by Zavi James
“You’ve always been more trouble than you looked, Mia.”
From the ground, blinking through the tears that had rushed to my eyes from the pain, I saw Xavier standing over me before my vision blacked.
∞∞∞
“Hello, son.”
Xavier’s voice was somewhere nearby. Slowly, I opened my eyes to see the ground, no longer grass and frost but solid dirt. My mouth felt dry and when I tried to speak, the gag remained in place. The smell of damp and something else, something strong, made my head pulse painfully.
“I’ll send the location to you now,” Xavier continued. Any words I had were muffled and black boots came into view. The pain resonated through my head as I looked up to see Franco standing above me.
“Now, Gabriel. I’ll explain when you get here,” Xavier said down the phone. My heart pounded knowing that he was talking to Gabriel. “Is that Vittoria? Bring her with you. No. Not Chasity. Just you and Vittoria, if she’s willing to join us.”
Xavier joined Franco, squatting down as he placed the phone back inside his jacket, done with his conversation with Gabe. He pulled the gag out of my mouth roughly, ripping strands of hair from my scalp and I looked between both men trying to find the words to say.
“I trusted you!” I settled my gaze on Franco. The words were raw and raspy from all my efforts. “I let you into my home. Around my family. You took a bullet for me!”
Franco’s face remained blank as Xavier responded, “Ah, yes. Franco’s little heroic stunt didn’t exactly go to plan. We didn’t expect for him to wind up in hospital.”
The blood drained from my face. “What?”
“I’ll give you both a minute to discuss,” Xavier said, pulling himself back to his feet, knees cracking as he went. He stepped aside to allow us some privacy.
“You took a bullet for me,” I repeated. “It was an act? Are you insane?! You would have died just because you wanted to follow his orders?”
“You’re not the only one with ambitions,” Franco spat. The strange, serene nature he’d held at the house had dissolved to reveal his usual abrasiveness. All of the steps I’d thought we’d taken towards building a better relationship had been swiped away.
“You could have died!” I was struggling to wrap my head around the insanity that was unfolding in front of me.
“Yes, that’s what we get for trusting Paulo with something more than babysitting,” he replied, looking unimpressed. My guts twisted at hearing the familiar names that were involved. Paulo. The panic on his face every time I turned up at the door was less to do with Gabe and more to do with the fact I was the reminder of a botched job. “It wasn’t meant to be shot in the side. It was meant to be more of a graze. We just needed to gain your trust.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It had been a planned attack. We’d known that all along, but we assumed it was for me. And it was, just not in the way we’d thought. Not staged for Franco to be the target. To play off my good nature and have me feel indebted to Franco. My eyes burned at how much of an idiot I was. “I thought you and Paulo answered to Gabriel.”
“Gabe’s a chump,” Franco told me. “He has no clue what he’s doing. It was amusing to hear you thought he was behind it. We were hoping Luc would have just taken him out, but you have him wrapped around your finger.”
“I trusted you.” I hated the fact that my voice broke at the words.
“That was all I needed. That and to find an opening and this was the perfect one. We didn’t expect it to be so soon.”
“Why?” The question was directed at Franco, but my eyes weren’t on him. Instead, they followed Xavier as he walked calmly behind Franco, circling behind me until I couldn’t see him anymore and making me uneasy.
“You think Luc would have kept me under your employment if he got the role?” Franco laughed bitterly. The burner phone suddenly made sense. Franco kept in contact with Xavier in a way that could be hidden from Luc doing any spot checks. “Even Gabe palmed me off on you. Everyone’s selective of their inner circle and I’ll go where I know there’s a spot for me. We’re all chasing after what makes life easiest.”
It happened quicker than I could register. The shots echoed loudly in the empty stables and Franco dropped to the ground on his knees, clutching his chest. His body tipped and draped over my legs as the blood began to run, staining his clothes and pooling on the floor. The gurgling sound that came from him was masked by the scream I let out, legs kicking out in an attempt to put some distance between us.
“What have you done?” I asked, horrified at the scene in front of me.
“He had a valid point,” Xavier said, unfazed by the brutality of having shot someone at point blank. “He’ll go where there’s a spot for him. There’s no guarantee that he won’t find someone else to work for. Ambitious, but I’m not sure I could trust him for long. I solved a problem before it became one.” He walked around to face me and refreshed the clip in his gun. When he looked at me, the glint in his eye was almost manic and made my stomach knot uncomfortably. “Just like I should have done with you.”
“He didn’t do anything wrong!” I told him, goosebumps prickling my flesh and nausea souring my taste buds. Franco writhed weakly on the floor, pressing down on his wounds but the blood spilled too fast and the pain was too much, and he’d grown too weak.
