Resist Me

by Samantha Lee

  Antony shook his head. “Send her home,” he said then added, “Alive, and I will deal with her tomorrow.” Pio shook his head, “I can’t do that son, if I send her home and she disappears we won’t know who tried to kill you. She needs to stay with the Family or…” Antony shook his head, “Papa, I know what I am doing, send her home, put Sal on her if you need to but I don’t want her here.”

  Pio sat back, “I already ordered Sal to be with her everywhere she goes.” He was talking to Antony but he was looking at Sal, “Someone will be there watching.”

  Yvette didn’t listen to Pio repeat his earlier statement she was stuck agreeing with Antony, she should go home, alive.

  “Yvette, go home.” Antony said.

  “Go with her.” Pio said to Sal.

  Sal left Antony’s side and came toward her. “Let’s go.”

  Yvette stood quickly, then fell back in the seat. Her body really wasn’t in good shape. Sal’s brow shot up. “You okay?” he asked.

  She grunted, “Like you give a fuck.” She saw the muscle in Sal’s jaw tick. She and Sal started out of the room but not before she heard Antony ask his father, “What did you do to her?”

  Yvette didn’t hear anything, she assumed Pio gave Antony one of his shrugs.

  “Yvette,” Antony called out, she stopped and so did Sal, “I expect you to continue the project that I asked you to do…”

  Fuck that project Yvette wanted to say, but instead, she said, “Okay, Mr. Carbonaro,” and walked out of his hospital room.

  Yvette waited for Sal outside the door, he was talking to some of the other mafia men. When he was finished he came toward her, “Let’s go,” he said.

  She walked behind him, she was tempted to turn around and run the other way but she had a good feeling the bulge on his back was a gun, and she couldn’t outrun bullets.

  “Are we going to my house?” she asked when they stopped in front of the elevator.

  “Don’t you want to go home?” Sal asked and grinned.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Then that is where we are going.” He said.

  The door opened and they walked onto the elevator. There were three people inside the elevator, they moved to the back, but Sal wasn’t having that. He pulled her to the side next to him where he stared at the other three occupants in the elevator, Sal looked at them assessing them. Yvette thought to herself that if she went around killing people she would have enemies too. She could only hope that one of them really was an enemy and decided now would be a good time to kill him.

  Yvette cringed at her bloodthirsty thoughts. Until today, she never wished harm to another. Until she met Antony Carbonaro she hadn’t had the need to, but now she wanted to kill a number of people, starting with Sal ending with Antony’s father.

  ***

  It was eleven pm when they arrived at her apartment. Yvette opened her door and stepped out of the sleek sporty Tesla. Sal opened his door and walked around to meet her. “Where are you going? You can’t come into my home.” He came around the car and grabbed her elbow. She tried to yank her arm away. He gave her a look that gave her chills. She stopped struggling and walked with him to her door. She had never realized how helpless she was over her own life, how she never prepared for the possibility that someday she would need to defend herself, and because of that she was left helpless. She yanked her arm away from Sal’s when they approached her door. She pulled her keys out of her pocket. Steven the EMT gave them to her at the hospital. It was all she had left, everything else was in the garage, possibly destroyed, she wouldn’t know until someone contacted her. It struck her the police would need a statement from her. What would she say?

  She pushed her key into the door and turned to Sal, “What if the police want to take a statement from me. Do you all have like a mafia lawyer or something that would need to go with me?”

  Sal pushed the door open, and guided her into the apartment building, and up to her apartment. “You won’t need to talk to the police, we have already taken care of it.”

  Yvette grunted, “Of course you did.”

  They stopped at her door, “Do not leave this apartment until I come to get you. I will come to get you in the morning.”

  “You talk to me like I am a dog, sit, stay, bark.” They reached the door to her apartment, she pushed the key into the door and stepped inside. She stood in the door to block Sal from entering. “I do not like it. I am a human being, my life is worth more than a shrug, more than whatever bullshit you all have going on. My life is precious even if I am the only one who believes it.”

