All the air rushed from Letty’s mouth as she looked back at Miles. She didn’t say anything as a smile tugged at her lips. Pressing her lips to Miles, she cradled his cheeks in her hands, giving him a sweet kiss that brought back memories of their innocent teenage days together.
As the smile faded from Letty’s mouth, she replied, “I will.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Miles and Letty woke up shortly before the nine o’clock hour, utterly exhausted from barely getting a stitch of sleep. Let’s face it though, who goes to Atlantic City to sleep? Rustling in bed, Miles sat up, stirring Letty to wake up.
“C’mon. Let’s go grab some breakfast before they shut the buffets down,” Miles said as his stomach growled loudly.
“Okay,” Letty said with a yawn. “Let me just call and check on G.”
“Do you think your dad is awake yet?” Miles asked.
“Knowing G, he probably had him up with the roosters,” Letty said with a laugh.
“Early bird… Are you sure he’s your son?” Miles asked facetiously.
“Shut up!” Letty griped as she threw a pillow at Miles’s head.
“C’mon, get up! I’m starving!” Miles whined. Reaching under the covers, Miles tickled Letty’s foot, damn near receiving a boot to the head.
“All right, I’m up! I’m up!” Letty protested.
About a half hour later, Letty was finally ready to go down to breakfast, and Miles was hungry enough to eat a horse. After they filled their plates with an assortment of breakfast foods, including pancakes, bacon, eggs and fresh fruit, Letty and Miles found a place to sit. Before digging into her breakfast, Letty dialed her father’s digits on her cell phone. After five rings it went to voicemail.
“Hey, it’s me! Just checking in. Call me back.”
Letty ended the call and placed her cell phone on the table.
“Not up yet?” Miles asked.
“I guess not. No one is answering the phone,” Letty said with a slightly alarmed look upon her face. “That’s odd.”
Suddenly, a text message came through. Grabbing her phone, Letty assumed that it must be her father, but when she saw the screen, it wasn’t. Michael Capadonno’s face popped up on the screen. Miles saw it, and immediately his stomach soured.
“What does he want?” Miles asked coolly.
“I don’t know. I’m almost afraid to open it.”
“Give it to me,” Miles said as he reached his hand out.
Without a second thought, Letty passed her cell phone to Miles. Quickly opening up the text message, Miles’s eyes scanned the words a few times before he could truly wrap his head around the depravity of his father’s actions.
“The levels this man stoops to never fails to amaze me,” Miles said gruffly.
“What?” Letty asked.
“Nothing. Just ignore him,” Miles urged Letty.
“No, Miles. What? He’s not a man I’m accustomed to ignoring,” Letty replied nervously.
Sliding the phone across the table, Miles gave Letty back her phone. Glancing down at the screen, Letty couldn’t believe what she was reading. She began gasping before she had truly comprehended Michael Capadonno’s words.
“If you want Miles to live, come to the Compound at 3 P.M. Make sure you bring him with you.”
Sasha walked into the kitchen of the Capadonno house with a look of purpose in her eyes. Pulling out a package of ground beef from the refrigerator, Sasha placed it on the counter, next to the other ingredients that she had pulled from the pantry. Pulling out a huge stock pot from a cabinet, Sasha prepared the arduous process of creating gravy—she hoped that this would help put a smile on her father’s face. It had been some time since she’d seen him smile.
As she dropped ingredients into the pot, the kitchen phone rang loudly.
“Hello? Oh, hey Dustin. No. Everyone is coming. Everyone. No, you’re not ditching today! The whole family will be here. Yeah. See you at three.”
As quickly as she had picked up the phone, Sasha placed it back in its cradle as she shook her head in disgust.
“Jesus, since when did Sunday dinner become a hassle? It’s not like they’re cooking.”
“What time is it?” a voice groaned from behind her.
“Almost noon! Bout time you woke up, Rainey!”
“Why are you so effing cheerful all the effing time?”
“What’s there not to be cheerful about?”
“I don’t know. Forget I asked.”
