by Ws Greer
“What the fuck?” I hear Tommy exclaim.
I open my eyes and find Tommy with his head turned all the way around, looking out of one of the shattered windows to the house, his gun still lodged in my mouth, covered in my tears and saliva.
Out the window, I see headlights. The engine to the car speeding towards us is loud and obviously being pushed to its limits. It rumbles like the feet of a thousand horses, and then the car screeches to a stop directly in front of the house Tommy and me are in.
Tommy’s breathing becomes labored as the driver’s door opens and a silhouette steps in front of the beaming lights and speed-walks towards the house. He pulls the gun out of my mouth without even realizing it, because his focus is on the man standing in the doorway now.
My heart cries tears of joy when I realize the car is a Dodge Challenger, and the man in the doorway is none other than Dominic Collazo.
My knight in shining armor has arrived, and the look in his eyes could set the entire house ablaze.
Dominic
When I reach the bottom of the bridge, I make a right, speeding past the stop sign like it was never there. As I finish my turn, I see the house Tommy and I always go to when we want to speak in private—when it needs to be just the two of us in a place that we know isn’t bugged and doesn’t have people constantly watching us. Only the two of us know about the abandoned, burned-out house in E. St. Louis that the city refuses to demolish for whatever reason, so when I see it, and I see a light on inside, a small light that can only be there if someone brought it with them, I know I was right. My gut led me in the right direction, and now that I see that light, my foot has a mind of its own, and it seems to shove itself onto the gas pedal until there’s no more room left between the pedal and the floor.
The engine blares and screams as if it can feel my pain and it wants the whole world to hear about it, and in two seconds flat, I’m screeching to a stop and jumping out of the car without even turning it off. I have two guns and a small knife I’ve started habitually carrying, and I can feel the weight of all of them as I rush towards the front door that’s barely there.
I can hardly think. I can barely see straight. My body is moving all on its own, forcing me towards the house, but still holding on to hope that I might be wrong. Maybe Tommy got caught in a traffic jam, maybe there’s someone else in inside, maybe, maybe, maybe. But the maybes don’t change what I see when I reach the door.
My rational thoughts seem to be being bogged down by the blinding rage, and it swirls around in my head in incomplete sentences.
Tommy, standing up. Holding a gun. Nine millimeter pistol. Tommy “Two Nines.”
Standing in front of Alannah. My Alannah. On the floor. Tied up with plastic zip ties around her wrists, and looped through the ones on her ankles. Alannah. Tied up. Again. Abram Baskov all over again.
But it’s not Abram. It’s Tommy. Tommy “Two Nines.” My best friend. Judas. Backstabber. Snake.
Dead man.
“Dominic,” I hear Alannah say in a voice that doesn’t sound like her own. It’s been worn ragged by fear.
“Shut up,” Tommy says to her, while still looking at me. Then he speaks to me. “Guess I should’ve known you’d figure to look here. That’s a mistake on my part.”
I want to speak, but the words are smothered in my hate and being weighed down—pushed deep into my belly, and I can’t seem to control them. I’ve never felt rage like this before. I have no fear, no worry, no compassion, no love. Only hate. Only rage.
“I didn’t mean for it to be this way, Dominic,” I hear Tommy speaking again. He hasn’t moved, choosing to stay planted in front of Alannah, holding his weapon at his side, ready to use it if I make him.
And I will make him.
“I didn’t mean for all of this to happen,” he continues. “I admit that I fucked up. I do. I made a huge mistake by letting myself get dragged into all of this, and I went too far, and lost my cool tonight. I can’t believe we’re all actually standing here right now. We were just at Maggiano’s together a couple of hours ago. Now look at us. It’s pretty surreal. But it is what it is, and I can’t take it back. So, where do we go from here, Dominic?”
I see Alannah pleading with me with her eyes. She wants me to kill him. She wants me to save her from this hell she’s stuck in. The hell Tommy put her in.
