“You do?”
Hope lifts my spirits as he steps back, motioning for me to step out of the car. I get out and step into the compound, which looks like a series of bunkers lined up in rows. There’s a giant ranch house, which Carlos leads me to as his friends escort us there. My skin shivers as he opens the heavy door to the house, which looks more like a saloon as I approach it. It’s well lit inside and there’s a bar with pool tables and booths. Scantily clad women dance suggestively around poles. Even stranger, there’s a woman holding a squalling baby near what looks like a canteen. It looks like some kind of depraved community area.
Carlos leads me into his office, and a couple other men slide into seats behind me as I sit across from his desk. He sits down and adjusts his jacket.
“What can I do for you?”
What do I want them to do? I want them to find Rafael and kill the fucker.
“I want Rafael Costa dead. Can you find him?”
He grins at me as the shock on his face fades. Then he leans back. “You’re a piece of work, aren’t you? Johnny called ahead and told me that you might pay me a visit. I’m sorry. Much as I’d like to help you whack an Italian, I can’t do it.”
“Then—what about if you helped me find my husband? I think Rafael kidnapped him—I know he kidnapped him.”
The men behind me shift in their seats. It raises the hair on my neck.
Carlos gives me a shrewd look. “If that’s true, why are you coming to us?”
“Johnny doesn’t believe me. Look, I’m willing to pay you five grand right now if you agree to go looking for Tony. You’ll get another five grand when you find him.”
He rubs his chin thoughtfully. “Seems like a pretty good deal.”
He’s probably trying to hold back how much of a steal this is. Ten grand to find a missing person? Unheard of.
“If you find him and he turns out to be fine, joke’s on me, okay? But I think Rafael has him against his will and I need your help finding him.”
I reach into my purse and pull out a few of the bricks of cash. I let them fall over the table. His gaze flicks to the men behind me.
“All right—”
“And I want a gun.”
His grin widens, exposing a row of silver teeth. “I don’t think so. No.”
“But—!”
“I’m not giving Tony’s wife a gun.”
Fine. I can probably get one myself anyway.
I extend my hand. “Deal.”
We shake hands and he keeps my fingers in his grasp for a moment.
“I don’t usually get involved in mob business, but your husband was always a decent guy, not like the pricks we usually have to deal with. I’ll get some people on the streets to look for him right away.”
“Thank you.”
The weight lessens somewhat, but then Rafael’s cruel face twisted in malevolence haunts my mind. I touch my belly and another stab of panic hits me.
Tony is the only person who ever made me feel as if I was worth a damn. My sister, my mom, they basically left me to be consumed by my ex the moment Dad passed.
I walk outside with the bikers, who escort me back to my car. Nothing feels any better. I’ve someone on my side, but I’m not any closer to finding Tony.
It all comes down to him. Rafael. It’s the fault of his stupid male ego that couldn’t accept that I’m a person who made her own fucking decisions. I was never real, just a prop in his life. I was just the boss’s daughter. If he was with me, maybe his career would advance. Maybe he’d be made capo. Who knows, maybe he’d succeed my dad as boss. But none of that ever happened. All that work he put into courting me was for nothing, because Dad’s dead. My value is completely gone, and now I’ve left him. Why couldn’t he just leave me be?
Fuck him. Fuck him.
My hands clench my cell phone as if it’s his neck, and I have a glorious vision of his eyes bugging out as I cut off his airway. Let’s see how you fucking like it.
I drive back to Tony’s apartment, because I don’t care about confronting Rafael at this point. Once I’m there, I find a gun in Tony’s nightstand and I pop open the safety. My dad taught me how to shoot when I was a kid. I pace back and forth in place with it in my hand, my head steaming with images of Tony lying on some rotten floor, dead. A scream suddenly tears from my throat as sobs shake my chest. I can’t stand it—I can’t fucking stand this inaction. Hours tick by slowly, and I resist the urge to call Carlos, over and over. No, sorry, they still haven’t found him.
