Marauder (Gangsters of New York Book 2)

by Bella Di Corte

  “Who the fuck—” Then I realized. It was the ringer Keely had set on my phone.

  She said it didn’t matter if anyone else had a special one, hers would stand out. She’d picked a picture of an animated green bird, and when my phone would ring, it would appear and this weird birdcall would sound.

  It started out as chirping at first, and then it morphed into a voice screaming, “Warning.” Squawk. “Your wife is calling. Warning.” Squawk. “Your wife is calling.”

  “Warning,” my phone yelled from the corner. “Your wife is calling. Warning.”

  Why the fuck would my wife be calling if she was in the same building? And why the fuck, if I was awake, or not, would she not be beside me? Even when she hated me, she still refused to budge from her place.

  Yanking the wires out of my arms, I moved like a man on a boat during a storm to the corner of the room. Every gash—my side, my back, and wherever else the fuck on my body—caught fire with each step that I took. I’d never been close enough to a raging fire to feel the heat, but my body was lit up in the same way.

  Every muscle. Every nerve. Every cell. Burned.

  All it took was for the ringing to stop, or maybe the man on the other end heard how hard I was breathing, because as soon as he sensed an opening, life, he told me where to meet him.

  “Alone, or your wife’s dead.”

  Rocco’s men were not paying attention. They were more concerned with who threatened to come in than who was going out.

  Plenty of men had tried to escape from Tito Sala’s clutches, though, and those men, they got strapped down to the bed. Then he’d read you the most boring fucking book in the world. The countless men who had been strapped down by his command probably wished they would’ve just died from the fight instead of having to listen to him drone on and on.

  One of the men in the kitchen looked up and nodded at me, but since I swam toward the room where my wife was supposed to be, he probably thought I was looking for her.

  Yeah, swam. I felt like I was underwater, but in a hellish version of it. I was sweating while my skin burned to a crisp. I wasn’t even sure if I could lift my arm above my head.

  I knew my wife wasn’t in the room, but these places were loaded with weapons, and I needed something to bring with me. I was going alone, but I wasn’t going empty handed. In the closet I found a leather shoulder holster and put it on. There was only a pair of sweatpants in here, so I was going with no shirt and no shoes.

  Every instinct in me told me to fucking run, but my head was at war with my limbs. Whatever Tito had given me was strong, even though pain still existed. Maybe it was wearing off. Which meant I had to get out before he came to give me another dose and found me gone.

  I slipped past the men in the kitchen. I knew the man standing guard outside, though, was going to be a problem—a six-foot, four-inch, two hundred and fifty pound, solid-muscle, Sicilian issue. I’d met the guard, Rizzo, who they sometimes called “The Giant” at the door before, and I knew he was from Sicily. The Fausti’s reach was long, and they had family in every area imaginable.

  “Kelly,” he said, squinting at me. He had a red stain on his cheek.

  I lifted a gun to his head. “No offense, Rizzo, but I need a set of keys.”

  “I’ll drive you,” he said. “Sala gave you—”

  I shook my head. “Have to do this alone.”

  He sighed and pulled out a pair of keys from his pocket. He threw them at me, and I caught them with one hand.

  He nodded to an all-black Hummer across the street. “I am going to bust your ass as soon as you heal,” he called after me. “I would do it now, but I am too afraid of Sala. You know how he feels about stitches—they are his art.”

  I pressed the button on the Hummer and it chirped, but right before I climbed inside, I felt someone watching me. I looked over my shoulder but didn’t see anyone. I knew, though. That Machiavellian motherfucker. Mac. He was like a ghost, always watching, and when you felt him, that was all it was. A feeling. He was never where you expected him to be.

  And if he called Keely “my wife’s friend” one more time, I was going to swing on him. It was like no other woman’s name was good enough to come from his mouth except for his wife’s.

  “Keely,” I said, as I strained to get inside of the Hummer. It was a road beast, and after I shut the door, I found a clean shirt on the passenger seat and a new pair of shoes on the floor.

