Tess's Tale (The Chanel Series Book 3)

by Donna Joy Usher

  Wine splashed out of the bottle, into the glass and all over my benchtop. He slammed the bottle down and picked up the glass, more wine splashed out over the lip to the floor. It was obvious by his actions that he had already had a few drinks.

  The wise thing would have been to leave. But I wasn’t feeling wise, I was feeling angry.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘That’s a very good question.’ He held the glass up to the light and examined its contents. ‘Big H likes only the best I see.’ He took a sip and then peered over the top at me. ‘In his wine and his women.’

  ‘I think you should leave.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ He staggered a little as he headed for the lounge. ‘Not till I got what I came for.’

  ‘Which is?’ Did I really want to know? I wasn’t so sure.

  ‘My rightful place. It should have been me taking over from JJ. I was his right-hand man.’ He slurped some more wine and I watched in dismay as some of it sloshed onto the lounge. ‘Not your precious Harry.’

  ‘I really have no idea what you’re talking about.’ What had that meeting been about? Obviously not what Harry had told me.

  Lou stood up and lurched towards me. Panic flitted through me but I held my ground. I was tired of flinching every time the man moved.

  He leaned in so close I could see the red wine stains on his teeth. ‘Maybe I should take something of his. See how he likes it.’

  All thoughts of standing my ground flew out the window. ‘What are you talking about?’ I backed towards the kitchen. There was a knife block only twelve feet away.

  He grabbed my arm, his fingers digging into skin and muscle.

  ‘Let go.’ I’d like to say my voice stayed calm but it came out in a panicked shriek. I could smell the alcohol on his breath and the look in his eyes had changed from angry to calculating.

  ‘Oh yes, I think I’d enjoy that.’ He pulled me to him, groping my breast with his free hand as he tried to kiss me.

  For a millisecond I froze. All my childhood memories locking me into place. Lou had quite often beaten and raped my Mom, why wouldn’t he move onto me? But then I thought of Harry and my knee slammed upwards into Lou’s groin.

  He let out a roar of pain, but rather than let me go, his grip tightened. His face turned red and his eyes bulged as he growled, ‘You’ll pay for that, bitch.’ His right hand slammed into the side of my face, the stinging blow taking my breath away.

  I stumbled backwards and his grip on my arm loosened. Yanking it free, I turned, sprinting for the knife block.

  ‘Oh no you don’t!’ He moved fast for a drunk, grabbing me as I reached for the meat carver. ‘You going to cut me girl?’ Letting out a loud laugh, he threw me bodily away from the kitchen bench. He pulled the blade clean of the wooden block and held it up. ‘You don’t have the guts.’ He turned the knife from side-to-side inspecting the edge. ‘Now me? I’m a cutter. It’s my preferred method.’

  He stalked towards me and I turned and ran. I should have headed for the front door, but he was hot on my trail and the thought of him plunging that knife into my back as I opened the door stopped me. Instead, I ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

  I had to stop this now. And there was only one way I could think of doing it.

  He was halfway up when I cleared the staircase and launched myself across the room. Praying that Harry hadn’t moved it, I yanked open the top bedside drawer. It was still there. Thanking God, I scooped up the revolver. It felt cool and smooth in my grip.

  ‘Now I’ve got you.’ Lou laughed as he walked into the bedroom. ‘And right where I want you too. I’m gunna show you what a real man feels like.’

  Calmness descended over me as I spun toward him. ‘Get the fuck out of my house.’

  His eyes widened and he took a step back. ‘You don’t have the guts.’

  ‘You don’t think?’ I paced towards him. ‘Do you want to place a bet on that?’ I let out a laugh. ‘Actually don’t bother. It’s hard work extracting money from a corpse.’

  His face took on a determined look and he stepped towards me.

  I wiggled the barrel of the gun and said, ‘Say goodbye Lou.’

  ‘How are you gunna explain a dead body in your bedroom to the cops?’

