by Nicole Fox
“Let’s talk about your childhood, shall we?” He said cryptically.
“What about it?”
“Born poor, had to work your way up from practically nothing. Turned to a dangerous crowd. Sound familiar?” The way he rattled off the information was beginning to worry me.
“I’m not ashamed of my childhood,” I said, unemotionally. I didn’t know where he was going with this, but I didn’t like it.
“No, of course not. Nothing to be ashamed of. You supported your mother. Petty theft and small crimes here and there.”
“I was young. It was a phase.”
I didn’t need a rich son of a bitch like Romano combing through every detail of my life. He’d probably been born without a care in the world, and had never worked a day in his life, until he took over the family business. Isn’t that how it worked?
“A very long phase, don’t you think? And then, you moved on to breaking and entering and formed a crew with your street gang. You were successful, too. Surprisingly successful.”
“I don’t see where you’re going with this, Romano.”
“I’m just establishing that I know about your skills, and I admire the way you acquired them.”
“Well, I’m not in that business anymore. I told you. I’m just a bouncer.”
Romano let out a little smirk and leaned back in his chair, spreading his hands out.
“Just a bouncer, huh? So, where do your loyalties lie, then, King? To Jarren Rossi? Or maybe to your old crew.”
I let out a dry laugh at that. “They’re unreliable, and they’ll betray you. They only work together.”
“Yes, betrayal can be very… unfortunate. Working together, however? That comes as a surprise to me.”
“I’m almost certain it doesn’t. You seem to already know all of this. What do you want from me?”
I was sick of Romano’s games. All I wanted was a straight answer so I could leave and deal with Rossi, instead of whatever bullshit Romano had for me.
“What I want from you, King, is quite simple. I have a proposition, of sorts, that I think might catch your interest.”
“A proposition?” I asked. No way would anything he said be of any interest to me. I could predict what he would ask me anyway. He would want me to join him, and then he would help Skype. Or he would help me get revenge. Either way, I would say no. How could I willingly make a deal with the devil? Especially when the devil wasn’t even in disguise. The entire situation made me want to leave, even from the start. No, I wasn’t an idiot. He could take his proposition and shove it up his ass.
“Yes, a proposition. Before you say no, hear me out. I have been dealing with Rossi for years, and I have to say, I don’t want to. I’d gladly get rid of him myself, but I have come to a better idea. You can kill Rossi, prove your loyalty to me, and take over his business. Your girl will be happy, and she won’t need to start a place of her own because all the work will already be done for her. Rossi will be out of the way, revenge will be complete, and everybody wins. Except for Jarren, of course, but that’s to be expected.”
“You want me to kill my boss?” I asked, confused.
“Well he’s not your boss anymore. But if you really insist, Rossi works for me, so I am your boss. And this is my offer. Take him out, and get his business. Simple.”
I hadn’t expected this scenario at all. Kill Rossi? I wasn’t sure if I was willing to do that. Not that I cared about Rossi at all. He could go rot in hell, for all I cared. But, if I did it, it seemed like I would be having to answer to Romano for the rest of my life, and I wasn’t up for that.
“So, then I would have to work for you? Is that it?”
“Not at all. We’d go our separate ways if you wish, with perhaps a brief nod of recognition if we were to ever meet again.”
No, I wasn’t buying it. It seemed way too good to be true, and I wouldn’t go around killing men, just because the Mafia boss demanded it.
“And if I refuse?” I asked. What would he do to me? Threaten me? Threaten Christy?
“Ah, that wouldn’t be the best idea on your part.”
Of course not. Why would anything ever be as simple as that?
“Why not?” I ground out, sick of this back and forth we were partaking in.
“Rossi is— let’s just say that Rossi is unstable. He wants to kill you and, frankly, I don’t really care if he does. I’ve told him not to for the time being, and he won’t go against me. But I will allow him to kill you, if you don’t kill him first. I can’t have both of you alive, after one another. Messy business, you understand. No, one of you needs to go. It’s kill, or be killed.”
Great, an ultimatum. This was going to be hard to figure out, regardless of how obvious the answer might seem. There weren’t really two options in this scenario, as much as Romano tried to make it seem there were. I was sure I could figure out a plan C, if I had a little time. Most of all, I wanted to talk it out with Christy.
It wasn’t as if I was going to let myself be killed, but I knew that killing Rossi might lead to worse problems for myself. I was already on the run from the cops, so did I really want to risk this? Guilt probably wouldn’t be a factor, considering what Rossi was like. I guess I was just a heartless bastard, because I knew what Rossi would do to Christy if I wasn’t around to protect her.
“Can I have some time to think about it?” I said finally.
“Of course. You know where to find me. Don’t take too long though,” he said.
