by Hamel, B. B.
And maybe she was right. I was a monster.
“I’m the new Don,” I said. “I need to show the city that I can’t be fucked with. It was a risk, but I’ve gone on hits before with a man you don’t know, a good killer named Ewan.”
“Oh my god,” she said, and put her head between her knees.
“Try not to get sick,” I said. “It’s Italian leather.”
She laughed, a horrible, gasping sound. “You’re insane.”
“Welcome to the family,” I said, and angled the car back home.
That would send a message. The Don himself going on a hit would set this fucking city on fire. It was a massive risk, but it paid off, and now I had to see if the Healy family got my message.
I was not to be fucked with.
12
Mags
I felt like I could still hear the gunshots.
They reverberated down my spine: bang, bang, bang. And the screams, like their vocal cords right rip from their throats, and the blood, and their inside leaking out onto the carpet—
I knew what the mafia did. Intellectually anyway, I understood that the mafia was dangerous and violent. They dealt with problems through guns, knives, clubs, fists, and any other weapon they could get their hands on. Death was a way of life for some guys.
My father never got into that side of the mob, or at least he never talked about it. He ran his club and made his money, sold drugs on the side, sold some girls in the back rooms, sold sex and pleasure, but the violence stayed outside. I knew it happened, but it was always something distant.
Seeing Dean execute that guy broke something in me. It made everything sharper, like reality was slipped into a high-resolution filter and now everything was so much more intense.
The house itself seemed more alive. The otherwise dead floorboards and the wood paneling on the walls were suddenly pocked with warps and whirls. I noticed every paint splatter, saw every detail in each statue, smelled the old chimney smoke in the fireplace and the roasted chicken Bea made earlier in the afternoon. It was like I’d survived that gunshot, like I walked away from a murder with my life when I never should have.
Dean tugged me inside and sat me down in his office. He shoved a drink in my hand and sat on the edge of his desk looking down at me with blank, unreadable eyes. I sipped the whiskey and it burned on the way down, but did nothing to dull the pain. If anything, it made the place brighter. The books nearly glowed.
“You shouldn’t have seen that,” he said softly.
I grimaced and stared down at the cut crystal glass in my hand, likely worth more than a year of my father’s earnings at the club. This bastard, this killer, he was drowning in money and privilege and he still went out and pulled the trigger himself.
It terrified me.
Before, it was a fun game with a handsome stranger.
It was a way to get away from my family.
Ten million dollars.
Now though, the stakes were so real.
“Mags, look at me,” he said softly.
I shook my head. “I don’t want to.”
“I know that was hard,” he said, his voice straining slightly, hinting at an anger he kept suppressed. “Seeing a man die like that—”
“You killed him,” I whispered. “You executed him.”
“He tried to kill us,” he said. “And he would’ve tried again. I had to send a message.”
I didn’t say anything to that. He had his reasons and I understood them, but that didn’t make it any better. The silence was like a wall of rubber between us, thick and suffocating.
He let out a frustrated grunt and got up. I watched him pace across the room like a caged animal before he dumped whiskey into a glass. It sloshed over the side and spilled on the rug, a thick red and gold Persian with distressed edges. He cursed and rubbed his foot into it, then threw the drink back. He turned, about to say something, when someone knocked at the door.
“Yeah?” he asked.
Bea opened it a crack. “Hector’s here,” she said.
And Hector came in without waiting. He pushed the door open and hustled past Bea, who glared and followed him in. He looked at me, frowned a little, then stared at Dean like he wanted to shout.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Hector asked.
Dean laughed bitterly. “It’s okay, Bea,” he said. “Stay. And close the door.”
She nodded, shut the door, and leaned back against the wall. She winked at me and smiled, but I couldn’t manage to smile back.
“Now, what are you talking about, Hector?” Dean asked, staring him down.
“It’s all over the street,” he said. “Three fucking bodies. Three of them!” Hector paced back and forth as Dean poured him a drink. He accepted it, took a sip, and let out an annoyed grunt. “And they say you did it yourself.”
Dean shrugged. “I wanted to send a message,” he said.
Hector groaned and sank down into the chair beside mine. I glanced over and Bea stared at Dean with a frankly shocked and horrified expression. I’d never seen her like that before, and it sent a strange chill down my spine.
Hector wiped at his face with both hands then held them out in a pleading gesture. “You’re the Don now, Dean,” he said like he was talking to a little child. “I know you used to do this sort of thing before, but you’re the Don. You have to understand that you don’t go on hits anymore.”
Dean nodded slightly and faced Hector. The silence was still thick and heavy, but at least it wasn’t aimed at me anymore. I could melt into the background of this conversation.
“My grip on the family is tenuous,” Dean said slowly but clearly. “Roy gave me some power over the boys, but that power isn’t infinite, and it won’t last forever. I need to show the city that I’m serious. In particular, I need to show the Healy family that they can’t push me around.”
“If it had gone wrong—” Hector started, but Dean interrupted him.
“If it had gone wrong, then it wouldn’t matter,” he said. “I needed this, Hector. It was a risk, and I admit that it was a big risk, but it was calculated.”
