by C. D. Reiss
“I’m so confused.”
“You’re right to be.”
“Do you think he can come back?”
“I do.” I didn’t warn her that he wasn’t coming back to her, and if he did, then she and I would have a deep, long-standing problem. “He was trying to get out of the life. There’s nothing he wants more than an end to it.”
“I wish he really was dead,” she said, staring at the edge of the morning skyline. It wasn’t even close to sunrise, and the city was as quiet as it ever was.
“Yeah, I get that.”
I did truly understand. She’d come to Los Angeles to pay respects to a husband she hadn’t seen in ten years and wound up at the center of a mob war over a bride he’d abandoned for another woman. If he’d been dead, she’d have closure. If he’d been dead, she could grieve and let go. He’d never change. He would be the subject of her prayers for years to come. I saw her so clearly, and I felt nothing but compassion.
“If you want to leave and go home to your son, I think you’ll be forgiven. At least by me. Whatever happens will happen without you.”
“Everything already happened without me,” she said as I turned off the freeway.
More would happen without her, because whatever I was stepping into, she would be a liability if she came along.
I remembered the map and turned down the dark routes and ways without much trouble until I hit a high fence with barbed wire on top. I parked the car to the side of the road and shut off the lights. The moon was diffused by the rainclouds, which had closed the sky to a slight drizzle.
I should have left Valentina at the hospital, or the freeway entrance, or anywhere but in the middle of nowhere.
“You should stay here,” I said.
“Yes,” she replied with a sharp nod. “I will.”
“I’ll be back with Antonio.”
“Yes, you will.”
“If one of us isn’t back by the time the sun is up, can you drive?”
“Of course I can drive. I’m not stupid.”
“I’ll leave the keys in the ignition.”
“Go. Please.” She pushed my shoulder with one hand and pointed out the door with the other. “Save him.”
“Thank you, Valentina. You’re all right.”
“You may call me Tina.” She shook her hand at the door again.
I took a deep breath and got out.
forty-seven.
theresa
he fence was high enough to be a real obstacle. I’d never climbed a fence, but what I lacked in skill, I made up for in not giving a shit. I was careful, because the chain link was wet from the rain. I got through a gap in the barbed wire right over the entrance hinge while staring into the camera because honestly, I wouldn’t trick myself into thinking I knew how to get in without anyone knowing.
I dropped onto the mud and took the gun out of my back waistband. I had no idea how many bullets I had in it. It was heavy, so I knew it wasn’t empty, but beyond that, I was at a loss. Yet another place where my instincts highlighted the gaps in my knowledge. If we lived, we were going to laugh about this.
Respira.
The rain had stopped, leaving clear air and good visibility, as little as there was. I took a deep breath and ran. It was dark as hell, and I lifted my feet to clear the mud and tree roots. I was sure I was running in the right direction. I had no cause to be sure, but I was. So I ran faster, and when I saw a dim light ahead, I knew I had been right.
Run. Run like this is the last hour of your life. Run as if there will be nothing left to run to tomorrow. Crush the ground. Pull it off its moorings. Make your mark in this world because it is your last chance. You are about to die. Take off. Fly.
My forward momentum came to an abrupt halt and my thoughts spun on their axis as I hit an obstacle full-on. A yielding obstacle that grunted. A man. I scrambled to a crouch and turned around. Unmoored, I had no idea which direction he was in. I held out my gun as if I could aim at anything but the world at large with my senses scrambled.
My legs went out from under me again, and light and dark went upside down, or right side up, and the ground hit me hard enough to push the air from my lungs.
On my back, I pointed the gun at the cloud-diffused light of the moon.
A form blocked out the light, and I heard a hammer cock.
I squeaked because it was too soon, because I had things I still had to do and I had a tiny bit of air left in my lungs with which to do them. My vocal cords engaged that last breath, and my squeak was audible.
That saved my life.
The form shifted a little, and I kept my gun on him. His face was in shadow, but I didn’t need to see the details to shoot him.
He moved his gun away from me, putting up his hands.
“Don’t shoot,” he croaked. “They’ll hear it.”
I breathed. It was a hitched inhale made with the very tops of my lungs, but I lived to breathe again. “Antonio?” I kept the gun on him, because I wasn’t sure, and the feeling of peril saturated my consciousness.
“Breathe,” he said, still struggling to speak.
I scrabbled to my feet without using my gun hand, because I didn’t trust that it was him. I didn’t trust that the sky was up and the mud was down. My finger was outside the trigger guide. I wouldn’t accidentally shoot him, but my brain had short-circuited and I wasn’t convinced I shouldn’t.
“Prove it,” I said.
I expected whoever he was to either kill me or start talking, but he didn’t. He pushed my hand out of the way and laid his lips on mine. I tasted him, the sting of burned pine and blood. The arm with the gun went around his shoulders as he owned me with his kiss. Alive. He was alive. In my arms. If we died in the next ten minutes, we would be together. My chest expanded and contracted with relief, and my breaths became short and deep while my eyes fogged with tears.
“Stop,” he said.