“You know, Rainey… You should get up early next Sunday and come to mass with me. It was very inspiring!”
“No, no, no! I’m more than happy to let Father Whatever-the-fuck-his-name-is think that I’m the devil worshipper of the family.”
“But you’re not a devil worshipper…”
“He doesn’t know that, though. He leaves me alone. I like it that way.”
“Well, maybe if you didn’t stay out all Saturday night at the club, you wouldn’t be so miserable on Sunday mornings.”
Raine held her head as her sister talked. “Too much talking before coffee.”
“Coffee?” another voice rang out, sounding much more chipper than Raine was.
“Hey, Landon. Yeah, I’m going to put a pot on. Do you want a cup?” Sasha asked.
“Yeah, please,” Landon said as he took the bar stool next to Raine. Grabbing the remote control, Landon flicked on the TV.
“Oh, great. The news,” Raine complained. “Let’s see which of our relatives made the headlines today,” Raine said facetiously.
To no one’s surprise whatsoever, the execution attempt on Miles at the diner yesterday and again in Atlantic City last night was still being chatted about and analyzed by broadcasters. Then as the broadcasters continued to speculate on what happened, a breaking news bulletin came across the screen. The video feed showed a police boat floating in the marsh, and it appeared that they were pulling a body from the swampy water.
“This is Tom Banner reporting live from Carrion, New Jersey at the Cressfield Marina where police have announced that they have pulled the body of a twenty-five year old white male from the water. Police have identified the man as Carrion’s own John “Jackie” Villano, Jr. Police are treating Villano’s death as a homicide. Anyone with information regarding this crime is urged to contact the police.”
“Holy shit,” Sasha said, her eyes going wide with shock. “Rainey, wasn’t that guy a friend of yours.”
Raine, who was eating her cereal as if nothing had happened, looked up and replied, “Oh, yeah. I knew him, but we weren’t real tight.”
Landon scoffed at Raine. “Didn’t you go to your soph hop with him?”
Raine looked up from her cereal and replied with a sharp bite, “I said we weren’t real tight.”
“Calm down, Letty. The old man don’t have shit on me. I had a feeling he’d pull some shit like this,” Miles said.
“We have to go. I will not have this on my head.”
“It could be a trap, Letty…”
“We’re going. Wear your vest. Do what you gotta do, but we’re going,” Letty snapped.
Miles nodded as he hit the gas pedal. “Carrion, here we come.”
“Damn it, Dad! Pick up the phone!” Letty barked as her fourth call went to voicemail.
“I hope everything is all right,” Miles said as his stomach twisted painfully.
“Me, too, Miles. Me, too.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
JUAN ALVES’S NECK ROLLED as he slowly came to his senses. Cracking his eyes open just slightly, his vision was slow to adjust. The room felt like it was spinning but as he adjusted to his surroundings, Juan realized that he wasn’t sitting in a room but an old car. Gasping with panic he looked to his side to make sure his grandson was still with him. As Juan reached for G, he touched his head as the child slept quietly against him.
“Oh, who decided to wake up and join the party…” the driver said as he looked at Juan in his rearview m
irror. The man spoke with a thick Brooklyn accent.
Not bothering to answer the man, Juan looked out his window trying to determine where he was. It wasn’t hard. Even with his foggy vision, Juan could easily make out one of the most famous skylines in the world.
We’re in New York, Juan thought. This is Michael Capadonno’s doing. Letty. Oh, my God, I hope Letty is okay.
“Whatsamatter Johnny, not in the mood to talk?” the man in the passenger seat asked. Turning around, Juan immediately recognized him as a man he had seen around the neighborhood in Carrion.
“The name’s Juan, not John. What do you want with us?” Juan asked in a firm tone not daring to show a stitch of fear on his face.
“That’s our business…”
“Bullshit. You can at least tell me why you took us… Why us? We’re quiet people. We mind our business.”
“It all boils down to loyalties, Pops,” the driver said.
“Loyalties…” Juan repeated.
“Well, yes and no. You and kiddo there are just along for the ride. Consider yourselves collateral… bait on a hook for a bigger fish.”