I stood and left quickly, not wanting to be around the man for a second longer. I was still undecided on whether coming here was a mistake or not, but I knew for certain that staying here would be.
Chapter Nineteen
Christy
Could this night get any worse? King had been gone for only ten minutes, and I already felt more anxious than I could handle. I wondered if this was how King had felt when I’d ventured inside the building. My eyes were almost transfixed on Romano’s men before me, my mind a flurry of thoughts that didn’t even make complete sense. What was going on up there?
It wasn’t as if I thought that King couldn’t handle himself. I was more than confident that he could. But Romano was a different breed. He was the kind of man who would convince a nun to do his bidding, just because he seemed to make so much sense. That was my biggest fear—that Romano would convince King to do something that he shouldn’t or wouldn’t normally do. Guys like Romano got into your head, picked it apart, and turned you against your best friend.
All in all, he was dangerous, though a completely different kind of dangerous to Rossi. Rossi was direct, upfront, and forthright, a mammoth compared to the slippery, snake-like behavior of Romano, silent, lethal, and cunning.
The longer King spent up in Romano’s tower, the more anxious I became. I longed to pace in the courtyard, to release even the smallest amount of tension, but I didn’t want to show any weakness in front of his men. Call me stubborn, but I would fake it until my last breath, if it could grant me even the slightest upper hand.
The minutes kept dragging by, and I could feel every second that passed like a weight, pressing further and further onto my shoulders until I would soon collapse. If King didn’t come down soon, I was tempted to just go up there myself and drag him down, consequences be damned.
Luckily for me, King appeared about five minutes later, trudging down into the courtyard and gesturing for me to come to him. I didn’t hesitate, hurrying over without a backward glance.
“Can we leave now?” I whispered. We’d spent entirely too much time there, and I was more than ready to leave and never come back. What had we been thinking when we decided to do this? A small voice in the back of my brain spoke up and suggested that I would have gone anyway, even if I had known the danger we would be in, but I stifled that voice easily.
“Yeah, let’s go,” King agreed. I didn’t need to read his mind to know that he was just as eager as I to leave.
King and I left quickly after that, an
d I knew I wasn’t the only one who breathed a sigh of relief once we were clear of the building. It had been a long night, and I was more than ready to go home.
“So, what did Romano talk to you about?” I asked King, while we were walking down the street.
“He wanted to give me a proposition,” King replied hesitantly. The word ‘proposition’ immediately set me on edge. That could mean anything.
“A proposition?” I asked at last. It seemed very dubious to me. I didn’t even know what it was, and I was already hoping that King hadn’t agreed. I had a strong feeling that all that would come out of it was trouble and danger, and we’d had enough of that to last a long while. I trusted King’s decision making, especially since he was the calm and rational one, but a little part of me was still worried about how Romano might have manipulated him. A deal with the devil was not something we needed, now or ever, and I prayed that I was mistaken in my assumption.
“He told me that I either had to kill Rossi and take over his business, or he’d give the order for Rossi to kill me.” The words came out in a rush, and it took a moment for me to comprehend what King had just said.
“What?” I screeched in outrage. “You can’t be serious. One option will land you in prison, and the other means that you’ll die? What kind of proposition is that?” This was crazier than anything I’d ever imagined Romano might propose.
“A smart one. He’ll either get rid of Rossi, or get rid of me. Either way, he wins.”
Yes, it was a smart proposition, but that didn’t mean it was in any way good for us. Romano had lived up to my expectations of him, being just as sly and cunning as I predicted. But, in saying that, I never expected he would ask King to murder someone. That wasn’t a small task. Murder was a big ask for anyone, and Romano had just thrown it out there, like King would just say yes and get on with his life.
But what was the other option? Letting King die? That wasn’t going to happen. It wasn’t as if I even cared about Rossi’s life, but killing him was still a bit of a stretch. I didn’t know what it would mean, if I was okay with King doing something like that, but if it was a choice between King living and dying, I knew which one I would go with. King was stuck between a rock and a hard place, and I had no idea what he should do.
“Did you give him an answer?” I asked hesitantly, trying not to sound like I expected him to say either option. Of course, I had my opinions on it, but I didn’t want to impose them on him—not until I knew what he was thinking about doing.
“I told him I’d think about it.”
I almost groaned at his answer. King was being purposefully vague, and I wondered what was going through his head. Did he feel like he couldn’t tell me? Did he feel like I would judge him, or think any differently of him? I thought we were close enough that he could tell me things like that. Though, I supposed it was a little different when you were discussing someone’s life. Even someone as horrible as Rossi didn’t deserve to die at the whim of a mobster.
Sensing King wanted to move on from it and hoping he felt like he could tell me once he’d decided, I decided to change the subject for now.
“Well, at least that’s over,” I said, attempting to smile over at King.
