by Callie Hart
I lunge, stepping in to him, raising my arm so that his wrist is between my ribcage and my bicep. Further. I step in further, and I bring my arm down, trapping him at the elbow between my arm and my chest.
“Motherfucker,” he snarls, trying to spin the gun so he can shoot me with it, but he can’t. He’s locked at the joint, straining, trying to pull himself free of me. I can see in his eyes that he knows just how futile that course of action will be. His cigarette’s dropped from his mouth, and it’s now burning merrily between his body and mine, singeing a hole in my t-shirt, biting at the skin of my stomach. I’m sure it’s burning him, too, but neither one of us move to angle our bodies away from one another. This is what they teach you when handling livestock: get too close for the animal to kick. If either of us twists our torsos away, we’re giving the other the chance to strike at full force.
“You’re dead,” the Italian snaps. “You’re just one man. You think you can defy the entire east coast mafia? You’re a fucking lunatic.”
I’ve never been one for shrugging. It’s always seemed like such a half measure. I like to be decisive in my body language as well as in my words. Right now, a shrug seems to convey how little I fucking care about the east coast mafia, though. I hitch one shoulder, inching my face closer to the Italian’s. “I defy anyone who tries to bend me to their will, asshole. I say to all comers, Fuck. You. I say try and kill me if you fucking dare.”
My head comes crashing down on his. Even before I opened a fight gym and spent ninety percent of my day perfecting my MMA techniques, I knew how to deliver the perfect head butt. The flat of my forehead connects with his face, just above the bridge of his nose, right between the eyes, and blood explodes everywhere.
“Jesus!” The move takes him by surprise. A loud, ear-splitting crack tears the air in two behind me; he’s fired the gun. Across the street, a dog starts howling. The Italian shuffles his feet, trying to plant one behind me so he can pitch me over his hip in a judo throw, but like I said…ain’t my first time at the rodeo. While he’s trying to shimmy one leg past mine, struggling against me, I finally do hit him. I tighten my hand into a fist, raise it back as far as I can, maybe only five or six inches, and then I slam it down. I don’t go for the face. The human skull, despite looking kind of fragile when stripped back, is actually really fucking strong. Its armor is designed to protect the brain, the most vital organ in the entire body, so of course it’s going to be able to take a bit of a beating. The neck, on the other hand…
I land my fist straight into the Italian’s trachea. I feel gristle and cartilage twist and crunch underneath my knuckles as I grind them into his neck. The Italian sags to the side, eyes bulging out of his head as he tries to get away, but I have a good hold on him now and I sure as shit ain’t letting go. The gun goes off for a second time. I feel the bullet buzz my back, and I realize I’ve given my opponent a little too much room to maneuver in the scuffle. Time to fix that.
While he’s choking, making unpleasant gurgling sounds, desperately trying to pull a meager breath of air through his crushed wind pipe, I release him, side step to the right, twist his arm before he can re-aim his weapon, and then I bring it down over my knee as hard as I can. I don’t ease the intensity of the downward pressure I’m applying until I feel bone snap.
“Arrrggghhhh!” A string of expletives pours from the guy’s mouth in Italian. His arm has broken with such force that I can see the jagged edge of his radius poking though the thin material of his shirt.
A dark satisfaction fills me from the tips of my toes to the roots of my hair. No way that’s ever going to heal right. I didn’t hear the Italian’s gun clatter to the floor in amongst all of his screaming, but there it lays on the side walk, half kicked underneath the Denali, only the butt of the handle visible from where I’m standing. I reach down and scoop it up, while the man in front of me clutches at his arm with his good hand. His face is white with shock, aside from his nose and his mouth, which are covered in a river of blood.
“He’s going to kill you for this. He’s going to fucking destroy you!” the guy snarls.