Hector sighed and seemed to crumple in on himself. “The whole city’s talking about it. You achieved that much, at least. I’m going to spend the next year defending you and keeping you out of court.”
“And I’m going to pay you handsome,” Dean said, grinning hugely. “Come on, Hector. It worked.”
“You can’t be serious, Dean,” Bea said, and her tone was sharper than a steak knife. I blinked rapidly. I didn’t think she was capable of sounding like that.
Dean seemed surprised too. “What do you mean?” he asked. “The three guys that tried to kill me are now dead. I did it with my own hands and proved that I’m a man worth following.”
“You proved you’re a stupid, impulsive shit,” Bea snapped.
Dean gaped. I rocked back in my chair like she’d slapped me. Hector sputtered something and sat up straight.
“Bea,” Dean said. “You can’t talk to me that way.”
She grunted and shook her head, disgust etched into every wrinkle of her face. “I talked like that to your father all the time,” she said. “And he knew the value of hearing it. Sometimes you think you’re invincible, when you’re the head of a family like the Valentinos. But hear me, Dean. You’re not immortal, and what you do reflects on the rest of us. What you do matters.”
“I know that,” he said.
“Then grow up.” Bea turned away from him. “You can’t do things like that anymore. You’re the goddamn Don now.” She pulled open the door and stormed out.
I couldn’t handle the tense silence anymore. Dean looked stricken, like she’d stabbed him repeatedly, and Hector seemed like he wanted to bury himself under the desk and never resurface again. I stood, finished the whiskey which made me cough and gag, then followed after Bea.
“Wait, Mags,” Dean said, but I didn’t listen. I shut the door behind me and hurried off until I found Bea standing ov
er the kettle in the kitchen, murmuring to herself.
I lingered close and opened my mouth a few times, trying to find the words. Bea noticed me and waved a hand, beckoning me closer as the water in the kettle began to boil and the whistle shrieked a wild pierce.
“Don’t just stand there and stare at me,” she said. “Go get some mugs and tea bags, please. The Yorkshire Gold, if you don’t mind.”
I obeyed, found the mugs, dropped in the bags, and place them down for Bea to fill.
“Did you really talk to Dean’s dad like that?” I asked.
She laughed, mostly from relief, or so it seemed. “All the time,” she said. “When he needed to hear it, at least. He hated it though. Told me he’d fire me at least once a week.” She smiled and put the kettle down.
I lifted my warm mug in my hands. The heat matched the spreading fire in my belly from the whiskey.
“Dean seems to think you’re nicer than that,” I said.
“Dean’s been sheltered,” she said with a sharp laugh.
I looked away, down at the floor tiles. “I saw him do it,” I said, my voice a tangled whisper than I barely recognized. There was a lot about myself that I barely recognized these days.
Bea watched me carefully. “He brought you in on a hit?” she asked.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “He left me in the car. But then I heard the gunshots and I just—” I stopped, pulled my teabag out, and tossed it into the trash.
“Oh, honey,” Bea said sadly. “How bad was it?”
I stared at the golden-brown liquid then took a sip. It was scalding hot and burned my tongue, but for some reason the pain helped sharpen my mind a bit. It pulled me from the deadening fog that threatened to surround my brain and tug me deep beneath waves and waves of self-pity and fear.
“I saw him kill one of them,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut. “He stood there and shot him in the head. It was—” I stopped myself, started again. “Working at my dad’s strip club was hard. There were a lot of gross things going on all the time, you know? I thought I was hard, or at least hardened. But nothing like that. I never saw anything like that.”
Bea came forward and touched my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said. “The mafia’s a cruel business. They do well to hide it beneath the surface, cover it over with glitz and glam and money, but it’s violence all the way down to the core.”
“Is he evil?” I asked suddenly, and wasn’t sure why it bubbled up like that, as if it mattered. I knew Dean couldn’t be a great guy, since he was willing to buy a wife, and since he ran a crime family. But being hard and being evil were two very different things.
Bea didn’t respond right away. She sighed sadly and sipped her tea, which must’ve been too hot, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“I don’t know, dear,” she said finally, and it wasn’t the answer I wanted, not at all. “Are any of them evil? Some are, without a doubt. Some of the men in the family live for killing and hurting and stealing. But is Dean evil, in particular?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so. But I don’t know.”
“Does that make me bad then?” I asked. “If I stay here with him, does that make me culpable?”
“Oh, no, of course not,” she said, and laughed. “You can’t control that man and you can’t control the family. You’re here to survive, aren’t you?”
“Something like that,” I said.
“If you care so much, then steer him in the right direction,” she said, squeezing my arm again before she let her hand drop. “That’s what I did with his father all those years.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, eyes going wide.
“Comments, here or there. Suggestions and hints.” She leaned against the gleaming stainless steel prep station and sighed. “Cesare was very suggestible. He valued my advice and let me get away with a lot. Especially after—well, honey, you know how men are after they’ve been pleased.”