Just as I spoke the words, I turned my head slightly and noticed a group of men that seemed to jump out of the shadows and surround King and I. Rossi stood amongst them, a maniacal grin on his face. It was as if he knew we had been talking about him and had appeared to enforce his revenge. The phrase ‘speak of the devil’ came to mind, but so did the word, ‘run!’
Shit. What had we landed ourselves in?
One of the masked men stepped forward, and King immediately lunged for him, fighting off his coming attack. Their forearms connected as they fought each other, punching, dodging, and blocking the other’s blows. My first thought was that King couldn’t possibly take on so many men by himself, especially after the fight he had just had. Surprisingly, though, none of the other men were attacking yet. It was just the first man, and even he seemed like he wasn’t entirely committed.
“King, wait. Stop!” one of the men shouted. I stifled my surprise at his words, the words that I, myself, was just about to utter. How did the man know King? And why was he trying to get him to stop? It could have been a trap or a trick of some sort, but I seriously doubted it, especially given the look of anger on Rossi’s face,
The man who was fighting stepped back quickly to lift off his mask, and King stopped his attack almost instantly, as if he recognized him.
“Don? Seriously?”
Apparently, he did recognize him, but I was still very much confused at the situation, and King was frozen in a mixture of shock and distress.
“King, who are they?” I asked quietly, though evidently not quietly enough, since it was Rossi who answered.
“Oh, Christy, don’t you know?” The crazy gleam in his eyes made me want to shout out that I didn’t want to know, especially not from him. “This is King’s old crew. Didn’t he ever tell you how he’s a wanted man?”
I looked at King, confused and unsure if I believed it. It didn’t seem like it was true, from what I knew of King. After all, Rossi was crazy and probably just wanted me to turn against King. Little did he know that I wouldn’t be falling for any his tricks that easily. A small voice in my head started whispering that it didn’t matter, even if it was true, and I knew that voice was right. Rossi could have turned up and said that King was a murderer, and I would have been hard-pressed to hate him for it. Boy, was I in trouble.
“King?” I asked, deciding to ignore Rossi and ask King, himself, if it was true.
King didn’t meet my eyes for a moment, but when he did, it was a look of such utter dejection that I wanted to run into his arms and tell him that I would be okay. I held myself back, though, wanting to see how it would play out. Instead, I turned to look at Rossi, a frown on my face.
“That’s right,” Rossi continued, seeming to enjoy the moment more as I kept my distance from King. “Your lover is a wanted man, a dirty criminal–”
“What do you want, Rossi?” King growled, interrupting him. I was thankful he had, because I was close to lunging for Rossi’s throat. How dare he say those things about King? He still had a mock look of innocence on his face, and it made me want to scratch it off him.
“Me? Why would you think I wanted anything at all? Consider this merely a friendly warning from a concerned citizen. I hear an arrest will be made soon.”
An arrest? This couldn’t be going where I thought it was going. No way would Rossi be able to do that.
“For what?” I asked, almost expecting to hear someone say that it was a mistake, and that King would be fine.
“Well when I asked King’s old friends if they wanted to help me out, they were all too willing. They framed him for the robbery and for stealing your money, Christy. The police will be onto him any day now.”
Shit. My confusion quickly turned to horror, and I neared King quickly, placing a hand on his arm. Why was Rossi doing this? Why did he want to ruin King’s life? I felt for King. His crew had just stabbed him in the back. And for what? A paycheck? I didn’t get it at all.
“Why are you still here,” I turned on Rossi. “Haven’t you done enough?” A haze of anger clouded my vision as I stared him down, and all I wanted to do was run up to him and punch him in the face, so that he had to pay for what he’d done. I was beginning to revise my earlier thoughts about not even Rossi deserving to die.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Rossi replied with a laugh.
“Just leave!” I yelled.
I didn’t think it was my emotion that finally got them to leave, nor was it my raised voice or threats of harm. It probably had less to do with me and more to do with King’s lack of response. Or, perhaps, it was the knowledge that there was nothing we could really do to stop them.
Either way, they left us behind soon enough, with some last departing words. “Don’t worry, Christy. I’m sure I’ll be seeing y
ou around. King on the other hand…” Rossi’s cackle seemed to ring in the air long after he left, but I ignored it, moving to King and checking to see if he was all right.
“Are you okay?” I asked softly, clutching one of his hands firmly in mine.
King didn’t answer me, his face displaying his emotions like an open book. He looked betrayed, broken, and helpless, things that I would never have associated with him. This couldn’t happen. I couldn’t let him sink so low. I wouldn’t let him.
More than that, though, I was terrified. What would I do without King by my side? I couldn’t do anything on my own anymore—not when I was so used to having him at my back. King had quickly become my rock, and I was not willing to give him up.