Vendetta

by Christine Zolendz

  “My father is meeting with him today,” he says, greedy eyes still reading over Fretolli’s secrets. He’s inhaling the cheesecake like an award-winning vacuum.

  Tony is meeting with Niko today? “Why? I thought your father was cutting him out of everything.”

  “Oh, he is, beautiful. Tony called him for a sit down. Something fucked up must be happening for him to reach out and beg like that.” He laughs as he licks the last remnants of the cheesecake off his fork. If he starts licking the plate like a dog, my camera is coming out.

  Then I realize what he just said. Something big must be happening. Tony believes Niko is behind his men being slaughtered like pigs. And he’s never going to own up to the fact it’s Tony himself ordering the damn pork sandwiches. Tony Fretolli is not sitting down talking to anyone. He’s probably cutting them up into little pieces and selling it to the neighborhood butcher as a new kind of organic meat.

  “You know,” he says, dipping a tissue into a glass of water to wipe the mess of white gunk caked around his lips. “You shouldn’t go back there. With the things Tony is into, you’re not safe. Big things are going to start happening. Do yourself a favor and stay away. Dance privately if you need the money. I know plenty of men who’d pay for you.”

  Heat surges through me, but I ignore the words and quiet my rage. Now is not the time to lose my shit on him. “What do you think is going to happen?”

  “Really,” he chuckles, “you want to go there?”

  “Yeah, seriously, what’s going on?” I ask, grasping the mug hard in my hands.

  “Hun, the Jakovs are much more powerful than the Fretollis. The Italian mob? They’re nothing in this city now, haven’t been for the last ten years.” He leans forward and takes a slurp of his coffee. “Today, most of the top guys in the families are doing time or dead,” he whispers. “We think it’s time for a changing of the guard, so to speak.”

  “You don’t think Anthony Fretolli is powerful?” I ask, taking a small casual sip from my cup.

  “Nah, he’s just crazy. People listen to him out of fear, not respect. My father said it was Angelo Acerbi that was respected in that family, and him and his whole family got gunned down years ago. My senior year in high school.” He shrugs and offers me a small calculating smile, “With all the disgusting shit Tony and his crew are dabbling in? The chemical shit, the kids—we think it’s time for that entire organization to be read its last rites.” He motions the waitress over and takes out a roll of cash, flashing it like a stack of cards. My mind spins out of control. He’s talking about killing Corrado too.

  “What do my sister and I owe you, gorgeous? My sister has to get out of here,” he asks the waitress.

  She writes out the receipt and they banter while I think of a dozen ways I would love to see Lev die. It’s a sick thought, but it’s there, breathing, living, festering inside me.

  When the waitress sashays away, he nods toward the door, dismissing me.

  I don’t move.

  “What’s wrong? Come on, get out of here. I want to hit that,” he says, grinning ear to ear, gaze locked on to the waitress’s—her name is Melissa—ass.

  “Don’t touch Corrado.” My tone is even, it’s not a plea nor a question. It’s a bold-faced demand.

  He leans back, the waitress suddenly dropping right out of his thoughts. A smile playing at his lips. “And what will you give me so I don’t touch Corrado Fretolli?”

  I lean forward and bite along the bottom of my lip. “Big boy, you take me into the backseat of your Porsche right now, and I’ll give you anything you ask for.”

  Chapter 14

  Corrado

  I mush Enzo in the face and shove past him. My head isn’t right and I just need the truth. I need the truth about her.

  Enzo doesn’t lower his gun. I don’t know what the fuck his problem is, but I couldn’t have pushed him that hard, he’s still standing. Fuck him. I focus all my attention on Niko, storming up to him and jamming my gun in his mouth.

  He’s awake, sweating. Still tied down to the chair, blood soaked through his pants. Someone’s even put them back on him. How fucking sweet.

  “How do you know Sophia Monroe?” I growl, forcing the gun deeper between his lips.

  He blinks up at me, his eyes full of wild terror. He tries to breathe through me gagging him and snot and spit fly out of his nose and the corner of his lips. He grunts words I can’t understand, and for a minute it enrages me more, until I realize he can’t fucking tell me what I want to know with my piece in his mouth.