“Where do we go from here?” I finally manage to say as I begin to regain feeling in my body. “We don’t go anywhere. You will never go anywhere again. You’ve betrayed your best friend, and the boss of the Family. You will die tonight.”
“I didn’t want this, Dominic. I really didn’t. But I can’t change it now.”
“If you didn’t want it, then why are we here? Why’d you do this?”
“Because you’re not supposed to be the boss, Dominic,” he snips. “You’re too young, and too inexperienced, and she makes you soft! When people see you as the boss, they think we’re weak. When they see you two together, they think we’re weak. You’re a savvy business man, a casino owner, not a fucking boss in La Cosa Nostra. Leo went against everything we stand for when he chose you to replace him. There’s never been a boss in his fucking twenties, it’s not how This Thing of Ours is supposed to work.”
“So you decided to do what?” I ask, shifting my feel slightly to better position myself for what’s to come. “You wanted to start a war between us and the Chicago Outfit? You thought that would get me removed? You wanted Victor-fucking-Fronzo to kill me? You betrayed me for Victor?”
“I didn’t betray you for Victor. Victor was just a pawn in the game we were playing to get you out. Now that I’m standing here, I’m not even sure what we were thinking. Taking that truck was a terrible idea, and I never meant to hurt Raphy or Dan. I never meant for that to happen, I swear, but the plan was already in motion and there was no going back. If I didn’t kill Raphy, he was gonna kill me, and I only tried to kill Dan because he saw my face. But the entire idea of fucking with Victor’s truck and money after Jimmy stole it, was just plain idiotic, I admit it. I thought I saw an opportunity that could get you out without having to kill you, but I was wrong. I don’t know how we were expecting it to work out, I just know we didn’t want you to be the boss. It was in everybody’s best interest—mine, the Family’s, yours, Alannah’s. We’d all be better off. I guess I figured that by the time the thing with Victor was over, the Family or the Commission would vote you out for not being able to handle it. I thought they’d be able to see you weren’t ready, and I figured, to preserve the peace between the families, they’d vote you out or something. Come to think of it, it wasn’t a very good plan. We were really stupid.”
“You keep saying we,” I butt in. “Who the fuck is we?”
Tommy glares at me, shaking his head. “You couldn’t take it if I told you. Believe it or not, Dominic, I love you, mio amico. I know I hurt you by doing this, but there’s a deeper pain out there, and my love for you wants to protect you from it.”
“Your love for me? You don’t have love for me. You stabbed me right in the back. You know if I don’t do my job well as boss of this family, the Commission doesn’t vote me out. The vote would be to have me clipped. You were trying to get me killed.”
“That’s not what I wanted.”
“But it’s what you were ready to accept. You and whoever you were working with. Now, who is it?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Then I’ll fucking beat it out of you.”
Before the words can finish spewing from my mouth, I reach into my waist band and pull out my gun, holding it at my side. Tommy responds by lifting his from his side and aiming at me.
“Don’t do it, Dominic,” he says, glaring at me. “I don’t know how this is gonna end, but I don’t plan on dying tonight. Not without a fight.”
“Good,” I reply as I drop my gun to the floor. It lands with a thud, and Tommy looks baffled. So does Alannah. “I don’t want you to die without a fight. I want you to di
e fighting. I want your last breath to be squeezed out of you with my bare hands. I wanna feel your pulse getting weaker and weaker as your life extinguishes in front of me. I’m gonna be face to face with you when I pull your life from your body.”
Tommy stands there, still aiming his gun as I pull my jacket off, revealing the harness that houses my other gun. “You betrayed me. You shit on everything we’ve ever done together. All the years we spent making money, protecting each other, ready to die for one another. You shit on all of it, and you don’t even know why you did it. You will not be forgiven.” I glare at Tommy as I pull the harness off of my body and drop it on the floor, right on top of my other gun.