  Yvette slammed the door in Sal’s confused face, her breaths came quickly, as well as more tears. She wasn’t a fighter and she didn’t enjoy conflict, but she wasn’t going to be weak anymore. If she got out of this situation, she would not let this happen again, she would learn how to use a gun, she would learn how to fight. She may not be able to take on the Mafia but at the very least, she wouldn’t be led around easily.

  Chapter Nine

  Sandra was dressed in all black. Each step she took echoed on the cement floor of the old abandoned warehouse as she walked to her favorite chair. This was what she called the chair of death. This warehouse was where the Belmonte Family did the worst of their interrogations and executions. Sandra came here when she needed to find some peace. The smell of death sickened others, but she embraced it for what it was, a transition. Death was the transition of life from the living to some other place for the dead. Sometimes she pulled up a chair and watched the life drain from the wounds she inflicted on her victim. She tried to catch a glimpse of the place they transitioned to, she tried to pinpoint the time, the feeling, the look in their eyes as they realized death was coming and then the fear, acceptance, and peace death provided. But no matter how many times she watched them die she couldn’t follow them. She couldn’t glimpse a sliver of the place where they were transitioning to. It frustrated and intrigued her.

  It was her curiosity about death and the afterlife that made her such a good killer. She wanted to kill, each time she did she hoped she could get a glimpse of what lay ahead for them. Tonight she sat in front of Jim, his hands were tied behind him, his ankles were tied to the legs of the chair. When she came closer, he tried to move using his body to move the chair. “Really Jim, where are you going to go? Stop hopping around or you will fall flat on that disfigured face of yours,” she said with a smile. His death was delayed, but she was here now, and anxious to finish the job.

  Jim stopped moving, his head hung low in defeat. He was in bad shape. It looked like Donato beat the shit out of him but he wouldn’t kill him, he was too much of a coward for that. He had called in his little sister to do it for him instead. This was just another reason why he shouldn’t be the head of the Family. How can he be the head of a Family of criminals when he wouldn’t get blood on his hands. But Sandra could, and she would do whatever needed to be done to make sure the Belmonte Family made it to the top. But for now, someone did need to deal with Jim.

  Sandra pushed her nails into the stab wound on his thigh. His head jerked up, that’s good. “You’re still with me! I need you with me.” She said and angled her face to look into his eyes. His face was swollen to the point she couldn’t recognize him. His eyes were almost swollen shut. Damn it! She never hit anyone in the eyes. She needed to look into their eyes when they died. She had to, that was the only place you could see the life drain all the way to the moment of death. That motherfucker Donato had no finesse and he had no clue what a gift death could be. She was sure at this point Jim would welcome death.

  “I am Lady Death the Belmonte Family’s executioner. I am sure you have heard of me.” Jim nodded his head, she knew the moment he realized what she was here to do. Did he really think after all of the beatings he took, he could leave here alive? Hope, Sandra thought. Hope, what was it about hope that made people disregard common sense and logic. All of her victims hoped they would leave alive all the way until the end. They hop
ed for a miracle that never came, not even once. Hope was a ridiculous emotion based in fantasy, not reality. Hope, the way people imagined it did nothing, it existed as a concept, death killed, life created, but hope...disappointed, ruined, and lied. Hope was the twin of anarchy. Sandra laughed out loud at her mental musings. Then she looked at Jim, tears were streaming down his face. Hope struck again. He had finally lost all hope and what was left after that was the truth. Hope was the herald of truth.

  Sandra pulled up her chair to face him. She pulled out her gun and attached the silencer. “This won’t be quick and it will be painful but the good news is, it won’t last forever.” She shot him in the stomach and thigh. The stomach wound could take days to kill, but the loss of blood from the femoral artery she hit, should hurry death along. She sat down and watched. He tried to close his eyes and when he did, she pushed the butt of the weapon into the wound. He was dying…rapidly, his breaths were shallow for a moment, then they stopped. The light in his eyes went out. He was gone, but where. Where did he go.

