doll? I would have gone with you.”
“You were busy, and I didn’t want you to do any more than you’re already doing for me.”
“You make it sound like I’m doing all kinds of things for you. But I’m just here.” I chuckled.
“Exactly, you’re here for me.”
“Marissa, you know I’m the rebel in my family, right?”
She glanced up at me. “I’m going to say yes.”
“Good. So, you know I never do anything I don’t want to do. No one tells me what to do, and I’m the fucking boss of me.”
“Yeah… that sounds like you.”
“Good. Then you know I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be. So, don’t shut me out or think I wouldn’t go with you to a support group.” I meant that. I truly meant that, and I hoped she knew it.
She looked back at me with appreciation.
“Capisce?”
“Capisce.”
“What did they say at the group?”
“They said me waking up at this time is something similar to the effects you experience with a phantom pregnancy. Jack, um… he used to, um… be more active at this time. I think if he were here, this would be the time when he wakes up. So, my mind programmed itself to get up at this hour.”
My heart was breaking all over again, but I held in my pain. “So, we would be up at this time?”
“Maybe. He’d be on solids now, so maybe he would have slept through the night and I wouldn’t be nursing as much. Maybe.”
He would have been nearly eight months old. “If he woke up at this time, I’d let you sleep. I’d take him downstairs, and we could watch kids TV.”
She gave my hand a gentle squeeze. Looked like talking like this was helping, although it was morbid. It was morbid and probably the worst thing but seemed to help.
“I think he would have loved Barney, or Sesame Street,” she offered up.
“Nah, those are for whimps. I planned to get him hooked on Biker Mice from Mars.”
My spirits lifted when she started to laugh. “Claudius, Biker Mice from Mars? That show is so old.”
“It’s fine. He would have loved it. He would have loved the trike I was going to get him for his birthday even more. Most parents get their kids cars for their sixteenth. I was going to get him a Harley.” I wiped away a tear that ran down her cheek.
“You planned that far ahead? Sixteen?”
“Of course. I planned to grow a beard too and get a red bandana to tie my hair back and look way scary in front of his friends.”
She gripped on to my shirt and started crying. “Will you come with me tomorrow? To the group,” she spoke through her tears.
Tomorrow…
Joe wanted me to be at the site tomorrow, all day. This plan was going down next week.
Today had been weird, and if I were myself, I would question the whole ordeal a little more. There was a guy there who made my skin crawl.
We’d met for meetings for this project a few times over the last few months, but I’d never seen this guy before.
Joe introduced him as Goliath. He introduced him to me and the two other guys who were in charge of various parts of this secret project.
The grunts who worked under us did not meet him.
The minute I met the guy, I didn’t like him.
Tall like the biblical giant with muscle like a military man. He looked like a mercenary, with his head shaved except for the mohawk going down the center. Looked like a fucking sav. Goliath had eyed me up like he wanted a challenge. Probably because I was the only guy of the three who looked like I could take him.
Tomorrow, I was supposed to get the finalized plans and go over them with my team.
“What time is the group, Doll?”
“Twelve.”
Good. Well, I’d go with Marissa and either be late for Joe tomorrow or not turn up.
He was the one who wanted me. If I was late or not there, he’d have to deal with it.
She needed me.
“I’ll be there.”
“Will you?” She lifted her head and dried her tears.
I cupped her face and pressed my forehead to hers. “I will be there, and we’ll go to whatever we need to, whatever helps us get through this time.”
She pulled back, out of my hands, and looked at me but then her gaze dropped to the rose and she stared at it for a while.
“You shouldn’t have to do this.” She shook her head.
“Do what?”
“I’d love for you to come with me to the group. It would be nice to have you there, but everything else is… Claudius you don’t have to stay with me. You shouldn’t. We can’t live like this. You can’t.”
“Don’t worry about me, I’m here.”
“As long as you’re here, you’re stuck in the past and there’s no need for it. I’m not pregnant anymore. You should just… go be with Ava. Tell her what happened. Tell her everything. I’m too weak to do it. It doesn’t matter anymore if she hates me. I have nothing left to lose.”
I held her gaze, unable to stop myself from feeling worse for her.
Go be with Ava…
The time for that had passed. It was in the past and I’d be an absolute son of a bitch if I really was to take up that offer.
> “No. I’m not going anywhere.”
Something sparked in the depths of her eyes.
“I won’t get better Claudius. I…can’t get over losing Jack. I don’t know how I could. Every time he moved inside me I loved him, I loved him every day, every minute of every day. Every second. Now he’s gone. I can’t move past that and it’s not fair for you to live in this place of misery of me when you be happy.”
“Marissa, I feel the same. I may not show it the way you do, but I can’t get over losing him either. I won’t leave you in misery. I’m going to be here.” I took the rose from her and placed it in her hair. Her expression softened when I did that. “We’ll get through it together, and… find happiness together.”
She dried her tears and that smile came back. It was small, barely there, but it lasted longer than last time. “Do you think we could?”
I nodded because I didn’t fail at anything. The other thing I knew was… she loved me. I knew that. She loved me and she was broken. I couldn’t abandon her, and I could continue to try.
“Next year this time, when we look back, I want us to be a different couple.”
“Next year.” She said that like she wished for it. “Do you think we could be? Next year with you feels like a dream my heart wants.”
“Yes. We’ll have it,” I promised.
The spark was in her eyes again, and there in this connection we’d formed.
As I leaned forward to press my lips to hers it felt real. The emotion and feeling that propelled me to do it felt real. It was the first time I’d felt that. With her.
* * *
Present day…
We never got next year. She never got next year.
A week later, she was killed.
I played that memory over and over again in my mind as I rode to Luc’s.
It was late, midnight late, but I knew he wouldn’t mind.
After Dante, Gio, and I left Four Peaks Quarry, I’d gone to the old house.
The house Marissa and I had lived in. I’d kept it and leased it to a family who were still living there. It had been around six years now that they’d lived there.
Dirty Hearts: A Bad Bod Mafia Romance Page 21