“How?” I took him in. No shirt. Wet skin against freezing cold. The side of his face was too dark. “What did they do to you?”
“They had no idea how fast I could run. Come on.”
He pulled me toward the gate. Behind him, voices. Yelling. Whistling.
“We’re going to run?” I said.
“We have to.”
I yanked him toward me. “Again?”
“They’ll kill you.”
“How many bullets are in this gun?”
He let the pressure on my hand go. “You can’t—”
“We can end this,” I said. “We need to. You can’t protect me. I know it’s your instinct, but you can’t. Face it. The more you try to protect me, the worse it gets.”
With everything crashing down on us, time froze. Antonio froze. The kiss he’d left on my mouth tasted like years with him. I’d die with it on me.
The pressure to move toward the gate disappeared as he considered. The line of shouting men from the house got closer. Louder. More intense.
Antonio let me go.
He turned and aimed at them, and I followed suit. I doubted there were enough bullets between us to make any kind of difference. Maybe if every one found a home. Maybe in the event they were all unarmed. Maybe if God was with us, which was unlikely.
Suddenly, they were all cast in bright light. Drowned in shadowless white. Antonio knocked me out of the way a second after I heard the roar of an engine and the creak and scrape of something being dragged.
A car roared past us, pushing a nice length of barbed-wire-topped gate. The men chasing us had to jump over the wire. A couple didn’t make it and sprawled away with injuries.
“Margie’s going to kill me,” I said, getting my feet under me. “That’s Valentina. I don’t know what she’s thinking, but we can’t run now.”
I stood over Antonio. With his face and chest to the light of the night sky, I saw what they’d done to him, and they were all going to die. I was going to leave a swath of blood across Los Angeles. The decision was calculated. I couldn’t detect any emotions in
it. Just facts.
He was on his feet like a cat. “With you, I can do anything.”
forty-eight.
antonio
d plucked the gun from Carlo’s hand. He’d made the mistake of letting his attention wander while he was alone in the room with me. I’d been ready to die, but there was no reason not to avoid it if I could.
They were clearly interested in my territory and readying to make sure my death at the hands of an old woman was recorded. I would have given every penny to them if there were rules to achieve such a thing. But there weren’t, because too many had changed their minds later and brought war.
Kill. Die. Run. Those were the only ways out, and I’d already tried two of the three.
So as much as I’d been running for my life before I crashed into Theresa, I was ready to attack. I had been running because I had no choice. I was attacking because with her, it was possible.
She attacked with me, running in the shadows alongside the car while we could, because they’d assume I was still headed to the gate and they had no idea she was even there.
Get to the house. Attack. Assault. Confront. That much was understood between us. We didn’t have a plan any more detailed than that.
The trees opened into the small clearing in front of Donna Maria’s house. The light of the car changed behind us, and I turned to look. Valentina had shaken the gate and was making a U-turn. I stopped.
“Jesus,” Theresa said.
Valentina headed in the opposite direction. The two men that were left jumped out of her way. They shot at the car, but it kept moving. If she made it out, she’d just keep driving. Theresa and I had no way out of the miles of preserve. I was in no worse position than I had been when I’d crashed into her.
I glanced at her as she watched the car, then she turned back to me.
“No turning back,” she said.
She was a cat. A beautiful devil. I feared and admired her. I wished I could fuck her one last time, but I would have to do without. “Let’s go.”
forty-nine.
theresa
ven with the crazy circumstances, I had expectations. I thought the head of a mafia family would have a house made of dark wood and fat moldings with crystal and doilies. What I got was a squeaky wooden gate leading to a house with worn furniture and the smell of food deep in the fabrics. I touched Antonio’s arm and pointed at a corner piled full of bright plastic and googly eyes. He nodded. There were kids around. I didn’t have to say a word.
He leaned down and spoke in my ear. “House in the back. I’m going to take her out.”
I didn’t know who the men were outside. I only knew they shouted, and their voices got closer. The sound waves bounced off the wetness left in the air, making them seem to be everywhere all at once.
Antonio and I, as if pulled by the same strings, looked back through the open door to see them coming. They were going to follow us to the back and pick us off. We’d be dead before we started.
We didn’t have to speak. I didn’t have time to process the feeling of connection between us, only to react, skipping the niceties.
“I’ll go upstairs.” I was already leaning toward the stairway.
He grabbed my arm. “No.”
“Let me draw the fire. Split them up.”
“No!”
“We’re together. I swear it. Dead or alive, you’re with me. But we, both of us, won’t get out unless I draw fire and you take care of business.”
Time compressed again, and he spent minutes, hours even, considering.
He grabbed the back of my head and smashed his lips to mine, then jerked away. “Go, before I change my mind.”
I stepped back with the sound of approaching hell through the squeaky gate, getting one last look at Antonio in his shirtless wonder. A warrior. A king. My capo, always always always.
I turned and ran up the stairs to a long dark hallway lined with open doors. I got my bearings. I needed to go left in order to face the back. I went through a door halfway down the hall.