  ‘Really?’ I shook my head. ‘You’re holding a knife and your breath stinks of alcohol.’ Something he had said earlier pushed its way to the front of my mind. I had to know if it was what I thought it was. ‘If Big H really is running the show now there’ll be heaps of people to witness what a rage you left the apartment in.’

  I crossed the fingers on my free hand hoping he wasn’t about to confirm what I dreaded.

  Lou’s face contorted with rage, his hand holding the knife started to tremble. ‘I can’t believe Sam the Suit accepted it. I thought he would be my main contender. Soft cock agreed with Big H,’ he spat those words out, ‘that it was in our best interest that we keep a strong front. If that Giuseppe wasn’t wandering around hacking off limbs I would be in control. Me. Not your useless, pathetic husband.’

  Even though I was shocked to the core, I managed to keep an expressionless face. Harry had seized control of the Vegas Mob. ‘Not so useless and pathetic it would seem.’ I arched an eyebrow at him. ‘Now you have five seconds to get the hell out of my house. After that, all bets are off. One.’

  He stood stock still, his mouth opening and closing like a goldfish’s as he stared at me.

  ‘Two.’

  Wow. I was really going to get to shoot the son-of-a-bitch.

  ‘Three.’

  Lou turned and ran for the stairs.

  ‘Four.’ I yelled the word after him as he hurtled down the staircase.

  ‘Five.’ The front door slammed shut.

  Damn. He’d made it. I had been looking forward to shooting him.

  Once he was gone, the enormity of what he had told me sunk in. A deep, radiating ache started in my chest till it felt like there was a huge hole there. My face throbbed as if competing with my chest.

  The most disturbing thing about the whole thing wasn’t Lou’s attempt to assault me. It was the fact that Harry hadn’t told me what he had planned.

  One second I was married to Harry, the man who was planning to run away with me, the next I was married to Big H, the Mob boss.

  I curled my arms around my stomach and tried not to cry.

  8

  Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad

  When I had recovered enough, I made my way to Liss’s. I wasn’t working that night, but I didn’t want to be home when Harry got there. I didn’t think I could look him in the eyes at the moment. I was seriously disappointed.

  ‘What happened?’ She reached out and put her palm on my face where an angry red swelling evidenced Lou’s strike.

  ‘Had a run in with Lou the Brain.’ I told her about what had happened, leaving out only the part about how Harry had become Big H. I didn’t want to think about that part.

  ‘You should have shot him,’ she said. ‘That one’s not going to be happy till he’s finished what he started.

  A shiver ran over me. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps I should have shot him. The evidence was compelling. I would have gotten off on self-defence. And she was right; he was going to keep causing trouble till somebody stopped him. But I don’t know if I could have pulled the trigger unless I really thought my life was at risk.

  She put the kettle on to boil and sat back down at the kitchen table.

  ‘I’m going to tell him tonight.’ I’d decided that on the drive over.

  She stared at me with huge, solemn blue eyes. ‘Do you want your passport?’

  I shook my head. ‘We’ll come to say goodbye.’ The thought of leaving Liss was bad enough without thinking that may be my last time with her.

  ‘Where’s Thor?’

  ‘Grocery shopping.’

  I laughed. ‘I wish I could get Harry to do the groceries.’ A little voice in my head made a sarcastic comment
about how Harry was too busy running the Mob to do something as mundane as buying groceries. I wrestled it to the ground and slammed its head a few times for good measure. That shut it up.

  The phone started to ring. ‘It’s better if the person who cooks also shops,’ Liss said as she reached for the receiver. She had a smug smile on her face. ‘Hello,’ she said into the phone. ‘Yep, did you want to talk to her? Okay, nope I’ll tell her.’ She hung up the phone and said, ‘That was Harry. Jim wants you there for dinner tonight. To celebrate.’ She arched an eyebrow and looked at me questioningly.

  ‘Must be to celebrate Jim coming home,’ I lied. I looked at the wall clock. It was four o’clock. ‘Might head home and have a shower.’ I didn’t like lying to her but I wanted to tell her the truth even less. I knew what she would say. I was telling myself the same thing, and it was time to fix the shemozzle.