Miles, Juan thought. They want to kill Miles.
Just then, the driver’s cell phone rang. Seeming to jog Juan’s memory, he checked his pockets, which were empty of course, but they hadn’t got to his cell phone which he kept strapped to his leg. It was a weird habit, but a useful one. When Juan worked, he didn’t always feel his phone vibrate in his pocket, but he certainly did when it was on his leg. As Juan sat in the car, his hands and feet bound, he could feel the cell phone jabbing him in the leg.
“Hey, Nunz… Yeah, we’re crossing the bridge now. We’ll be in Brooklyn in a few. Nope. No problems. Yep. Bye.”
“Who was that?” the passenger asked.
“The boss. He was just checking in,” the man explained. “Everything is going down tomorrow night.”
As the old car rumbled across the Brooklyn Bridge, Juan kept a close watch on his surroundings. The first chance Juan got, he would text the address of where they were taking him so that Letty could get him help.
“C’mon, fuckers. Try me. You messed with the wrong crazy Mexican,” Juan said under his breath, drilling a lethal glare into the back of the men’s heads.
As they pulled through the gate to Brooklyn, the passenger turned around and said, “You say something, Pops?”
Juan stared at the man for a moment and laughed. Never one to stay quiet for the sake of another, Juan loudly said, “Yeah… I said you messed with the wrong crazy Mexican!”
“Feisty, that one.”
“Simmer down, Pops. We ain’t gonna hurt you. Unless of course, your boy don’t show.”
Writhing against the ropes around his wrist, Juan refrained from saying any more in fear that he would be shot before he could send for help. Quietly, G stirred next to him and a faint whisper cried from his mouth.
Sasha continued to prepare dinner as she danced along to the cool croon of Frank Sinatra in the kitchen. Pulling a wooden spoon from a kitchen drawer, Sasha stirred her homemade gravy. Lifting a spoonful out of the pot, she blew on it, making the gravy cool enough to sample. Tasting a tiny bit to check if the gravy needed added seasonings, Sasha quickly decided that she thought it was perfect, but the true test would be if her father did. Tossing the spoon into the sink, she grabbed another from the drawer and dipped it in the gravy. Cupping her hand underneath the spoon to prevent any drips on the freshly cleaned floor, Sasha went in search of her father so that he could sample it.
Lord knows he’ll find something wrong with it, Sasha thought.
“Dad…” Sasha called out as she entered the parlor.
Michael stirred in his bed and looked over at Sasha with a calm look upon his face. In an effort to get Michael to calm down after lashing out at Letty, Sasha slipped him an extra two Zolofts. It took a while, but finally Michael had slipped into a sleepy and tranquil mood.
“Yeah, Sash…” Michael replied, sounding loopy but decidedly calm.
“Try this. Let me know what you think,” Sasha said as she brought the spoon to her father’s mouth.
Michael tasted the gravy and sat quietly while he critiqued it.
“It’s good. Needs a little more oregano, though.”
“Okay, I’ll add some. Are you feeling better now?” Sasha asked with a concerned look upon her face.
Somberly, Michael nodded as he looked up at his daughter.
“What am I going to do with you? You can’t just freak out on people. I could deal with the countless weekend nurses that left, but Letty’s been good to you, Dad.”
Michael sighed dramatically. “It’s not easy being like this, Bella. No one understands.”
“Well, I’m trying to. That must count for something, right?”
Michael patted his daughter on her hand. Suddenly, a sad expression formed on his face.
“What?” Sasha asked, sounding very concerned. “What is it?”
Michael sighed again as he clutched his bedsheets tightly. He appeared to have a heavy burden on his mind.
“Dad, tell me. I want to help,” Sasha said, appearing doe-eyed and alarmed.
Michael screwed up his face, giving Sasha the impression that he didn’t want to share what was bothering him. But just as she was about to prod him to talk to her once more, Michael finally spoke.
In a somber voice, Michael replied, “I just want my family together one last time. All my kids, my nieces and nephews, my brother. I want us to be a family, even if just for a night.”