“And now he won’t get a chance to,” Xavier replied, stepping over Franco’s body as if it were a minor inconvenience and came towards me. The rope bit into the skin at my wrists as I pulled against them, trying to free my hands. “I should have let it all come out years ago. It would have put Lucas in his proper place. Stopped him from having all these illusions of grandeur. It’s only out of respect for Charlie—"
“Respecting Charlie?” I cut across him, unable to stop myself. “You call sleeping with his wife and getting her pregnant, respect?”
He stopped in front of me and hauled me up to my feet, fingers sinking painfully into the back of my arms. “You knew nothing of Charlie. He’s not the martyr Luc makes him out to be. He was as twisted as the rest of us.”
I may not have had the honour of meeting Charlie Foster, but I knew he was no saint. No one in this life would be canonised and prayed to but sinful was a scale Charlie wasn’t quite at the tail-end of.
“I thought you were a blessing to start with, Mia.” One of his hands let go of my arm and reached out to stroke my cheek. I pulled back as far as I could from his touch, but he managed to brush it, fingers ghosting along the small cuts I’d obtained at home. “Lucas lost his way for a while after Charlie left us and then you walked in and he was willing to step back into the fold—”
Behind Xavier, I could see the doors at the back doors of the stables. If I could get through them, if I could just keep running there might be a chance. Taking in a deep breath through my nose, I drove my knee straight up into his crotch. Xavier doubled over in pain, his sentence cut short by a yell as I took off unsteadily towards the door. The ground beneath my feet felt slick, like it had no grip, and I would fall flat on my face at any moment.
BANG!
There was a searing pain that ripped through my left shoulder blade and I screamed, falling forward onto the ground. Tears dripped down my face. I thought being stabbed had been bad but being shot was worse. The burning pain, hot and angry, pulsed through my shoulder blade. I was rolled over onto my back and Xavier straddled me before I let out another scream, a mixture of pain and frustration. Between the gunshot and the way my hands were bound, my shoulder was in unbearable agony.
“Get off me!” I hissed through my teeth, tears running down my face.
“That wasn’t a smart move.”
My legs kicked wildly, attempting to free myself from him. “Your aim is shit.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill you,” Xavier told me with a laugh. I looked at him for a moment, confused at the confession. If he wasn’t trying to kill me then what the hell was he trying to do? “Killing you like that would be
too easy. Too clean. You, my darling girl, deserve to suffer.”
“All of this because I found out your dirty little secret?”
The sting of the slap heated my cheek and brought fresh tears to my eyes. “Because you’ve been trying to rip away everything I worked for. My marriage. My children. I’m respected and feared in this community. I have given them my blood and my loyalty, and you think you can come along and try to take all that from me?”
“Seems like you can preach loyalty, but you can’t keep it.”
He pinched my face in one of his hands. There was nothing gentle in his movements. Everything from his words to his touch radiated the hate he felt towards me. “I should have killed Maria when I had the chance. Or forced her to get rid of him but she was so desperate for a child.” I felt sick at the words. Luc was his son, his flesh and blood but Luc was only wanted when he proved himself to be of use to Xavier. I hoped Link never felt like he was just another cog in the machine. If I got out of this, I promised to love my son the best I could until my last breath. “You aren’t all that different,” Xavier said, looking down at me. “Trapping Luc with a child.”
I ripped my face away from Xavier’s grasp. “You have no right to talk about my son.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure he’s raised right after you’ve gone. Fall into line the way Luc should have.”
“You think Luc will let you live after this?”
“You think I’ll let him live after all his scheming? Either of them? Lucas. Gabriel.”
Gabe? He’d been on the phone with him and told him to meet him here. He wanted Gabe to meet him so he must have been in on the plan, but if that was the case then why was Xavier talking about killing him?
Xavier clocked my confusion. “You and my son haven’t been seeing eye to eye, Mia. Someone needs to be blamed for your sticky end. A murder-suicide. A tragic conclusion to a messy affair at a home he bought for you both.”
The realtor. We were all confused at why Xavier had been in contact with them, looking for a property when he should have been focusing on things at home. Xavier had been piecing together a plan that would get rid of everyone that opposed him and left him in the clear and saw him slip back into place at the head of the table. After the mess of my return and Gabe’s handiwork, it wouldn’t be a stretch to sway the family to believe his messed up story was the truth. Even if they didn’t believe him, who would argue at the risk of joining us?
“Both of them ungrateful and stupid enough to think they could replace me. I’ll deal with you and Gabe—”
“Vittoria. You told Gabe to bring her along.”
“She’ll do what I tell her to,” Xavier said. “So desperate for approval and eager to please. She’ll help me get to Lucas.”
The deep, instinctive protectiveness I had over Luc forced my head up quickly, the only weapon I had, and connected hard with Xavier’s face. He hissed, head reeling back and when he looked at me again, a thin stream of red ran from his nose.
His hand came to my throat, pressing down on it and making it difficult to breathe. “You’re a lot feistier than I gave you credit for.”