“And you made your biggest mistake of all when you took her,” I snarl as I pull the knife from my pocket. “You know there isn’t another thing in this world I’d be more willing to die for, or to kill for, than Alannah. You knew I’d kill you if you touched her, and you did it anyway. You broke the ultimate rule. You committed a cardinal sin. You crossed a line that there is no going back over. When you touched Alannah, you committed suicide. But I won’t kill you with a gun, that’s too quick of a death for you. I’m gonna kill you with my hands. You could shoot me like the coward you are, or you can hold on to the tiniest shred of honor by fighting for your life. But my decision is already made. This is the end for you, just like it was for Laura.” I drop the knife on the floor, and let it bounce away, then I glare at Tommy. If looks could kill, the head would’ve fallen off this snake already.
Tommy looks vexed. He furrows his brow as his eyes dart around the room nervously.
“What did you just say?”
“I told you a long time ago that the rules change when it comes to Alannah, but you didn’t listen. You took Alannah from me, so I took Laura from you.”
Tommy’s eyes bulge as he realizes what I’m saying. I see the tears making their presence known as the rage starts to overtake his rational thoughts.
“You motherfucker,” he says quietly, but his words are dripping with venom. “I’m gonna fucking tear your heart out. Then I’m gonna spend the rest of the night raping your little cunt girlfriend until she passes out from the pain, before I finally slit her throat and let her bleed to death right on top of your lifeless carcass.”
He drops his gun, but I wait a second longer, because we all know Tommy’s name. After another second, he pulls out his other gun and tosses it to the floor. When it lands, he starts to speak again, but it’s too late for words now.
Like my blood has been replaced by jet fuel, I run at Tommy faster than I thought humanly possible, and the collision feels and sounds like two giants just crashed into each other. Tommy goes flying backwards and I land on top of him, throwing punches the second our bodies hit the floor. I raise my fist in the air and bring it crashing down onto his face with every ounce of strength in my body. Tommy’s head bounces off the floor from the impact as I repeat the act over and over again, before Tommy finally manages to reach up and grab my face with his hands.
Although blood pours out of Tommy’s nose and mouth, he’s still Tommy, he’s still big and strong as fuck, and he squeezes my head like he has super powers. He brings his thumbs to my eyes, and I know that if I don’t get off of him now, I’ll literally never see Alannah again, so I quickly jump off.
I have to take a second to let my vision return to normal, and Tommy climbs to his feet while I struggle to see. I hear Alannah scream, warning me that Tommy’s coming, but my vision is still blurry, so I don’t see the punch coming. It hits me with a force that rocks me backwards, and the next punch is to my stomach, stealing the air from my lungs, then an elbow to the side of my head that sends me to the floor.
Alannah screams again, so I know Tommy’s about to be right on top of me in less than a second. So, I instinctively put my knee up just as he tries to get on me, and send him barreling over my head. He lands behind me and the two of us get up at the same time.
We face each other, fists balled and raised to protect us. We’re two warriors ready to do battle, two boxers in the ring, and this is how one of us will die. We’ll fight to the death like this abandoned house is our Colosseum. It all ends now. No one will ever threaten Alannah and survive the night.
I don’t waste time letting him catch his breath. I fake to the right, then swing with my left. My fist lands on Tommy’s cheek, rocking his head sideways just as my right hand lands on the other side of his jaw. He stumbles back and I charge him again, like a linebacker for the Rams, slamming him against the wall. I use one hand to push his face against the wall as he struggles to wrap his hands around my throat, and I use my other hand to deliver vicious blows to his rib cage.
I punch Tommy in the stomach over and over again, until he can no longer stand upright. He struggles to breathe and hunches forward in pain, so I wrap my arms around his head and neck. Tommy tries to use his arms as best he can, but it’s no use. I have him bent over in a chokehold, and I squeeze with every muscle fiber that makes me human. I squeeze like my life depends on it, like Alannah’s life depends on it, like my best friend stabbed me in the back by hurting the woman I love. Images flash in my head of Tommy in this house alone with Alannah, threatening her, scaring her, hurting her, and it fuels me. My body tingles with the anger that only a person in love can ever feel, and the next thing I feel is Tommy’s body go limp in my arms.