I take my cell phone and stare into the glowing blue screen. My thumb hovers over it.
Tony, come home. I’m waiting for you here.
The response is almost immediate: All right, I’m coming.
I want to smash the fucking screen and feel the shards of glass dig into my hand. My vision sears with red as I grab the pistol in my purse and wrench open the door to outside. My finger tenses over the trigger as I step out, just waiting for one hint of that fucker’s face. I’ll wait for the asshole.
That’s right. Come for me, Rafael. I’ll get rid of you and I won’t give a flying fuck about it.
Energy roars through my veins like too many caffeinated drinks. I feel more alert than I’ve ever been as I hurry down the steps and hide behind a garbage bin just off the side of the brownstone. It’s tall enough so that I have to only slightly bend my knees.
The streets are too cold for anyone to mingle outside, and I desperately rub my fingers together to keep them from getting numb. I need to be able to shoot him. Just point and shoot.
My heart feels as though it’s on the verge of explosion. Even though I want to fucking kill him, I’m scared. It’s so fast and painful against my chest that I feel dizzy with the rush of blood to my head.
It’ll be a fucking miracle if he doesn’t spot me, but I’m counting on the fact that he’ll be so anxious to see me that he won’t be careful. He’ll just run up the steps, ignoring the sides of the apartment.
From the glow of the streetlights, I see a dark, lean figure walking across the street with his hands deep inside his pockets. He looks both ways and hurries across, wet boots shining as he crosses the slick street.
This might be it.
I extend my arms just like my dad taught me, following his shape as he walks up the steps to my apartment, but I still can’t make out his face.
Fuck!
Time slows down. His gait lengthens. He raises his fist to the door, and all the while a clear voice whispers in my head. It knows exactly what I need to do.
Wait ’til he turns. Then shoot.
The porch light flares on, and his haggard face slowly turns away from the brightness, wincing. He looks across, directly at me—and I recognize him in an instant. Half of a second—that’s all it takes for me to make up my mind to kill. My finger trembles. A blast explodes from the muzzle of the gun and Rafael screams into the night. It’s so fucking loud that it startles me.
Then he disappears.
Wait—where the fuck did he go?
There’s a noise through the thick, cold darkness. A moaning sound—someone full of pain.
Oh God, I hope I didn’t hit someone else.
The maddening thought briefly seizes my head before I see Rafael’s shaking body, slumped over and partially hidden by the bars.
I fucking got him.
Heart pounding hard, I stand up from behind the garbage bin as Rafael topples backward, his body crashing into the steps as he slides down.
Yes!
I run around the side and almost run into Rafael’s heaving body. He blinks rapidly as I aim my gun right at his rat face.
“You shot me?”
I did. There’s a nice, clean hole buried in his shoulder. In the darkness, his leather jacket just looks wet.
And yet there’s no outrage in Rafael’s eyes. He can barely process what just happened.
“I can’t believe you fucking shot me.”
“Where the fuck is my husband?”
/> I aim the muzzle between his eyes so that he can’t miss it. His eyes widen and he spreads his white hand against the snow.
His demeanor shifts when he realizes that I’m dead fucking serious. “Your husband?”
“Want another one? Don’t waste my time, you prick. Where’s Tony?”
“Oh, Tony.” He gives me a nasty grin and shrugs despite the pain in his shoulder. “Fuck if I know.”
“You have his cell phone. Any more lies, and I’ll shoot you again.”
The gun trembles in my grip and Rafael seems to finally understand how unhinged I just might be.
“Look, he’s probably already gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean, gone?”
He raises an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, but I had to get rid of him.”
“Don’t!”
It rips from my throat in a scream that the whole neighborhood can probably hear. That’s it—Rafael just confirmed what I knew all along, that Tony is dead. He’s gone.
