by Amarie Avant
42
Evan
Cosenza, Italy
“The fuck happened to you, Valentino?” Vincenzo asks, barefooted, dressed in basketball shorts, and a jersey barely covers the fat-folds of his arm pits and tits. Vinny is a rich slob and he doesn’t give a fuck about it.
His face is a mask of my pain as he glances me up and down. Though I’d showered at my dad’s place, and donned one of my black suits in my old room, for the sake of getting through TSA at the Los Angeles Airport, my face is full of scruff from not shaving and all abraded up. And I haven’t found my medication, so the melatonin I took on the ride just to get me here has worn off.
“I need a gun.” I reply as he leads me into his house.
“No, wait a minute, here you come over to my house outta the blue. Long time no see, the first thing outta your mouth is to ask for a burner?” Vinny rubs the back of his neck, as we walk down a corridor with glossy gray walls. “First of all, big cousin might have been in Vegas today. Where would that place you? At least give your big cousin a hug.”
I hug Vinny and grimace as he holds tight, I pat his back roughly and now he’s grimacing too.
“Alright already, Vinny. And you need to stop frequenting Vegas or Monte Carlo or San Juan too. Isadora is ready for you to grow the fuck up.”
“Me, grow up? Don’t speak such blasphemy in my spot.”
I follow Vinny down a long corridor, up a flight of stairs as he mentions his current inventory. The only dirty family I have, guess I lucked out he dabbled in arms dealing with the funds Isadora unknowingly offers him. We step into a room with wood walls.
He steps toward a security pad. Vinny pauses from punching in a key code, and his interest piques. “So, whadaya need?”
“Just a standard .9.”
“Fucking cops, you're so easy, you’re boring.” He grumbles.
“Yup, boring does make life easier, doesn’t it?” I assure as he finishes punching in the code. The wood walls separate as I add, “I'll need a few clips.”
We stand before a display case. Bright lights shine down on every sort of combat weapon.
“Where you heading? I've got these new modified Intratec,” his beefy arms bulge as he handles the automatic gun, “This shit is sweeeeet, thirty-two round magazines, and if you empty your fucking mag, and still wanna play, the Intratec is also equipped for another eight rounds of shells, muhahaaa. You could blow a fucking crater in your enemy’s chest with this bad boy. I’ve been waiting to take ‘em out.”
“Point that at me, I'll punch your fucking lights out,” I order, fisting the barrel of his Intratec.
He grumbles once more. “Man, it’s taken years; I finally see why Isabella calls you a brat. Where are you going, Tino?”
“Naples.”
He rubs a thumb against stubble and fat chops, and we head toward the bathroom across the way. “I had this old lady out that way a while back, she was wise in many ways, know what I'm saying?”
I grab the bottle of Aspirina that he tosses my way. “No.”
“Lighten up, Evan. I'll ride with you.”
I flick on the faucet, and water pools into my hands. “No, you won't. I have no intentions of using the gun you gave me, unless provoked.”
After I swallow 1500 mg and wash it back with tepid water, I add, “Also need to borrow a car.”
His eyes widen. “I have no extra cars… Why?”
“Stop with all of the questions, Vinny. And if you invested in ‘boring’ cars, you wouldn’t be so stingy with those fucking toys outside.”
“Is it for the girl? The candy bitch our Zia Isadora tried to pawn off on me— “
My hand clutches his throat. Thumb applying just enough pressure to constrict his breathing. “You're my cousin. I love you. Shut the fuck up.”
He nods.
“Keys.”
He fumbles in his pocket, grabs his keys and hands them over.
“And don't ever call Reese a bitch. Got that?”
Vincenzo rubs softly at his Adam's apple as I hustle down the stairs.
The sliding glass door is open, so I pull out Vinny’s key ring. There are three Ferraris of varying shades of blue. I press a button and the pale-blue one purrs. When I’ve pulled out of the driveway, Vinny stands at the edge, bending over, breathing hard. I toss the key ring to him with the rest of the set.
“You better bring my baby back without so much as a scrape or I'll tell Tony!” He shouts, hand gripping his side.