  I looked around again, but nothing but darkness surrounded me. There was no telling when Mac had arranged this ride and the clothes. Probably as soon as my wife called them for help. Again, he was a smart killer, one of the most dangerous of all. He plotted before he executed.

  So how did my wife slip past the men in the house and Rizzo outside?

  The stain of red on Rizzo’s cheek explained it. He was fucking eating. I could smell the aroma of tomatoes and garlic coming off of him. It was the same dish the guys were eating inside of the house. And if I knew Rocco, and somewhat Mac, they’d just arrived after taking care of the massacre outside of our place in Hell’s Kitchen. Keely had slipped out before then. Or they wouldn’t have allowed her to leave on her own.

  I removed the shoulder holster and slipped the shirt over my head. It rubbed against all of the slices, separate little fires, the material trapping the heat underneath the bandages. It reflected what was going on inside of me. I was a walking fire—about to combust from anger.

  The day at the country club, after the attempted hit on my life, I knew.

  It was someone who knew me. Someone close. But I’d had to find out how far the operation went before I could take action.

  I knew the why, too, but it was hard to concentrate on the reason. Not when my eyelids were heavy and my head kept going under and coming back up. My skin battled hot and cold—I was feverish. My teeth clacked.

  “Fuck!” I yanked the wheel of the Hummer to the left, clipping a parked car on the right, taking its bumper completely off.

  I shook my head, trying to keep it clear, while I sped through the streets like a drunk. It wasn’t even from the drugs anymore. The pain was ramping up because the buffers were wearing off. The motherfuckers must’ve stabbed me numerous times, and deep. The one on my neck had the deepest pulse. And my face. I was starting to feel it again. My nose the most. One of them must’ve kicked me when I was down and broke it—again.

  It all came second to the pure determination to get to my wife, though. The pain reminded me that I had a purpose.

  A raindrop hit the windshield. I hoped it would hold off for a while, but I could smell it in the air. Humidity. Lightning speared across the sky, followed by thunder.

  A few minutes later, the Hummer rolled over the lawn of the cemetery, coming to a hard stop with my heavy foot. I slid the shoulder holster back on and bent over to pick up the shoes. My head drowned before it came up for air and I could catch my breath. I put the motherfuckers on and almost fell out of the car getting out.

  I was going to have to shoot him before he got to me. I was in no shape to fight; I could barely stand. He was a strong dude with quick punches. And I needed to get her out. Once she was, it was what it was between us.

  Keely Kelly had become my life. My entire life. I was addicted to her peace, to her love, to her. I was in love with the life inside of the woman. When she restarted my life, she gave me a first breath again, and I’d give her my last if it meant she lived.

  Following the beams of the Hummer, I made my way through the cemetery. The gaps between the markers became darker and darker the further in, until the light from a flashlight lit up the area in front of my old man’s stone. It wasn’t elaborate like some of the ones around.

  My old man hadn’t wanted that. He’d said that all men ended up in the same place no matter where they’d been or what they’d done in life. A million-dollar casket or a five-hundred-dollar one, it made no difference, because what was inside was still going to perish.

  “Ashes to ashes,�
�� Raff’s voice carried. “Dust to dust… Is that you, Cashel Kelly?”

  Yeah, fucking Raff.

  Martin had told me that he’d seen Raff give a young guy a key that day at Sullivan’s, when Sal’s trucks were coming in and out. The guy gave the key to Susan’s grandson, Colin McFirth, but Martin didn’t think anything of it until Raff told him over beers that some guy had given Colin a key, and the key belonged to the truck that blew up with Colin inside of it. Raff had said the truck was meant for me.

  I’d never told Raff what happened between Colin and me. I’d never even told him that I’d rigged the wrong truck and fixed the other one. And I’d only taught one person how to rig anything the way Colin’s truck was.

  Raff was so caught up in his gloating that he didn’t realize he’d busted himself—because he and Colin were in on it. Colin had never sold Raff out. They had been working together against me. My guess was that Colin wanted to kill me off sooner than his partner, but instead, he got the fucked up end of the deal.