  I’m breathing heavy, too heavy. I feel almost lightheaded with fury. I want to kill him for knowing her. I want to kill them just thinking about them touching her like I did. I yank my gun out of his mouth and try to gain control.

  I crouch down eye-level with him. “Let’s start again.” I’m seething, grinding my teeth like an animal. “How do you know Sophia Monroe?”

  From the corner of my eye, I see Tony standing against the wall, arms folded across his chest. I don’t look at him. I don’t look at anyone else but Niko. Not even Enzo, who is still pointing his gun at me.

  Something’s wrong.

  Niko smiles up at me and spits. Blood sprays across the front of my shirt and splatters over my shoes.

  “Where is she?” I ask.

  “Probably sucking cock somewhere.” His voice sounds funny. Then I realize a few of his teeth are gone. Tony must have played dentist in the few minutes I was upstairs opening my delivery of shitty mail.

  I straighten up and pull the blade I keep in my waistband. I’m still ignoring the two fuckers standing behind me watching. I’ll deal with them later. I open up my knife and hold it an inch in front of his eyes. “I’m not a patient man, Niko. I’m going to ask you a few questions. For each question you’re going to get five seconds to answer.” I step closer, running the sharp point of the knife over the skin of his forearms, ripping at the first layer of skin. A trail of blood beads to the surface instantly. “If you don’t answer? Well, I’ll just dig deep for the answers. How do you know Sophia Monroe?”

  He looks at me as though I have three heads and a dick on each nose. “She’s the whore telling me all Tony’s secrets, son. All of them.”

  “Who the fuck is Sophia Monroe?” Tony’s voice is even, but I hear the anger and rage lying just underneath. If he finds out Sophia is Felony and she’s been talking, he’s going to kill her.

  He’s going to kill her.

  “How do you think we know everything you do?” Niko laughs. Why the hell is he laughing? The son of a bitch is tied to a chair, missing half his teeth, and I’m about to shove this knife through his arm.

  “Corrado? Who’s this girl you’re asking about?”

  I can’t speak. I’m the one who brought her name into this. He doesn’t know her as Sophia—only Felony or Mallory. Fuck me, my head is swimming. I swallow hard and look at Tony. “What did you get out of him? What did he say when I left?”

  “Nephew. Who is Sophia Monroe?” he asks again. I feel the butt of Enzo’s gun hit the back of my head.

  I don’t say a word. Something was said while I was upstairs. Something that changed everything.

  Tony steps forward. His face is heavy with emotion. “Last night, Corrado. Last night Niko and his guys found a shipment of items that belonged to me.” He lays a hand over my shoulder, his fingers squeezing hard into my skin. “A shipment only you and a dead man knew about. I don’t feel like I can trust anybody right now. So, I’m going to ask again. Who’s Sophia Monroe?”

  “It’s Felony, boss,” Enzo says behind me. “I just showed him a few things I found on the bitch. She’s connected with Niko, and Corrado’s been fucking her like a dog. How much did you pay for that ass, Corey?”

  I whirl around, fists flying, landing a loud crunching punch to Enzo’s nose, dropping him to the floor instantly.

  I square up to Tony.

  “You may want to rethink your next move, son. You don’t want your mother
burying you before it’s time.”

  “Sophia—Felony—she’s not like that.”

  “Yeah, we’ll see about that. Carlo, Sal, tie up Corrado. My nephew needs the same lesson I taught his father.”

  I whip around and Carlo and Sal are somehow face to face with me. They look upset and confused and so am I. He needs to teach me the same lesson he taught my father?

  That’s when the butt of Carlo’s gun slams into my temple. At least I think it was Carlo, could have ben Sal, but either way the room turns black and the floor comes up fast to my face.

  Something is pulling at my wrists. It’s rough and hard, moving against my skin making it burn.

  Tugging. Pulling. My hands are over my head and I blink up trying to focus my eyes. Everything blurs. Rain through a window.

  My elbows and shoulder joints scream in pain. I feel them pull and wrench apart. By brain feels like it’s splitting in my skull.

  I can’t even shout out in pain, something dry and scratchy fills up my mouth. All I can do it breathe through my nose.