Fucking dumbass. “If it has a scratch, I'll do you the honor of keeping it.” I smile and then the back tires screech against the asphalt as I pull off.
43
Reese
“Ma,” Matteo pats the shoulder of the woman in black. I take it she's Milo's old lady. I want to ask if the bitch was ever pretty but realize I have no need to be jealous on my mother’s behalf.
The dining room is long. There are display cases with crystal vases, shiny utensils and crystal flutes behind us. Adela has her side. I have mine. For the past half-hour, my half-brother has rushed back and forth between us, conflicted.
She says something in Italian about Giovanni.
In an attempt to not be rude, Matteo replies in both languages, “Sal will be here in a couple of hours. He apologizes for being late, Reese.”
His mother reminds me of one of those crazies on talk shows when finding out their significant other has cheated. Every few minutes she arises from her seat as if on stage, I can just hear a crowd of talk show viewers egging her on to hit me. I'm an inch from taking off my shoe and throwing it at her head. As I consider this, I smile. Maria is my girl when it comes to tossing a zapato at someone.
“What is so funny?” Adela enunciates every syllable with a frown.
“Humph, so you speak English again? Lady, are you going senile?”
“Lady? I am Adela Giugliano. Wife of Milo Giugliano. He didn't even give you his fake last name… Benincassa, was it? Hah!”
“Ya got a point there,” I reply. She seems taken off guard. Well, it's true. Despite how postal I went on Evan the night before last, my tongue isn't as venomous as usual. “But you were unable to keep Milo's eyes on your droopy-ass tits.”
Why am I rooting for the mistress, although, I believe my mom assumed she was the only one…
I'm escorted to an office which rivals Evan’s penthouse apartment, and I thought that was big. The man in question is seated at a cherry wood table, the room is all big, extravagant carved wood as if just the size of the place is just one more notch on Salvatore’s pursuit for ultimate power.
“I want that fucking pansy’s head on a platter, capiche?” He shouts into a headset, his index finger points hard against the desk. Someone on the line is responding to him, hopefully in his favor. As his face has reddened, his lips are a pale, thin line of anger.
Sal’s face brightens, he notices me and smiles. Not another word is said to whomever he was chewing out over the phone, he tosses the headset, and tells me, “Judges, give ‘em an inch, they wanna assume control.”
Tongue glued to the bridge of my mouth, I sit. My hands go to my lap, fingers fidgeting. And then I do some shit my mother hasn't done in years. I become mother hen to this growing babe and allow my arms to wrap around by lower abdominals.
“You are here in the flesh,” his hands spread wide, palms out. A toothy grin brightens his face.
“Yes. I'm here to appeal to any sanity you may have…”
“Sanity? Come again,” his bushy left eyebrow rises.
“Leave me alone… please.”
“Not allowable, Reese. We’ve headed down this road before. I’ll do you one better than staying outta your life, doll.”
Rubbing my index finger over my thumb nail, I hesitantly inquire, “Sheesh, what are you up to?”
He opens a small wood box, and pulls out a fresh cigar. Sal gestures toward me. I shake my head, and he lights it.
KNOCK. KNOCK.
I repeat my question, “
What are you—”
A goon steps inside of the room, “Boss, I know you said not to disturb you unless Zaccaro is here. He just arrived.”
“Zaccaro! Evan’s here?” I fly around in my seat.
The man doesn’t address me. Chin up, shoulders square, he just waits for my grandfather to answer.
“Tell him to leave,” I blurt. He can’t be here… What if Salvatore intended to use him like Riker endeavored to? I turn back to my grandfather. “Please, Sal, make him leave.”
Salvatore’s eyes narrow. “Signor Zaccaro came all the way from the States to see you, Reese. Your dismissal of him has me on alarm, here I was preparing to extend my gratitude to Evan and allow him into my home. Has he hurt you?”
“No,” my pupils almost pop, I gasp.
“You sure?” My grandfather leans back, fingers steepled in thought.