The world dissolves away like sand. It’s all gray and flat. Suddenly I feel the cold. Like an oppressive fog, it envelops my body. Blood rushing to my skin feels like a thousand painful pinpricks. My eyes burn, but I can’t cry. I barely have the strength to hold the gun, and really the only warmth is glowing in my belly. Because the kid still matters. Because it’s all I’ve left of him.
He’s gone. He’s gone.
I can’t take it. I want to scream with the grief howling inside me. I want to destroy every shred of light left in the universe, because the only one in my life is gone.
“I was never going to let anyone come between us. Help me get up, and I’ll forgive you for this.”
He brushes aside Tony’s death as if it were a minor inconvenience. He strains to sit up, and I aim the gun at his forehead.
I hate him.
I’ve never hated anyone so fucking much, not even the bastards who killed my father.
“I loved him,” I scream in a shrill voice. “I loved him more than you could ever fucking fathom!”
“I love you,” he says in an angry voice. “I did everything I could to get you back, and now that I have you back I’m never letting you go.”
“You don’t have me. You never had me.”
The gun trembles in my hands and a thrill runs through me. I’ve never killed anyone before, and I’m about to see what it feels like. Will I feel anything? Will there be regret?
He shakes his head. “Baby, you don’t have it in you.”
“See you in Hell.”
I pull the trigger as something crashes into my side. Sparks fly on the pavement as the bullet glances off the ground. I fall down, heart hammering. The wind is knocked from my chest and I wheeze.
What the fuck?
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
Another man’s voice growls in my ear as he yanks me upright, and I’m so bewildered that I can’t find words as he picks me off the ground.
“Is he—is he dead?”
The man holding me by the scruff of my neck snarls in my face. “I don’t fucking know. You’re not supposed to touch him!”
“I’m not dead.”
Rafael’s voice sounds strange, yet still very much alive. A surge of rage rushes through my limbs, and I try to shove the man aside.
“Let me kill him. I want to do it. Step aside!”
“No!”
He takes me bodily and forces me up the stairs, leaving Rafael behind.
“Give me that fucking gun.”
He twists it out of my grip and shoves me into my apartment. Then I finally get a good look at him. He’s one of the men I saw at the Les Diables fortress.
“Did you follow me here?”
“Good thing Carlos asked me to, because otherwise you’d be in deep shit.” He looks behind himself and sees Rafael, still sprawled on the pavement. “Fuck.”
Fury rustles my insides like black tar. I should have killed him a long time ago, but now it’s too late and Tony’s gone.
“I need to make some phone calls to take care of this. Try to escape, and I’ll tie you up.”
He shakes his head at me as I cross my arms and sit down with an angry sob.
A strange feeling goes through me as I take my seat. It’s like a long, drawn-out howl. The worst grief I’ve ever felt in my life squeezes my chest and I just collapse over the kitchen table. My sobs echo through the house, loud enough to disturb the biker from his phone calls. He steps outside, slamming the door shut. Then there’s nothing but the echo of my grief and the resounding fact that I failed.
TONY
Pain. Searing, hot pain. It drags me out of whatever coma I was in and I hear a loud scraping sound.
I’m not dead.
Huh.
My eyes flare open and there are at least six guys in what looks like a basement. All bikers. Not Les Diables. Their colors are different. One turns around, and I see the letters sprawled over the black leather: POPEYES MC. The Popeyes. Holy fuck, I can’t believe I got jumped by a group of disillusioned Les Diables fucks.
The same disillusioned fucks who killed my dad during the biker wars. They say some things come full circle. They seem to be right.
My chest swells and the pain in my shoulder and abdomen stabs me suddenly. Fuck, I need to get out of this alive. Elena needs me. I have a wife and a baby on the way, and I can’t just fucking die. Not now.
It doesn’t escape me that that fucking cunt hair is behind all of this. He hired these fucks to kill me, only they’re taking their sweet-ass time—why?
“You’re awake,” the man sitting on an empty crate says unnecessarily.
“Do you know who I am?”
“I do. The only good Italian is a dead one.”
The others laugh like sheep.