  My eyes slowly focus. The fog lifts. All there is is pain.

  Most people go through life never knowing pain. They think they've felt pain, but they've never felt real true pain. Trust me.

  I know pain.

  Right here, right now, in this warehouse. This warehouse—with its humid air that breeds that slick, slimy sweat over your flesh—this is where I feel real pain.

  And I know with this much pain, that scorching burn, then that numb feeling—where the only thing you hear and feel is the slowing hard thumps of your dying heart. I know. God, do I know. My breaths are numbered.

  I only have a few left in me.

  You know what's weird when you're dying, those last few thoughts you have? They're not: Oh shit, I'm gonna die. Not for me anyway. My last thoughts are a distinct memory—me and my friends watching the carnies set up for the Feast of San Gennaro.

  While the rest of the world went to Little Italy, my neighborhood celebrated the feast and the end of summer in the vacant lot right off the bay, across a sea of tall ragweed. We'd stand there with our fingers weaving through the chain-link fence, smelling like sweat and ocean salt, thunder rumbling behind us.

  Me, Angelo and Giana. My sisters were too young at the time to tag along with us. I remember like it was yesterday, the big steel arms of the Scrambler and sticky leathered seats of the Tilt-A-Whirl being put together like some complicated mechanical puzzle. My eyes squinting in the hot summer sun. Just to the left of us, the sky heavy with black-bottomed clouds and streaks of jagged electric heat slashing across them. My fingers biting tighter at the links of wire on the fence, trying to get a glimpse of the big Ferris Wheel; that great whir of monstrous machinery that lets you touch the stars. The one I planned on taking Giana on and getting to feel the heat of her lips against mine for the very first time.

  "I heard they were putting up a big roller coaster this year. One even faster than the Cyclone at Coney Island," Giana said. The sweet tang of her sweat mixed with the salty air made my muscles ache, parts of me to wake up, harden. "Corrado, you goin’ to go on the big roller coaster?"

  "You asking me to take you on the roller coaster, G?"

  "Maybe I am." A fine mist of rain began to settle over us, a relief from the scorching sun that was somehow still burning bright side by side with the storm.

  "Yeah, well I'm asking Margo to go on the coaster with me. I'll put my hand around her shoulder and grab onto her tits," Angelo rumbled next to her, walking closer to the big mechanical monsters.

  Giana tilted her head back and laughed. It was one of those things I liked about Giana Acerbi, she wasn't a normal prissy little princess. She was grinning up at me, those pale blue eyes of hers dancing, small droplets of rain sticking to her dark lashes. "You're not scared of a big coaster, are you, Corrado?"

  "I ain't scared of nothing, G."

  She was thirteen years old, and had a pair of lips that had me waking up in the middle of the night with sticky warmth spurting out of my body, fireworks behind my lids. Her body was just starting to change into soft curves and it was all I could think about. Especially then, that moment, with the cool drizzle of the rain falling across her little white tank top, the dark rose tips of her nipples becoming steadily visible through the material. I wanted to rub my fingers in slow circles around them.

  Suck on them through the white cotton of her shirt.

  I bet she tasted like cherries.

  But that was years ago, well, almost ten years, maybe less. I did get to take Giana on that coaster, holding her warm hand the whole time, and I did get to kiss those perfect lips. It was the last day I got to see her, though. It was the day she died. Her and Angelo. Her and all of them.

  And now it's my turn.

  Today's the day I die.

  Lying in a pool of my own blood, surrounded by monsters.

  People don't usually believe in monsters, do they? Most people get told by their parents that there are no such thing as monsters.

  Let me tell you,

  monsters

  are

  real.

  My father taught me about real monsters. Giana and Angelo's father taught us all about real monsters. They're made of flesh and bone, hidden deep inside the minds of men. These aren't the kind of monsters that come fresh out of horror movies with the telltale decaying green skin and a penchant for eating flesh. No. The real monsters are men. Men with hidden guns, violent fantasies, and greed that burns deep in their bellies.

  I know these monsters well. I've lived in their world for so long that I easily forget where they end and I began. I'm a monster too.

  We're all monsters here.