  A quick shower, then over to the Pink Flamingo with time to talk to Harry before dinner. That was the plan anyway.

  She walked me to the car, hugging me longer than normal before letting me go. ‘Just getting my Tess fix,’ she said.

  I kissed her on the cheek and climbed into the car. I knew she wanted me to leave Las Vegas but comments like that weren’t helping.

  It only took a few minutes before I turned into our street. A van was parked across the road a few doors down from our house. Rather than pull into my normal carpark I kept on driving, turning the next corner and parking there instead.

  I had left a sunhat in the trunk a few weeks ago. I put it on, pulling it low over my eyes and then I sauntered up the street, trying to look as if I was out enjoying an afternoon walk. Of course I felt like I had a huge, flashing neon arrow above my head but the two men sitting in the van and the one lounging against the fence didn’t take any notice of me.

  Even though the two in the van held newspapers up, they were actually watching the front door of my house. The one on the fence made no pretence of what he was doing. Subtle, not.

  All of them had olive skin and dark brown hair. I was guessing if they spoke English, that it would be with an Italian accent.

  Shit. We had run out of time. The Sicilians had arrived.

  I kept walking, past the van, down to the end of the street and around the corner. My plan was to walk around the block to the car and continue onto the Pink Flamingo.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised when a man in a trench coat fell in beside me. ‘Hello Tristan,’ I said.

  ‘Tess.’ He nodded his head at me.

  ‘Isn’t it too hot for that coat?’

  ‘Not as hot as your house is at the moment.’

  ‘Mmmmm?’ I said. ’I’m not sure what you mean.’

  He turned his head sideways and looked at me. ‘You’ve gotten harder,’ he finally said. ‘But not hard enough. Not for them.’

  ‘And who exactly is them?’

  ‘The Corleonesi.’

  I stumbled over a crack in the pavement and Tristan put a hand out to steady me. Even though I’d guessed who they were, having it confirmed sent a spike of fear through my heart. I had to take a firm grip on myself to stop from blathering the whole sordid story to Tristan. That would only end up with Harry, Mickey, Riley and me in a jail cell.

  ‘Rumour has it that their death squad went missing. I don’t suppose you know anything about that, do you?’

  We turned the next corner towards my car. I could see it down the far end of the road.

  ‘Honestly Tristan,’ I said. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  He stopped walking and touched my arm. I turned to face him.

  ‘You’re a cute kid,’ he said. ‘I’d really hate to see you cut up into little pieces.’

  A tremor swept through me. ‘Can’t imagine that would be much fun at all.’

  His face became so serious that I had to believe that what he said next, he said with my best interest at heart. ‘I don’t know if you were involved, but the fact that they are waiting outside your house tells me their investigations are going to start with you two. You gotta get out of town. You and that husband of yours. ’

  ‘I….’ I couldn’t lie to him. Not when he was looking at me like that. I swallowed the huge lump that was sitting in my throat. ‘I’m pregnant,’ I whispered. Christ, I couldn’t even tell my own husband and here I was sharing the news with an FBI agent.

  He nodded a couple of times and then said, ‘I’ve got some stuff on them. Not enough to take them out for good, but enough to hold them for questioning. It’ll give you a few days. Say your goodbyes and go.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I wondered if he would have done that for me if he knew I had killed most of the death squad. I had a strange feeling he may have, but I wasn’t going to try my luck.

  ‘Get going.’ He patted me on the shoulder and turned and strode off in the opposite direction.

  I walked to the car, confident that he was watching my back.

  I drove as fast to the Pink Flamingo as I dared. Words jumbled over each other in my head as I worked out the best way to tell Harry what I knew. Which bit did I tell him first? How would he take the news that I had known Tristan Penn since the wedding reception?

  By the time the elevator doors opened on the penthouse floor I still hadn’t worked it out. I used my key to open the door and trotted down the hallway to find Harry. I was going to have to trust that it would all come out in some sort of cohesive order.

  What I saw when I walked into the office drove all those words from my mind.

  Harry was there, rocking Hillary in his arms.