I glare at all of them, trying to size them up. “So why are you taking orders from one?”
He drags a lead pipe over the cement floor and grins nastily. “Because this one has a lot of fucking money.”
“All you dumbasses are going to get killed the moment Johnny gets wind of what happened to me.”
I strain my biceps against my restraints. Coils and coils of rope bind me to the chair. My hands are beet red from the lack of circulation.
“We want to know where the money is. The hundred grand you have stashed away.”
The basement echoes with my hollow laughter, which cuts off into a groan. The lead pipe smashes over my knees, breaking at least one of them. For a moment, I debate sending these fucking morons to Tommy. They won’t get within five yards of him.
“You’ll have to kill another made guy to get to the money. Does that sound worth it to you?”
That part is a lie, but they look at each other. The leader, an old man with a long gray beard, looks at me with wrinkled eyes.
“Vidal,” he says, rolling the name from his tongue. “Vito Vidal. You’re his fucking kid, aren’t you?”
My lungs heave as fire burns beneath my skin—I just want to smash this old fuck’s face in. He knows my dad.
They shot him down in the streets like a fucking dog.
“Listen, we’re just here to get you to back off from the girl. Elena Vittorio. She’s Rafael’s, end of story. All you have to do is say that you’ll stay away from her.”
“Don’t talk about my wife.”
“She’s the one who hired us.”
Their lies make me laugh. She loves me—she told me so right before I left. My chest burns when I realize that I never said it back. She just took me by surprise and I didn’t have the balls to say it back. She and that baby are the only things in the world that matter to me, and God help the man who tries to take them away from me.
A bead of sweat rolls down my face as he slaps a sheet of paper—a certificate of divorce that Elena (supposedly) has already signed. Seeing her fake signature sprawled on the paper sends a jolt of pain to my heart, even though I know it’s bullshit.
I look up into his faded brown eyes.
“Go fuck you
rself.”
He shrugs and pulls it back toward himself. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll get your signature one way or the other.”
A man fists his hand through my hair and taps my face with a pair of filthy pliers.
“Open up.”
Pull all my teeth, you sons of bitches. I don’t give a fuck. I won’t sign that shit.
I open my mouth and he sticks it inside. The rubber chafes against my lips as I taste the metal in my mouth. He grips the very back molars and then I know it’s going to hurt like a bitch. He twists hard and I feel the bone crunching in my mouth. Delicate tissues snap as it grinds in my head and my tongue is drenched with blood. I grip the edges of my chair and fight the urge to scream as pain rivaling my gunshot wounds tears my mouth. He yanks with a sickening wet sound and my bloodied tooth swims in front of my face. My mouth swells immediately and dark blood gushes from my lips. I spit it out as the pain throbs, almost as if there’s still something stuck in there.
Fucking bastards. I’ll fucking kill every last one of them.
The old fuck lays the contract there as though I’ll sign it, and I spit at it. A splatter of dark blood hits the paper.
“You know, you must be the only guy in the fucking universe who’s fighting so goddamn hard to keep his wife.”
The guy with the pliers presses a gun to my damp head. “Sign it.”
“No.”
I can’t believe this—I fucking failed her, Elena. My beautiful wife is going to give birth to our kid without me, and my heart squeezes to think of her. I don’t give a shit about myself, it’s all about her.
The door slams open and four quick blasts cut down the Popeyes where they stand. The one holding a gun to my head wheels around, screaming, but a blast from a shotgun knocks him the fuck down. My vision swims as I see Les Diables bikers swarming in the small room. The old fucker is still alive. He raises his hands. Kevin, one of the guys I recognize, raises his gun to his head.
“Wait,” I say to him. “I want to do him.”
“Let’s make this quick.”
Relief floods over my body as they cut through my ropes. I wonder what fucking God I have to thank for this. So many questions run through my mind, but I’m just glad that my ass is saved. I stand up, a little shaky on my feet, but Kevin hands me a gun.
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