I can just about see Sal give the orders to ‘ice’ Evan, I speak quickly, “I love Evan with every bit of me. Sal, I have never known love like this before, and it has scared the shit outta me. Baking once held my entire concentration, and then I laid eyes on him… oh, his eyes,” I stop from divulging the truth to say, “He has the most amazing eyes, kind, warm and I swear on my life, I don’t know how I’m breathing at this very second without him,” I clutch a hand to my chest, “I’ve never expressed my love to him. I, honestly, have done nothing besides pushing him away. And to this moment, I doubted how much he cares for me. Determining the cop’s love was an obsession to put the puzzles of all my secrets together. I was determined that I am not worth the trouble Evan’d have to go through to muddle through the murk of lies I live in. I miss him dearly, and I can’t let you touch a hair on his head. I can’t let you turn him into my father. Evan is the hero I never got.”
Salvatore kisses his teeth, taking in my purge. Should I keep declaring my love for Evan Zaccaro? The Boss’s face is a clear slate. Maybe I’ve dissuaded Sal from setting in motion Evan’s execution, but he hasn’t extended the offer to allow Evan to leave or stay, either. I’m perched at the edge of my seat, and his solider is awaiting an order.
“So, you love Valentino?”
I nod.
“And you’ve never told him so?”
Tears spill down my cheeks as I shake my head ‘no.’ “Evan is a good guy, he’s done nothing wrong. If you refuse to leave me alone, leave him alone, I beg of you.”
“I’d prefer Zaccaro as family. Valentino is a strong enough name, Tino, if he gets in my good graces. I still don’t like this Evan crap. But I believe you,” Salvatore says pointing the cigar toward me.
He finally gives an order to the guy at the door. “Bring Zaccaro to me.”
Then Salvatore nods his head in another direction, “Escort my granddaughter to her room.”
“No,” I glance over my shoulder and there is another man, a man I hadn’t even noticed. He was posted in the shadows, and hadn’t made a single sound. The guy in a suit that molds to muscles comes alive from attending to the wall. Rolling my shoulder away from one of the soldiers, I try to side step him but he grabs my arm firmly. If he wanted, he could squeeze all the way down to the bone.
“Please, Signora Dunham.” His eyes are unwavering.
I expect to pass the front door on our way upstairs, but the man escorts me down a long hallway, studded with candle scones and candid canvas paintings of a confident, happy family. The Giuglianos. At the flight of stairs, my heart sinks.
“Is Sal gonna hurt Evan?” I ask.
The man nods his head toward the stairs. Taking a deep breath, I walk on shaking legs.
In the bedroom, I flee toward the window, and see Evan stepping through the courtyard, there are two men behind him.
“The windows are bulletproof.”
I begin to unlatch it, but the stranger tells me that it’s time to get dressed. Evan is no longer in the window frame.
“I’ll be waiting outside, Reese,” the man says ominously, “It is for your own good that you wash and prepare for dinner, por favore.”
44
Evan
“So, Zaccaro, they tell me you came empty handed?” Giugliano says.
I had chosen at the last moment to leave Vincenzo’s gun beneath the front passenger seat. “Yes.”
“I take that is as a sign of respect.” Holding a cigar, he waves his hand for me to sit.
“Where is Reese?”
“She’s dressing for dinner.” Giugliano glances around the room at one of his soldiers against the wall. “Arrange for a seat for Zaccaro—”
“I’m not staying; Reese and I are not staying.”
“A day ago,” the old man begins, tapping his index finger into the air, “I would have taken your decision to come by my home, this is my home Zaccaro, unannounced as a sign of disrespect. Moreover, I’d suspect your intentions with my granddaughter aren’t— “
“Your granddaughter?” My eyebrows rise, mouth sneered as if that doesn’t sound right.
Salvatore swivels ever so slowly in his seat, though I have the high-factor of standing, he clings to confidence
“As I said, this is not a day ago, Zaccaro, and despite your inability to guard your tongue around me, me the motherfucking Boss of all Bosses, I will take your misgivings as a sign of lack in judgement. Lemme tell you exactly why I thought about our blossoming relationship.” He smiles, “You iced McGregor in cold blood on my granddaughter’s accord.”