  Chapter Ten

  Yvette heard her phone alarm. She began to move to shut it off but felt something heavy on her chest. She looked down to see, she fell asleep on her sofa with her laptop and phone on top of her chest. A pen and a piece of paper hung loosely in her hand. She moved to sit up and the laptop came to life. She was researching places she could learn self-defense. She wanted a one stop shop, a place where she could both learn how to fight and how to shoot. She reached up and wrote down the name and number of Daemon Security, they offered self-defense classes for women that seemed to be everything she was looking for. Now, she needed to get away from the Carbonaro Family long enough to get to the classes or just get away from the Carbonaro Family, and that was another issue altogether.

  She had to find a way to protect herself because it was obvious everyone around her was counting on her staying weak and naive to her situation. She sat the laptop and her phone on the table and rose from the sofa. She was expected to go to work today. On cue her phone vibrated, she picked it up and read the text, Be ready in forty-five minutes-Sal. Disgusted she threw the phone on the table. She worked for the Mafia, actually, she worked at the front company for a Mafia Crime Family. She thought back over the last year. She couldn’t remember anything suspicious about the company. Well, now the state of the financial statements made sense but before that, it was a regular business. It was Yvette’s luck that something like this could happen and would happen to her.

  Yvette walked to her bathroom to brush her teeth, the wall clock told her she only had forty minutes left before Sal came, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care. Her body hurt, some of the smaller cuts on her body itched, and the larger cuts throbbed. She needed to soak in the tub like Dr. Wong told her, she walked to the bathroom and ran a warm bath. While her bath was running, she rummaged for something comfortable to wear. She no longer had any inclination to go to work in something insensible. She pulled out flats, loose fitting pants, and a shirt.

  Yvette placed her clothes on her bed and dragged her weary body to the bathroom to soak. The feeling of the warm water against her skin was bliss. The tension in her body eased and she relaxed into the water. She didn’t think about what kind of day she would have. She didn’t think about the day she had yesterday, or the long list of things she needed to do to file claims to recover what she could. She let her mind go blank, it wasn’t hard, she had reached a turning point. A point where she realized she didn’t have anything left to lose because she had lost it all already, she had one foot in the grave it was up to Antony Carbonaro if the other one would join.

  “Yvette!” she heard Sal pounding on her door. “Yvette, open the door.”

  Slowly Yvette stood in the tub as water dripped from her body, she stepped out of the tub and grabbed a large towel. She leisurely walked to the door. She wasn’t bending for these assholes anymore. The moment they put a gun in her face and disregarded her entire existence with a shrug, was the exact moment they lost control of her.

  “Hold on, I am coming, and shut up! There’s a family with a small baby downstairs.” Yvette yelled at the closed door.

  She opened the door. Sal’s fist was raised to continue his assault on her door. She looked at him and then turned around. She didn’t say good morning, she didn’t acknowledge him in any way, she just opened the door, and walked back into the house. She heard the door close and assumed Sal stepped inside. “I will be ready soon.” She said.

  “I told you to be ready in forty five minutes.” Sal said.

  “Yeah, but your time didn’t work for me.” She said and closed the door to her bedroom.

  ***

  Yvette stepped out of Sal’s car into the hot summer day. She walked next to Sal upset that she wasn’t at her desk but at the hospital. She wanted to know how Antony was doing, but she didn’t know if she was ready to see him. She wasn’t ready to hear what he had to say about his Family or what he was planning to do with her. Yvette wanted to rewind time and go back to the time where her biggest concern and annoyance was how long Peter was going to take for his lunch break. In hindsight, her problems with Peter were small and she was in no threat of being killed by him, at least not that she knew of.

  Yvette and Sal walked on to the elevator. Yvette’s fingers brushed up the numbers to hover over fourteen. Sal swiped her hand away and pushed ten instead. “I thought we were going to Mr. Carbonaro’s room.” Yvette asked.

  Sal nodded, “We are. He was moved.”