  All of us hold a little bit of evil inside us, and sometimes that evil can overwhelm us and have us do despicable things. Then we become more than just monsters, we're monsters haunted by ghosts. And we learn to live that way. Evil wins over good.

  And right now, four of them block my view. Four monstrous heads hovering over my beaten body looking down at me without expression. All of them puffing deep on the ends of thick Cuban cigars. White smoke clouds the air; the thick tang of it fills my lungs.

  "It hurts me deeply," Tony grumbled over me, flicking ashes at me from the tip of his Cuban, "hurts me deeply that I lost my trust in you. Corey, you were like a son to me. A son."

  Now, Tony? Tony knows pain.

  Not only does he know how it feels, Tony gets off on causing pain. Real pain. I once watched the man giggle while he waited for a pot of water to boil, only to pour it in some guys lap, while it was still bubbling.

  Tony is a monster. A real fire-breathing, soul-wrecking monster. Because from what I saw, all the poor guy did to earn that boiling pot of water in his lap was scratch a dent in Tony's new Mercedes. But it could have been something more, what did I know, I was only sixteen at the time. That day, Tony held my face in his strong hands, making sure my eyes witnessed the rest of the boys pulling back the poor guy’s pants. A few layers of blistering torn flesh along with it.

  But that was then, and this is now, and now it’s my turn to feel the pain.

  Tony's face disappears from my sight. Someone tugs at my leg and drags me across the floor, the pain making me lightheaded and dizzy. I'm tugged over rotting wood; somewhere a sharp nail tears into the leg of my pants and bites into my skin, scraping a line of fire through my flesh. The room blurs in and out like a dream. Some sort of illusion, some sort of last rite. Tony and his men, there are only three left, standing over me laughing, the barrel of their guns aimed right for my head. I inhale long and slow, the air rattles wetly in my chest. Something rough and hard wraps around my wrists.

  "I brought you into my family. I kept you. I kept you safe. I loved you. Loved you, Corrado." My wrists pull up, and my body lifts off the ground. My shoulders and back strain from the position my body stretches in. I'm swinging by a rope, on my tippy toes trying to stop the spin. "I want you to beg for your death, my son. Beg me."r />
  I hock up a mouthful of saliva and blood. Spit it at his feet. All these months, all these years of being involved in this organization, have been for this moment. Kill or be killed. The only thing remaining between me and my last breath is Tony's fetish for torture.

  He’s taking his sweet time torturing me, but I know he’s going soft with me; dying at the hands of Tony is usually a lot worse. I've witnessed firsthand the despicable things this man can do. Doesn’t matter if I live or die, Tony won’t last the rest of the night. He won’t be getting away with anything this time. Someone will find him.

  Something flutters off to the side of my vision.

  A quick movement.

  A soft blur of motion. Everything seems wrong suddenly, off. I try to lean up, tense my arms to pull up and I catch the movement again; a quick glimpse of a girl. She's walking up through the dirt road and into the shelter of the warehouse.

  God, no. No, nononono. Don't let it be her. This changes everything.

  Drip.

  A warm wet splat hits my chest.

  Drip.

  Drip. Drip.

  A line of thick red crimson streams down my arm. Blood.

  Pain is white hot.

  Kick the pain down, stuff it in a box,

  down,

  down,

  down.

  I focus on the girl. God, please make her turn around. Walk away. She looks so young, so breakable, that my lungs growl out a warning. Leave. Run! I want to scream, but I can't. Her eyes are on Tony the whole time, expression blank. In her hand, swinging from her fingers, is a dirty gray cloth. Blood drips into my eyes, with my hands tied above my head. I try to blink them clean. Put your pain in a box, lock the lid, hidden in the dark where the nightmares belong. Control it, dominate it, own it. That's what my father taught me.

  I can't save her, I think. This girl. This girl I love. The one with the secrets and the lies, that moves like liquid, that makes me come so hard I see stars every time. I wanted to save her, shield her from this life, but just like me it's all she knows. She walks through the doors, right into the devil’s lair. Shakespeare was right when he wrote that line in the Tempest, Hell is empty and all the devils are here. They're all in this room.