  It took Martin a minute to piece it together, but when he did, he realized it was Raff behind it all along. Raff had been using me to eliminate all of his potential adversaries, before he eliminated me. It wasn’t going to be with explosives, though. Not like he’d taken out his friend. This was personal.

  He wanted me to suffer. To beg.

  I had the gun trained on him before he twirled out between two stones—one that belonged to my old man, and one that belonged to his—with my wife in his arms. Her head was tilted back, her eyes closed, her hair swaying whenever he moved her. When he turned, like he was taking a last dance with a dead woman, I saw the blood. It ran down her face from her forehead.

  Her nose. Her mouth. Her eyes. He’d beaten on the doors to my heaven to get in. Her jeans were soaked, almost black, with blood.

  “Keely,” her name came from my lips without thought. “My darlin’.”

  He smiled. “You’re losing your edge, Kelly.” He nodded toward the hand that’d been holding the gun. It was down, not even trained on him anymore.

  I couldn’t take a shot, not the way he held her in his arms. It might not even make a difference.

  My wife, he’d already… I refused to even think it.

  Something inside of me grew weak, but my hand tightened around the gun.

  He winced, but then he grinned. “Your wife, Jessica Rabbit, she fought harder than you are right now. We all see who wears the pants in your family.” He ticked his mouth. “I shouldn’t say family. Maureen. The little girl. The little boy. All dead…and now your wife.” He turned a fraction, showing me her face. “I told you to come alone or she’d die. Since I knew you wouldn’t…” He shrugged.

  I met his eyes as rain started to pour. Lightning forked across the sky, turning it purple for a second before thunder rolled.

  “The guns, Kelly.” He nodded to the one dangling in my hand. “That’s not alone. But I didn’t kill her. Not yet. Might want to hurry, though, the bleeding is steady on the outside, but I’m not sure what’s happening on the inside.” He winked at me. “She can take a hit with a bat, Jessica Rabbit can,” he said, mocking my accent.

  “What do you want?” I said through clenched teeth.

  “You,” he said. “On your knees. In front of me. Begging for forgiveness. No gun to your head forcing the words. I want an apology from the soul, since you have no fucking heart.”

  I threw the gun in my hand to the side of him, and he kicked it so far that I couldn’t get to it even if I tried. I did the same with the entire holster. He did the same thing.

  Love was the only force that could ever bring me to my knees. My wife had called it the day at her brother’s house.

  I fell to my knees not in front of him, but in front of my wife. She was all I could see. All I could hear. All I could breathe. I could smell her in the rain, and when he stood over me, holding her, her blood dripped down my face like tears.

  “You didn’t see this coming, you arrogant bastard of the devil. The marauder of Hell’s Kitchen—you don’t steal things, you steal hearts. You steal them from men. You steal them from families. Your old man was the devil himself. Everything he touched, he ruined. Like the drugs you fight against.” Raff put his gun to my forehead. “Let me tell you a story, a story of how Ronan Kelly ruined a good man’s life. My old man owed a debt, and your old man forced him off the street with this band of thugs and brought him to Ginger’s.”

  Ginger’s was a bar my old man fronted the money for. He used it sometimes to deal with men who owed money, or worse. It wasn’t a neutral place like Sullivan’s. If those walls could talk, the FBI would’ve brought them in for interrogation years ago.

  “Over money, Kelly,” Raff said, pressing the gun harder against my head. His hand was steady at first, but the more he talked, the more he relived, and it started to shake. “Money. Your old man put a gun to my old man’s head, just like this, and forced him to call home. I answered the phone. My old man was crying, begging, and he told me to put my ma on the line.”

  Raff sniffed. “He owed the great Ronan Kelly a debt, and if we didn’t bring enough, we were all dead. Now you’re going to beg for something worth more than your life. This woman’s life. Your life is not good enough to beg for. Hers? Worth every word from your mouth.