  The elevator ride was full of awkward silence. The air between Yvette and Sal was charged with Yvette’s righteous anger. Yvette wasn’t just mad anymore, she wanted to get even, and to do that she had to step up. She couldn’t let people continue to bully her, she couldn’t be a coward, and she couldn’t continue to be weak. The elevator finally opened on the tenth floor. Sal walked off the elevator first. Yvette walked behind him trying to memorize exits in the event she had an opportunity to get away. But as soon as she marked them, she forgot them. Who was she kidding? She was far out of her league, and the only thing she could do right now was appeal to Antony or his father to spare her life. Because running or fighting was out of the question.

  Again, there were guards at the end of the corridor on both ends leading up to Antony’s room. Sal grabbed her arm and walked her into room Thirty-One B. The four men outside the door nodded at Sal before they entered.

  They entered the room and Antony was sitting up in the bed, his body was twisted awkwardly. Yvette assumed it was to stop from opening his wound.

  “Underboss,” Sal said. Antony nodded.

  Yvette sat on the chair next to Antony’s bed, “You came,” Antony said to Yvette.

  “Of course, I didn’t have a choice. You put this goon on me. How could I not come?” Yvette said.

  “True,” Antony replied. “Did you bring what you were working on?”

  “How? I didn’t go to the office and I am assuming what I tried to take home was burned to ashes in the garage.” Yvette’s anger made her speech reckless.

  “That’s true too,” he said then turned to Sal. “Then you must have it.”

  Sal nodded and pulled out a USB and swung the table with Antony’s laptop in front of him. “Unbelievable,” Yvette muttered.

  Antony jerked his head toward the door and Sal left.

  “How are you handling everything that’s happened in the last twenty four hours?” Antony asked Yvette, his voice soft with care and concern. Antony didn’t know he had the ability to sincerely care or be concerned about someone else’s feelings. But he cared about Yvette.

  Her soulful brown eyes locked with his and he knew without words that she was scared. The fear in her eyes betrayed her false bravado and all he could do was play along and act like everything was normal. But he knew they both understood nothing would ever be the same.

  Antony turned one of his charming smiles on her. “You know this makes working together easier.”

  “Pardon?
” Yvette tried for obtuse.

  “You and I can get more work done now that you know about my Family. I was trying to figure out how to juggle the two but now, I have some help.”

  “I am not going to work for your Family. I am a law abiding woman who has never broken any law whatsoever, and I will not start now.”

  “Hmmm,” Antony said. “Even if it kills you?”

  Bastard, he had her there. She didn’t want to die, but there had to be some sort of legal defense if they were caught, she would Google the law on that, she was sure there was something about coercion.

  “Before we get to work let’s talk about what happened yesterday.” Antony said. “Did you have anything to do with the explosion?”

  Yvette’s eyes narrowed, “I didn’t,” she said. “I already said this to your father.”

  Antony nodded, “But you didn’t say it to me, and what I don’t understand is why you were talking to Donato Belmonte?” Antony asked.

  “What does he have to do with any of this?” Yvette asked.

  Antony adjusted his pillow, and moved his body, he was trying to find a more comfortable position. “Donato is one of the heirs to the Belmonte Family. And the Belmonte Family has been trying to take over as the biggest Crime Family on this coast. One way to do that would be to eliminate me, the heir to the Carbonaro Family, and take over B&E’s clientele.”

  Yvette’s mouth dropped open, “If that’s the case then why are you using their money?”

  Antony smiled. “We aren’t using their money we are smuggling their money. And we do that because that’s what we are good at.”

  Yvette’s head nodded slowly. Donato’s insistence on finding information on B&E made sense. He was another man who wanted to use her. She laughed but it died out quickly. Antony raised an eyebrow in question. “Donato and I met at work, so to speak and went on a date. I didn’t like the direction of his conversation, which was about work and information that didn’t seem appropriate. He continued to pursue me, and I am assuming that is only because he wants to use me. What you heard on the phone was me telling him for the umpteenth time to kiss my pretty ass.”