My eyelid twitches. He knows about McGregor. Milo’s partner didn’t just happen to be at Reese’s old apartment. The gleam in Giovanni Giugliano’s gander tells me that he personally sent McGregor to suss out my intentions…
“Fuck,” I shouted, on the floor in Reese’s old living room. The karambat knife McGregor had used to dice my intestines has done a number on me. The skin at my side, split even more as I moved into a seated position.
Pure testosterone had begun to siphon through my veins as I gripped the walls and leaped into a standing position. The back of McGregor just slipped out of the front door. As he scurries down the steps in the dark outside, I rounded the corner to the upstairs landing, he was halfway down the stairs as I took my first step.
Dead head of us, and down the long alleyway, a few cars straggled by. At the last handful of steps, I lunged myself at McGregor, he’d just passed the door to the closed for business Flour Shoppe. My hands pressed into his trapezius upper-back muscles, and gravity propels him forward
A clicking sound told me that he had hit his teeth on the ground.
“Get the fuck off of me, Zaccaro,” he shouted, blood flying from his lips.
“Shhh,” I pressed my knees into his back, and gripped the squaring of his jaw with one hand, as my other braced itself at his neck. With a quick swivel of my hands came an eerie cracking sound as his spine dislocated from his brain.
I sat there for a moment and took a deep breath. This was by no far au stretch of the word: self-defense. Even a rookie detective who ran down the scene could see our struggle throughout the house. A coroner’d easily put together how McGregor had just landed and had his neck snapped.
So I stood, bent down and I grabbed McGregor by the abdomen. I tossed his body over my shoulder, his weightless body heavier than its approximately one hundred-seventy pound, five-foot-ten frame. The sheer act was torture. A fresh flow of blood drenched down my side, coasting over the sticky, drying blood.
“McGregor got a little threatening note from our Reese telling him he ruined her life and should've gone to jail like Milo. That’s enough to set off a man who ain’t all there anyway,” Salvatore elaborates, since he’s the one who set this all in motion. “You had to defend yourself from the madman. You then took McGregor back upstairs into Reese’s bathroom. Placed him in the bathtub. Cleaned up. Bought that erosion stuff, eh? Then you continued on your quest to find Reese, to bring her home safely.”
I nod. In addition to dousing his corpse with sulfuric sulfate, I’d called Reese’s old landlord and said that she’d need on
e more extra month to move. Though I would be back to remove the decomposing body soon, that bastard had charged through the nose.
“I’m smarter than you take me for, Zaccaro. At this instant, you see me as a crazy motherfucker, just like McGregor was molded into. Milo too… My fucking son held his own child out as his own personal vest when SWAT and the DEA surrounded his home! Instead of that bitch of his blood, his blood —our little Reese— became his safety shield!” Salvatore makes his hand in the shape of a gun and places it at his own head. His eyes are glossed, saucers, teeth bared, spittle flies as he shouts, “Milo, that lousy piece of shit, placed a motherfucking burner against his own child’s head. You think I’m scum too? Milo was my son, my legacy. I raised him to be a man, what a fucking man he turned out to be, eh? It’s my fault he had shit for brains! He was scum, so I’m scum too; right?”
“Yeah, no disrespect, but I believe you and your son are one in the same.” My jaw is clenched, and because I’m in his home, I will listen to the lunacy.
Giugliano holds his index finger out and taps it against the air, it’s an acute manner of his while angry. Giugliano nods to one of his men. An iPad is handed over to him. “How are things going?”
“Everything’s all good, Boss,” someone says on the screen.
“Gimme a preview,” Giugliano orders, I take note that he isn’t identifying the man’s name.
“Zaccaro, take a look,” the Boss says, holding the iPad up so I can see. Now the screen has been flipped around, whoever has it, shows Reese’s apartment.
“It’s spick and span, and the traces of blood up and down the stairway and toward the alley are all cleaned up too.”
“Alright, that’ll do.” Giugliano hands the iPad back over to his soldier and looks at me. “I’ve had ‘em on the team for a while now, Tino, but feel free to assess the scene once you return.”
“And the body, Giugliano, where is what’s left of the body?”