  Fury ignited in me and I felt my fingers curling as I prepared to launch myself at her.

  How dare she? How could he?

  Before I could attack, she turned her face toward me. Mascara stained her perfect cheeks in two black tracks. She was crying convulsively. Sobs shaking her shoulders. When she saw me she let out a wail and threw herself into my arms.

  I caught her, my fury turning to fear. ‘Hillary,’ I said. ‘What is it?’

  Harry watched me with huge, sad eyes.

  ‘Hill?’ I shook her gently.

  ‘It’s Mom,’ she sobbed. ‘She’s dead.’

  Her words froze my brain. I pulled back so I could look into her eyes. The truth of her words was there but I couldn’t comprehend them.

  ‘Dead?’ I shook my head.

  Tears ran freely down her face as her mouth contorted with her crying. ‘I found her.’ The words came out in a wail.

  ‘But how?’ Even as the question left my mouth the answer was forming in my mind and I knew, with certainty, how. ‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘No.’ I pushed away from her, backing towards a seat.

  ‘She was attacked,’ Hillary said through her sobs. ‘Her face was crushed.’

  I sat down and put my head between my knees, certain I was going to throw up. Harry’s hand was on my back rubbing, but it couldn’t erase the thoughts in my mind.

  The alcohol on Lou’s breath, the rage he had been in when he’d left.

  ‘Who?’ I hadn’t been particularly close to Mom in the last few years, but it seemed that hadn’t been enough to break the mother-daughter bond. I felt like something had been cut deep inside me. That something irreplaceable had been taken. Now, when I could no longer have it, I wanted to feel her soft arms around me.

  ‘They don’t know.’ Hillary collapsed into the seat next to me.

  They might not know but I certainly did.

  Rage stemmed the flow of my tears, hardness forming around my heart. If only I had shot him when I’d had the chance, Mom would still be alive.

  Resolution flowed into me. I was going to hunt down Lou the Brain, and this time, when I had him in my sights, nothing was going to stop me pulling that trigger.

  ***

  The next few days were spent organising Mom’s funeral. Tristan’s words were turning an already stressful situation into a pressure cooker.

  I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to Mom. And yet I knew
that I was running out of time. Added to that was the fact that I couldn’t bring myself to tell Harry about the pregnancy. I couldn’t even think about becoming a mother while I was farewelling my own.

  It wasn’t a large funeral. Liss was there with Thor, and a couple of other girls Mom used to work with. I kept an eye out for Lou. The revolver I had snuck out of the bedside table weighed heavily in my bag.

  The majority of the people that showed up were Mafiosi. I watched as one-by-one they came to pay their respect to Harry and me; the underlings paying homage to their King. I felt sick watching it, but by the end of the funeral I had made up my mind.

  I wasn’t going to bring my child into this life. And by my calculations, the Corleonesi would be loose on the streets very soon. I was going to leave that night, with or without Harry.

  We had the wake at the club. Harry had spared no expense ordering the catering, but it all tasted like sawdust to me. Nausea was my constant reminder of what had happened to Mom.

  I had convinced Harry to stay there the night. Partly in case the Corleonesi were already free, and partly so I had an excuse to pack us each a bag. If he had looked inside his he would have wondered why I had packed him five sets of clothing for the one evening. And if he had looked further he would have been surprised to find his passport and airline ticket from Jim.

  When everybody had finally left, Liss, Thor, Harry and I retired upstairs.

  ‘I need a shower.’ I hadn’t been able to scrub the feeling of being dirty off my skin since Lou had touched me.

  I took my time, washing my hair and using Liss’s exfoliating brush. It didn’t help. I still felt dirty, and I suspected that until I killed Lou, that wouldn’t change.

  By the time I dried myself I had worked out how to tell Harry. I would start from the beginning. It was the only way. Except when I entered the kitchen he was gone.

  ‘Where is he?’ I could hear panic tinging my voice. If he went home and they caught him….

  ‘Rosella called. Jim’s had another turn. Not a bad one, but Harry’s gone to see if he’s okay.’