“Whew. Apparently, he’s already planning on killing me for turning down his offer. I’ve already earned my death twice today, and all before lunch. Big day for me, huh? Now, about that face…” I haven’t used knuckle-dusters in a while. I haven’t needed them; the bones in my fists are as strong as steel these days. So many hours spent smashing my fists into a speed bag (along with a number of people’s faces) have conditioned them to be stronger than strong. I hold him by his crushed throat as I bring my fist down once, twice, three times. Each time I strike, the Italian makes a sick moaning noise, until the fourth hit, when he stops making noise at all.
The fucker’s lost consciousness. I drop him to the ground and straighten, which is when I notice the woman on the other side of the street with a paper bag of groceries in her arms. She’s stood stock still, frozen to the sidewalk, her mouth hanging open an inch as she stares at me with wide blue eyes. “I—I don’t—I didn’t—”
“Caught him trying to break into this house,” I say, wiping my hands on my jeans. I toss the Italian’s gun into the Denali through the broken driver’s window, and then I proceed to collect the unconscious guy underneath the arms and drag him into the back seat. “Nothing to worry about now, ma’am. I’ve already called the cops. They’re on their way to get him.”
The woman shivers, clutching her groceries tighter, as if her onions, and her baking soda, and her Starbucks Chai Latte mix is enough to shield her from what she’s witnessing. “Ri—right,” she stammers. “Do you need me to stay? Or can I go?” she asks quietly. I can barely hear her.
“You should get home, ma’am. Make sure you’re safe indoors. I’m sure this guy wasn’t working alone.”
She starts, like a jolt of electricity just fired through her. There are more? There is an unknown number of violent, well-dressed Italian thieves in the neighborhood? I can see the fear in her eyes. At some point, later on tonight maybe when she’s had a chance to calm her nerves, she’s going to second guess what I’ve told her and begin to think that something was amiss here. That maybe I wasn’t the good Samaritan that I was claiming to be. That’s if I’m lucky. She might get ten feet down the road and call the cops herself, just to make sure I wasn’t lying, and then I’ll really be screwed.
The woman hurries off, and I bundle the Italian into the back of the Denali, trying not to think about worst-case scenarios. How fucking stupid would it be if I got picked up for this? Too fucking stupid. I pull out my phone and jam it against the side of my head as I climb into the Denali and gun the engine. Michael picks up on the third ring.
“I need you to get out to Charlie’s old place right now. I need you to come and get the Camaro.”
“I assume you’ll explain why later?”
“Sure. If I’m not in jail.” I hang up, sliding my phone back into my pocket, and then I’m tearing through the streets of Hunt’s Point, trying not to stick out like a sore thumb. Thankfully it’s not that difficult. There are plenty of nice cars in this neighborhood, all the Richy Riches driving around in their Bugatti’s and their Lambos, and so the Denali is actually pretty decent camouflage. As soon as I’m six blocks away, four blocks over from Charlie’s place, I slow the fuck down, driving like all of the other retirees around here, too scared to scratch their nice cars.
About halfway back to the warehouse, the guy in the back begins to stir. I have to pull over at a gas station and climb in the back so I can restrain him. Thankfully, the Italian came prepared. God knows what he thought he was gonna fucking do to me, but there are zip ties and a fat roll of silver duct tape in the glove box, which comes in very handy. I wind the tape around his head three times just to make sure he has absolutely no chance of dislodging his gag, and then I double zip tie his hands behind his back, as well as at the ankles. No point in taking any risks. By the time I’m done fucking around, making sure he isn’t going anywhere, the Italia
n is awake and shooting daggers at me. His sunglasses are on the floor at his feet, so I pick them up and place them back on his face, pinching his nose for good measure—must hurt like a motherfucker given how badly it’s broken.
“Can’t pack you up and put you on a plane back home, I’m afraid. You look like shit. Don’t worry, though. I know a guy who’ll have you back east in no time.”