Sasha, of all the kids, had a soft spot for her father. It killed her to see him in pain, and she often overlooked most of his faults, and spoiled him senseless. In that moment, Sasha’s heart panged with a terrible ache as she saw the pain that permeated from her father’s eyes.
Patting him on his hand, Sasha winked at her father.
“Don’t you worry. I’ll make sure everyone is here for supper. Just like the old days.”
“You promise?” Michael said in a voice full of longing.
“I promise. Now let me get cooking or we won’t have anything to eat,” Sasha said happily.
As Sasha walked away from Michael and curled out of the room, the look on his face quickly changed. As her shadow was gone from the door way, Michael’s sad expression faded as his lips curled up into a devious smile.
Knox Capadonno drove down the highway, taking the exit ramp for Jersey City, as his hands-free device dialed his brother, Dustin. As yet another call went to voicemail, Knox began to curse.
“Pick up your fucking phone! Jesus Christ!” Knox spat. “Call me back. I’m on my way to your garage now. Shit’s about to go down. This is Knox by the way.”
Shaking his head, Knox was flustered by having to track Dustin down. Typically being high-powered and on target, Knox hated feeling like he was out of control. His tires screeched as he wound the corner of Darlington Avenue and 51st Street, his eyes set on the sign for Cormack Auto Body. The establishment belonged to their maternal grandfather and when he passed, he left the shop to Dustin who had shown an interest in all things automotive. Parking his car haphazardly, barely keeping to the box lines on the asphalt, Knox quickly ran from his car to the office of the shop, turning on the alarm to his car as the door of Cormack’s Auto Body creaked open.
Dustin Capadonno was hard at work replacing a busted muffler on a vintage Cadillac. Sundays were supposed to be Dustin’s day off, but the Caddy’s owner was not the type of man who was accustomed to waiting for anything, much less a ride around Carrion. Michael Capadonno was never a very patient man. With his black Beats headphones on his head, Dustin drowned out the noise of his tools with the hard rock melodies of the Smashing Pumpkins and the Black Crowes. His fingers worked hard as he worked to repair the car back to pristine condition as quickly as possible. He was expected at a family dinner at three o’clock which he tried to get out of, but Sasha just wasn’t trying to hear his excuses.
Resting his eyes for a
minute, Dustin wiped his hands off on a rag and adjusted himself on the dolly. As he did, his eyes widened in shock. A man wearing black trousers and fine Italian shoes stood quite still next to the car that Dustin was working on. Biting down on his bottom lip, Dustin quietly retrieved his gun from the waistband of his jeans. Swiftly, he slid out from under the car on the dolly with his gun pointed up at the man. With a rabid look on his face, Dustin took the safety off and grilled a nasty look to the unexpected visitor. But then, when Dustin recognized the man, he quickly relaxed and lowered his gun.
“Motherfucker!” Dustin yelled. “Son of a fuckin’ bitch! That’s a good way to get your head blown off!” Dustin spat, out of breath and wide-eyed.
Knox smiled down at Dustin with an amused smirk on his face, but it quickly faded.
“I thought you were—” Dustin said, still in shock.
Knox recoiled from the statement. “You thought I was who?”
Dustin backstepped. “No one. Never mind. What’s up?”
“You don’t answer your phone?” Knox asked with a look of contempt growing on his face.
“I’ve been under the car since this morning. Why?”
“We need to talk,” Knox said in a serious tone, his dark eyes seeking out his brother’s own.
Dustin stared up at Knox with a perplexed look on his face. He was about to reply something smart, but when he saw the serious as the grave look on Knox’s face, Dustin decided to swallow his words instead. Rising up from his dolly, Dustin brushed himself off and slid his headphones from his head as he followed Knox to the office. Closing the office door behind him, Dustin looked at his older brother with a look of unmuted worry.
“What’s going on?” Dustin asked as he took a seat, slamming his work boots atop his desk.
Knox rolled his eyes at his brother.
“We’ve got a major problem.”
Miles Away (Carrion #1) Page 23