Just as my vision began to spot, Xavier removed his hand, but I barely relished in the freedom before his fist connected with my side, knocking any remaining air out of me. The moment he stood up from me, I rolled myself onto my side trying to breathe through the pain. I was completely defenceless. Every clever remark, every unanticipated move meant nothing because Xavier had the advantage, and I was clutching at straws.
“I’m going to take great joy in killing that spirit,” he said. I looked to his chest where he’d stashed his gun. The fresh tears of pain misted my eyes as Xavier clucked his tongue. “Oh, Mia. I’ve already told you that’s not what I have in mind for you.”
The stables were pretty desolate. The wooden beams that supported the building were rotting in places and there were a few pieces of rusted equipment that had been long forgotten; troughs and buckets and brooms. I was surprised that it was still standing. No one had been here in a long time and I doubted anyone would visit it. He probably planned to let me die here alone, quietly losing my mind.
Xavier was walking away towards the door and kicked an old jerrycan so that it fell on its side. The realisation hit me hard. The pungent smell that was making my head throb violently was gas. This psychopath was about to burn down the stables.
There was another burst of adrenaline as I looked around wildly. Panic and pain were fighting to dominate my body. With all my effort, I pushed myself unsteadily onto my knees and then to my feet, heading in the opposite direction where another set of doors laid. Xavier was quicker than me, uninjured and in control of the situation. I’d barely made it a few steps before he stopped me. His fingers pressed the bullet wound and made a broken scream escape my lips and tears fall. He shoved me forward roughly so that my chin hit the floor as I landed, stomping down on my injured shoulder and earning another cry of agony. The pain was more than I could handle. Nausea and dizziness took over me and I dry heaved. I would either vomit or pass out.
“You deserve to burn, Mia.”
His footsteps grew gradually fainted as he walked away from me. In the silence of the stables, I heard it. The scratch of a match and the flame flickering into existence. From the corner of my eye, I saw the flame as it licked a nearby beam and ignited rapidly, spreading along its length and across the floor. Xavier moved away from it quickly and struck another match, walking away and tossing it. The brightness of the flames forced me to shut my eyes as they erupted around me, chasing away the cold space and roaring ferociously.
This couldn’t be how I died. This couldn’t be what happened to me, the way my story ended. But it felt so easy. I could just close my eyes and let the heat take me. Then I thought of Link and Luc and my family, and how much I wanted to spend my life with them. I wanted to grow old and watch my family thrive and flourish. There were things worth fighting for. There were things that required me to be alive.
My boy needed me. My beautiful baby boy relied on me to fight through this and win because if I didn’t, if Luc didn’t, then he’d be left at Xavier’s mercy. Link would grow up to be used as another pawn in the game until he proved useless. The reality of what would happen then spurred me to move.
Rolling over with immense effort, I managed to sit myself up again. If I didn’t start moving quickly, I really would burn to death.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lucas
I drove back to Dante’s house, not trusting him behind the wheel. We were both pissed at the situation that had unfolded in front of us. The audacity of Angelo to try and play us and think he could get away with it. He’d pinned his colours to the wrong mast, and he paid for his mistake with his life.
Glancing over at Dante, I don’t think there was a time that I’d ever seen him in such a state. We’d done so many jobs together that I’d lost count and every time Dante somehow maintained this aura of weightlessness that he’d been blessed with. He didn’t get caught up in the darkness in the same way that I did. Until now. I wasn’t sure what to say to him and let the silence stretch between us.
When I pulled up outside his place, neither of us moved.
“I should have known he’d fuck it up. I should have known he’d screw us over,” Dante said eventually.
“None of us could have known,” I replied.
“I should have!” He slammed his hands on the dashboard, staining it with small streaks of blood. We’d need to get the entire thing professionally cleaned or, better yet, get rid of it. “I should have. I should have put my foot down and said no and then we wouldn’t have been in this position.”
“Well, unless you’ve mastered time travel, this is what we’ve got.” I didn’t have time for him to lose it now. In my mind there was a list of things that we needed to check off, and Dante having a breakdown hadn’t made it on there. “We grab everything he has and crack the rest of this ourselves.”
We lef
t the car without further argument and collected Angelo’s phone and laptop from the house. As I started the drive back to our place, Dante flipped open the laptop to see it was password protected. “Any idea?” I asked him, looking over to it.
“Isa’s birthday,” he said shortly. There was a stab of guilt as he typed in the numbers, but the screen wobbled, denying him access. “No.”
“I’ve got no fucking clue. Let’s call Gui and get him to look at it, Luc. It’ll be quicker than waiting for Carmen to come up here or sending it down to her.”
He made a good argument. “Fine,” I said in agreement.
He slammed the lid down again and looked at Angelo’s phone, which was also locked. “We should have taken his finger,” Dante mused, turning it over in his hand. That would have been one way to speed up the process.
Our paths didn’t cross with Gui often, but his help would be valued. He was more skilled in this field and wouldn’t stumble along the way we would, if we tried this ourselves. The worry of discretion could be remedied with cash, I was sure. Every man had a price.