It was a nursery. A girl’s. Fluffy things. White crib. Soft colors made grey in the darkness. Across from the hall door, French doors to a balcony overlooking the back. I went out and leaned on the railing. The sky turned blueish with morning, and I saw a field lined with animal hutches. They scratched and wailed in nocturnal frustration.
To the left, a house with the lights on. That must be where Donna Maria was. I had to make sure he got in there.
Antonio ran out. I was ready. I held up the gun, waiting for whoever followed him. I was to distract them and draw fire to myself so Antonio could end this by killing an old woman. I was all right with that. We were both going to hell anyway.
I heard them clamor. Antonio looked back into the house before continuing into the yard.
“You’re going to hurt yourself with that thing.”
I spun back toward the nursery, gun out. Donna Maria stood there holding a baby. It was sleeping. I lowered my weapon when I saw the child.
Donna Maria Carloni smiled.
fifty.
antonio
here were no shots from above. Either she was dead or she’d changed her mind, and there was no way she’d changed her mind. I glanced up along a veranda and saw her with her back to the railing. Someone was with her. I couldn’t make them out, but in the moment before Domenico ran out into the yard and I had to react, I regretted leaving her alone. Deeply regretted it.
But regret was a luxury for later. Domenico was followed closely by Zo, who had Enzo and Simone huffing and puffing at his heels. It had been a tough night for those guys, and it was about to get tougher. They were my crew, and to prove their new loyalty, they’d beaten the hell out of me.
I didn’t blame them, and I didn’t hold it against them. It was business.
I shot Domenico. He fell like a bag of rice.
Then I took aim at Zo, who I’d loved and trusted and who had sold me out at every turn. He stopped long enough to get a clean shot at me.
fifty-one.
theresa
was confused. I had to clear the way for Antonio to get to Donna Maria, but she was here, right before me, with a baby. I couldn’t shoot her, even at close range, with a child in her arms.
The first shot came from below. I spun to look over the railing before the sound was done echoing. A man dropped.
“I’m just an old woman,” Donna Maria said, coming up next to me with the baby. “This breaks my heart.”
Another man came. And another. The only one I could identify was Antonio. The rest weren’t even men but shadows.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” she continued. “It was supposed to be a business.”
There was a dead pause below. A weighted moment when everyone froze.
I had a job. Donna Maria had made me forget it, and if she wanted to kill me for doing it, that was okay. I just had to clear the way for Antonio until he was safe. I could figure out what to do with the misplaced mob boss in a minute.
I held out the gun and took a shot at the last man who came out. It was dark, and the angle was impossible. I think I killed one of the animals, or a dandelion. But the last guy out looked up at us and took aim. I shot at him to draw fire, stepping back when he took aim. I popped off another one, with the clack clack of Antonio’s shots in the background, and Donna Maria buckled next to me.
Fuck.
The baby dropped headfirst, and some biological instinct made me reach for it, even with the gun still in my hand. I couldn’t fight evolution. I got close to Donna Maria as she fell to get my hands under the baby, feeling badly for forgetting to drop the gun, realizing how light the baby was, how smooth its face, how oddly peach.
It was a doll.
And I was close to her. Close enough for a blade to land inside me, releasing pain that shot outward as every cell in my body screamed. Close enough to see the pleasure on her face when she jerked the blade upward so hard my feet came off the floor.
I dropped the doll.
Donna Maria relieved me of my gun. “Thank you, troia.”
How long would it take to die from a stab wound? Long enough to see Antonio’s face below, his mouth a circle of terror as I bent over and blood fell from me.
I’m sorry.
I didn’t actually say that. I wanted to. I felt my failure deeply. Antonio put his hands out, and I think he cried out. I think something came from him, but I was suddenly deaf from the rushing in my ears.
Lorenzo turned away from Donna Maria and me and faced Antonio, pointing his gun at him for his territory and his crew. His kingship.
Antonio! Watch out!
I didn’t actually have the strength to say that either.
A flash of light and a pop came from Zo’s weapon. Antonio spun.
And fell.
And stayed fallen for a millisecond too long.
In the rising light, with his knees bent and his gun two feet from his hand, he stayed down, the ground under his head gelling with mud-pattered blood.
I screamed Antonio!
But nothing came out. The scream was sucked back into my gut in the form of pain.
The light in my life had been taken from me, and I wanted only one thing in the world. To die. And to kill. Because inside the pain and the furious rush in my head was a cold place that needed to be taken care of.
I was on all fours. Breathing hurt. Living hurt. My legs shook uncontrollably, and I coughed a stream of blood, heaving air and moisture back in.
I looked up. Donna Maria stood over me. She didn’t look old. She looked twenty. Forty tops. She looked like a woman untouched by her own mortality. I grabbed at her, my hand slipping down her corduroy pants. I was pathetic. But I grabbed for her again, and she stepped back.
I had her by the ankle when she stepped back, but I didn’t have enough strength to keep my grip. My hands weren’t doing what they were supposed to. They were dying, and the life flowing from them did so in waves. I’d caught her on a fisted wave when my hands were grasping and flattening, rigid and slack, completely out of my control. She fell.