My jaw fell open and she turned slightly pink as she stared into her mug. I couldn’t believe she said that—Bea, who looked like an old housekeeper, who was an old housekeeper, who was kind and loving and understated, Bea used to sleep with the old Don.
It was insane, but it made a lot of sense at least.
“I haven’t done that with Dean,” I said quickly. “That’s not— We’re not—”
Bea laughed and held up a hand. “It’s okay,” she said. “I don’t need the details. I’m only saying, if you want him to behave a certain way, then you’ll have to talk to him about it. Try to be subtle, dear. Having sex with him first helps.”
“Oh my god,” I said, sipped my tea, burned my tongue again, and quickly walked to the door. “I think I need some air.”
“Go on then,” Bea said. “Just remember. Dean’s not any eviler than anyone else in this world. He grew up in the family and it’s all he’s ever known. I’m not mad at him for killing a few Healy thugs. I’m mad at him for putting his own life at risk.”
I met her gaze and chewed my lip, then smiled, waved, and left her there. I had a lot to think about and none of it made perfect sense.
Bea didn’t mind that Dean murdered three men. And she used to sleep with his father. And she apparently used sex as a sort of weapon to try to convince Cesare to do what she wanted—although I had no clue what that might be.
For that matter, I didn’t know what I wanted, either. If I could push Dean in some direction, I didn’t know where I’d want him to go. Maybe I’d want him to be less violent, but if he was less violent then the Healy family might get emboldened and come hurt us or someone else in Dean’s crew.
I wanted him to keep his hands clean at the very least. He had other guys to pull the trigger, and I didn’t ever want to see him do it himself, not ever again.
Big, massive, terrifying Dean. I walked out the back door, mug steaming in the crisp evening air. I saw him pull the trigger again—and saw his soft lips near mine, his sharp, tangy, musky smell, his wicked smile, his gorgeous muscles and playful eyes, and it scared me, scared me to hell how much I liked it.
13
Dean
Mags made herself scarce for the next few days. I got consumed with the fallout from those hits and couldn’t make time for her, but her absence started to nag at me.
The look on her face after I pulled the trigger was pure terror and loathing. It haunted me, that vacant stare, that blank way she shuffled around the house and took the drink in her hand.
The halls were quiet without her sneaking around. She went for long walks in the woods, and Bea said she spent a lot of time holed up in my father’s library, which was mostly packed with crime novels and spy thrillers. I wanted to go in there and talk to her, but Bea said I should give her time to figure things out—and so I threw myself into work.
We killed four Healy guys over the next five days. Two were dealing on our turf, and three were caught on the border. The Healys tried to hit back, but only managed to wound one of my guys bad enough to put him in the hospital, and he’d probably pull through. Gian took over front-line fighting, but I kept showing my face around the streets to make sure the guys knew that I was in control and ultimately all decisions came from me.
My hits became a thing of legend. It was strange, watching the story warp and weave its way through the family. At first it was straightforward, but soon guys were saying I killed an entire Healy safe house packed with fifteen soldiers and did it all with my bare hands. The story elongated and stretched to the point where I barely recognized myself in it, but that was how myths were formed, and I needed a little myth-making.
The streets thrived on stories. And I needed the streets more than anything.
After six days of quiet, I decided to break the truce. It was a nice Sunday afternoon, and Mags was hidden away in her room. I knocked gently, waited for her to answer, then cracked it open.
“You okay in here?” I asked.
She looked at me from the bed, her feet up on pillows, her nose buried in a faded, yellowed book. �
��Fine until now,” she said.
I smiled and held out a box. It was pure white with the Apple logo on top. “Got this for you.”
“What’s that?”
“Laptop,” I said, and placed it down at the foot of her bed. “I thought you might like it.”
Her expression did change as she shrugged and looked back at the book. “Thanks, I guess.”
I hesitated, wanted to say more, but Bea’s advice resonated in me: give her some time.
So I left, but a day later, I went back.
This time, I found her in the library. Same yellowed book, or maybe a different one, I couldn’t tell. She sat on a recliner near the window with an iced tea on the side table. I knocked and entered.
“What’s that?” she said, staring at the bag in my hands.
“Present for you,” I said, and put it down at her feet. “Thought you’d like it.”
“Are you trying to buy my good will?” she asked, nudging the bag and craning her neck to look inside.
“Yes,” I said. “Is it working?”
“Not yet,” she said, but she put the book aside and pushed past the tissue paper. She brought out a sweatshirt, some shorts, and a small box with a simple gold and diamond necklace. She sucked in a breath as she held it up to her neck.
“Do you like it?” I asked.
“This is really pretty,” she said. “And it must’ve cost a fortune.”
“A small fortune,” I said, smiling.
“I can’t take this.” She put it away and dropped it into the bag.
“Consider it an advance on what I’ll owe you when we’re through if you want,” I said, walking back to the door. “By the way, what are you reading?”
“The Big Sleep,” she said, head tilted. “Ever heard of it?”
“No,” I said.
“You should give it a try.” Her eyes flashed down to the bag again then back up to me. “Presents aren’t going to get you very far, you know.”