  “Kind of like what you did to Scott Stone. You stole her from him knowing he’d never get over her because he lost her to you. The devil’s spawn. The thing he spent his entire life fighting against. And his career? His other love? The end of life as he knew it when he lost it. Now you’re where many men have been at your word, at your fucking hand, and you’re going to lose, Kelly. You’re going to lose. Because I’ve watched. This bitch is worth everything to you. More than your old man’s memory. More than your last breath. So what do you have to say?”

  I lifted my hands. “Here I am,” I said, tasting blood in my mouth. Either hers or mine.

  “Here I am.” He looked up at the sky and laughed. “Is that all you have to say for your fucking self? Where’s the begging? The pleading? The crying?” He turned and slammed my wife’s head against my old man’s stone at the same time thunder seemed to crack the sky in two, and more rain started to fall. “You’ll cry—”

  My heart screamed out her name, but a roar left my throat when heat surged up inside of me, and I slammed my body into his. We collided so hard that he dropped my wife, trying to protect his body from mine, and as soon as we went down, we started fighting.

  He had me on my back in no time, hitting me in all of the spots he knew were weak, missing one vital spot.

  My neck.

  I could survive the rest.

  But not my neck.

  I didn’t give a fuck about my life. I had to get my wife help. We were in a cemetery. The land of the dead. She wasn’t going to be one of them. If she was, we’d go together. I’d break open the vein in my neck before anyone lowered her in the ground before my eyes.

  He kept landing punches on my back, on my sides, and then he hit me right over the spot in my neck. The wind left my lungs in a fucking wheeze, and rain poured into my mouth as I tried to breathe.

  Raff rolled off of me, crawling to get to the gun he’d lost when I’d slammed my body into his. He stood no less than a second later, going for Keely again, and with every ounce of air I could steal, I screamed out his name.

  “Raff!”

  He stopped and turned to me.

  “Fuck you,” I said. “And fuck your old man. He was a pussy.” I whipped out the gun from behind my back, shooting him once in the head and once in his heart.

  He fell to the ground as I climbed to my knees and crawled to my wife, who was lifeless on the ground, the rain pouring on her face, trying to wash the blood. It was too much, coming too fast. Using my old man’s stone, I propped myself up, pulling her with me, roaring with pain when I did. I set her against my chest, holding her tight against me, not sure what the fuck to do. Besides her face, I wasn’t sure what he’d done t
o her. I wasn’t there to protect her. Or those children. Or Maureen.

  Our family.

  My head swam in and out again, but even in the darkness, all I could see was red.

  Blood.

  Our blood ran and mixed in the rain.

  I turned my head up to the sky and cried out. I cried out so loud that my lungs trembled. “Please,” I begged. “Please.” Lightning lit up the darkness, showing me her face, and I begged once again in Irish Gaelic. “Le do thoil!”

  “It’s about time you begged for something, you no-good bastard.”

  Lee Grady. The man who was supposed to be dead. A fucking ghost in a cemetery. He stood over me with a gun in his hand.

  I went to move my wife, but he shook his head, pointing the gun at her. “She’s going first. After what I just heard, she’s worth more than what you stole from me. You’ll live long enough, after I finish the job Susan couldn’t, to see the life drain from her before it drains from you. Very poetic. Your old man might’ve even been proud you went out this way.”

  A whistle sounded. Like a bird. Singing. Or talking to another one. It came and then went when another roll of thunder drowned it out. It came back, closer this time.

  I could see Grady in the light of the flashlight Raff left behind, but he couldn’t see who else was out there.

  Grady aimed his gun toward the left, toward where the noise was coming from, his eyes narrowing. “Who’s there?” he shouted.

  Nothing but the downpour of rain answered him, and then the whistle, which came and went again. My old man might’ve had a simple stone, but big statues surrounded him. Whoever it was seemed to be moving between them, letting Grady know he wasn’t alone.

  Grady pulled the trigger on his gun. A flash of light, and then the blast rang and seemed to echo in the night. He must’ve hit a stone, because I heard it crack.

  “Who’s there?” he shouted again, ready to pull the trigger once more. Before he did, though, a man appeared out of the darkness and put one bullet in his head and two in his chest. He lay at my feet, his eyes still open, rain pooling in his unseeing eyes.