He doesn’t struggle anymore. He drops to his knees, arms dangling at his sides, and still, I raise myself up onto my tippy toes and lift my arms as far up as I can get them. I’m rewarded with the sudden, jolting snap that echoes throughout the blackened house like a gunshot. I hear Alannah gasp as I let Tommy’s lifeless body drop to the floor like the guns I dropped earlier, his neck broken into two separate pieces. He’s gone.
I look down at him, and I feel a surprising sting starting up in my eyes. Tommy was my friend. He’s been with me a long time, and I chose him to be my underboss. I chose him because of our loyalty to each other, but in Our Thing, there really is no such thing as loyalty. La Cosa Nostra breathes life into us, and it snatches it out of us when it sees fit. It’s our guardian angel and our grim reaper. All you have to do is give it time, and eventually the good things in your life will be washed away. La Cosa Nostra is the destroyer of all things, and I never realized it until now.
“Dominic,” I hear Alannah shout from behind me, snapping me out of my daze.
I turn and run over to her, kissing her face all over like I can’t control myself. She has tears in her eyes, and I kiss them away. She’s safe now, and I’ll never leave her unprotected ever again.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” I say as I kiss her wet cheeks. “I’m so sorry, baby. I never should’ve left you. I don’t know what I was thinking trusting anybody in this fucking business. I’m so sorry for not being here to protect you. I’ll never let it happen again. I love you so much. I’m sorry.”
It feels like I can’t say it enough. My heart hurts with the thought of Alannah being alone with Tommy as he did whatever the fuck he did. He only did it because I wasn’t around, so my absence almost got Alannah killed, and I can barely stand myself for it. I almost made the biggest mistake of my life.
“It’s okay, Dominic,” she whispers to me, still crying. “You came back and saved me. I’d be dead if you hadn’t shown up. You saved me.”
“I never should’ve left you,” I reply as I reach over and grab the knife I dropped earlier to cut off the plastic ties shackling Alannah. “I never should’ve left, and I’ll never leave again. I won’t make the same mistake twice. From now on, we’re together, because it’s obvious that the only people we can trust is us. It’s us against everybody now.”
Once Alannah is free, she wraps her arms around me and we embrace. In this moment, I have no regrets about what just happened to Tommy. I’ll never feel bad about it now, because the cost for hurting Alannah is death, no matter who’s paying.
“Now that you mention it,” Alannah says, pulling away from me
to look over at Tommy’s lifeless body. “We can’t forget that he was working with someone else. He has a partner.”
“Yeah, and we still need to figure out who it is.”
“No we don’t,” she says, to my surprise. “He called them. He had a whole phone conversation right in front of me with whoever it is. I heard everything.”
“Holy shit. Okay, so who is it?”
“He didn’t say their name, but his phone is in his pocket,” Alannah says, and we move at the same time.
I turn Tommy’s body over and feel for a phone in his pockets. It only takes a second to find it, and to my surprise, it’s not a smart phone. It’s an old school flip phone, the kind you don’t want someone to know you have, otherwise known as a burner. Burners don’t have passwords that keep people from accessing their info.
I flip the phone open and search to find the numbers that have gone out and been received, and when I see the last number dialed, it’s a contact in the phone, so it’s both a number and a name.
I don’t know if my vision is still damaged from the fight with Tommy or not, but I can’t believe my eyes. Alannah gasps as she reads the name, and I feel like all the blood in my body just rushed to my head. I drop the phone in complete shock and have to sit down so I don’t fall down.
“This can’t be right,” I hear Alannah say, although her voice sounds like it’s far away.
“It is,” I reply in a whisper. “It’s right here in front of us.”
I look down at the phone and read the name over and over again, never getting over the feeling of being stunned and betrayed.
The name in the phone is Gloria.
As in Gloria Giaculo.
My mother.
Alannah
What in the holy fuck is happening?
Dominic and I ride in silence towards Belleville, and I have no idea what’s about to take place. I don’t have an idea about anything anymore. All of this has just become too much to even think about, let alone make sense of.