I do, too. When I reach the docks, I head straight for the harbormaster’s office instead of stopping off at the warehouse first. I find Jeremy Daskill, fifty-three, sitting behind a desk piled with a mountain of paper with a glass of scotch firmly gripped in his meaty hand. He looks like he’s seen a ghost when he looks up and lays eyes on me. This is always how he looks when I appear before him, ready with a favor to ask. Couple of years ago, I did Jeremy a favor of my own. His brother in law had gambled all of his sister’s money away. He got drunk, beat and raped her, and then left her for dead at the foot of the stairs. Jeremy, good brother that he is, knew something needed to be done about the guy, so he came to me. The situation was dealt with, and now, whenever I need something stowed away in a shipping container for a while, or I need a bag or two dropped off into the Sound, I call on my friend Jeremy.
“Mr. Mayfair. Hi, I—I wasn’t expecting you.” Jeremy puts his scotch down behind a stack of papers, out of sight, like I would give a shit about him drinking while he’s on the job. We all gotta do what we gotta do to get through.
“Hi there, Daskill.” I give him a winning smile. “I have a little job I need you to do for me.”
Chapter Thirteen
MASON
I spot Kaya in a booth on the far side of the café, sipping from a long, pink curly straw. She’s drinking chocolate milk, of all things, and a metal cup is sitting next to her tall glass on the table, sweating with condensation. When she sees me enter, the bell hanging above the door chiming loudly to announce the arrival of another customer, she takes another bendy straw out of a caddy resting up against the wall—green this time—and she drops it into the silver cup, pushing it across the table so that it’s directly in front of me when I sit down.
“It’s almost nine,” she says, tracing her finger in a patch of water on the table. She makes a flower. “I thought you weren’t going to come.”
“I had to finish something up at the shop.” The Impala took longer than I thought it would, but I managed to get it done. When I told Mac what I’d done—a feat not even he could have accomplished—he relieved me of the keys and grunted under his breath, slamming his office door in my face. Asshole.
“Get you anything, sweetie?” A short woman with insanely tight curls hovers by the table, notepad in hand, pencil raised and ready to record my every desire. I order a coffee and she looks disappointed, like my dreams should have been bigger. Kaya doesn’t say anything about the fact that I’m not drinking her proffered chocolate milk.
“I need to make this quick. My sister’s with a sitter and it’s her first night home after the hospital,” I tell her.
Kaya blinks at me like a very wise owl. “You’re not going to like this.”
“I already don’t like it. You’ve got me freaked out. I feel like I’ve done something wrong.” I can’t have done something wrong, though. I’m not dating Kaya. I haven’t slept with her. I sure as fuck haven’t slept with her and then slept with her best friend, so what’s going on? Why the hell is she looking at me across the table with such worry in her eyes?
“It’s about my brother,” she says.
“Your brother?” I haven’t looked sideways at Jameson Rayne. Ever. Giving Jameson any reason to think I’m interested in absolutely anything he does is tantamount to inviting an ass kicking like no other.
Kaya nods. “Yeah. Jameson. Not just him, though. It’s about your friend Ben, too.”
Ah. Now that makes more sense. Ben’s been getting himself into trouble ever since we were kids. He’s managed to keep his head down for the last little while, though. It should be no surprise that his well-behaved run is finally at an end.
“What the fuck has he done?” I sit back, settling into my seat. I’m not going to be able to drain my coffee and run after all.
“He and Jameson were stupid. Jameson makes deals with fighters sometimes. He’s pretty arrogant. He knows he’s a good fighter. Great, even. So when he’s matched against an opponent by Johnny and his guys at French’s, he’ll go find them a few days before. He’ll offer them a percentage of his winnings if the other guy agrees to go down in a specific round, in a specific way. No one’s ever not taken the deal. I mean, they’re not stupid. They know already they’re going to lose. So they always take the money and go down when he tells them to.”
“Wait. So all these guys are throwing their fights?” My stomach has contorted itself into a knot of unbelievable intricacy. It’s going to take a miracle to untangle it. Throwing fights, even in small time underground matches like the ones held at French’s, is a heinous crime in the eyes of any organizer. And organizers are usually violent, unforgiving men with a penchant for breaking people’s kneecaps with a sledgehammer should the mood take them.
“Jesus. Keep your voice down.” Kaya takes a drink from her milkshake, scanning the room to see if anyone’s listening. I already know we’re the only ones in here, but she seems on edge. Frightened, even. I can’t say I blame her. The waitress brings me a mug filled to the brim with filter coffee blacker than tar. When she’s gone, I lean across the table to hiss out my next question under my breath.
“Tell me Ben wasn’t stupid enough...” I already know he was, though, otherwise Kaya wouldn’t be here, telling me this.
“He took five grand to go down in the first round. Jameson wanted it to look like he’d destroyed him, and your friend said he needed the cash. Extra, if Jameson wanted to humiliate him in the ring. So that’s what happened. And then this morning three of the doormen from French’s show up at the apartment and drag him out of bed. They said they knew about what he and Ben had done. Told him it would be better for him if he just admitted it. Jameson said he didn’t know what the fuck they were talking about, but they obviously knew he was lying. They tried to beat the shit out of him, but you know my brother.”
He put up a fight. Of course he did; it’s in his very nature to brawl. And if he had three guys looming over him after he’d just been rudely awoken from sleep, I’m imagining it was in Jameson Rayne’s nature to knock all of their fucking teeth out. Kaya continues.
“He broke one of their collar bones for sure. The bone was sticking out of his neck,” she whispers. Her face is devoid of all color, her skin ashen. “There was blood everywhere. I was screaming at them to leave then, to just go, but the other two guys lost it. They said he could fuck one of them up, but he had no chance against two of them together.”
“Let me guess. He snapped their bones like twigs, too.”
“He smashed one of their faces into the cook top. It dented the metal. He shoved the other one out of a second story window. He landed on his back. I have no idea whether he lived or died. I kept trying to lean out of the window to look, but Jameson wouldn’t let me. He was still screaming at the other two, trying to make them leave, so I stood well back and prayed it was going to be over soon. Before they went, the main doorman guy, the one with the shaved head and the knuckle tattoos—” I know the one she’s talking about “—told him it was only a matter of time. They knew what he’d done, and they knew Ben was in on it, too. They said Ben wouldn’t be able to hide the truth, and that the two of them were dead men walking. They can’t have gone to find Ben straight away, they were far too messed up, but that’s not to say the guys at French’s didn’t send someone else over to speak to your friend.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me he was in trouble at the shop?” I snap. My voice is raised, drawing attention from the curly haired woman watching an old re-run of Jerry Springer on the ancient, fuzzy television behind the counter. I know I’ve been a shit immediately. I didn�
��t give her a chance to tell me earlier. I was rude and I chased her away before she had the chance to tell me anything whatsoever. Kaya’s ears pull back a little, her eyes narrowing.
“I don’t need to be here right now, Mason. I could be at home, sweeping up broken glass and trying to glue the shattered remains of my furniture back together. Instead I thought I would give you a heads up. Jameson told me he would deal with it, but I know when my brother’s lying, okay? Ben doesn’t matter to him. If those doormen are too distracted hunting down your friend and beating the shit out of him, Jameson has time to figure out a way to get back into their good graces at French’s. He’d kill me if he knew I was here. So, please, Mason. Cut me some slack.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” I rub my hands over my face, blowing out a deep breath. Fuck. How the hell am I going to fix this? I’m a no one in the fighting world. I don’t have anyone’s ear to whisper into. I don’t have any favors to call in. I mean, I have absolutely no way of digging Ben out of this hole he’s managed to fall into. So fucking typical. I feel like I’ve been doing this my entire fucking life. “Thank you for letting me know,” I say quietly. Outside on the street, a police siren blares into life right outside the coffee shop, drowning out my words. Both Kaya and I startle at the sound. The car races off down the street, tires audibly screeching as it takes a corner too fast, leaving both myself and the tiny woman opposite me smiling nervously for no good reason.
“You should find him,” Kaya says. “These guys aren’t known to wait around.”
“I know. I will. And your brother—”