Dirty Power

by Ashley Bartlett

  Vito turned off the TV and slowly turned to look at me.

  “You killed Ryan.”

  I spun and walked back to the kitchen. I left my empty beer bottle by the sink and grabbed a fresh one. After a fruitless two-minute search for a bottle opener, I sat cross-legged on the floor, and stared at the beer that I couldn’t open. Vito took the bottle out of my hands, popped the top with an opener that was stuck to the side of the fridge, and handed it back. I drank half. Burped. Hiccupped.

  “She was going to leave me,” I told my beer.

  “Reese?” Vito asked.

  “Yeah. I was going to propose and she decided to leave me. I bought a ring and everything. When I showed Ryan, he told me not to do it. The bastard knew. He knew she was going to leave me. They were going to take off with the money and leave me with nothing. After all I fucking did for them.” I looked up at Vito. “After all I fucking did for them,” I shouted. “Now I got nothing.”

  “Come on.” Vito held out his hand. I took it and let him pull me to my feet. “Do you have a change of clothes? We are going to see someone.”

  “I have a clean T-shirt.” I shrugged.

  “Okay, go change.” Vito tried to take the beer, but I wouldn’t give it up.

  I went upstairs, changed into a less funky shirt, and put my shoes back on. I remembered to grab the jacket. Hopefully, it would cool down enough for me to wear it.

  Vito was waiting downstairs. He was on his phone. I waited until he ended the call. He clapped a hand on my shoulder and led me out to the car.

  I realized as I climbed in the passenger seat that this might be my last car ride. Which was fucking depressing so I ignored that particular thought. Vito was a pretty easy guy to read. When he was pissed, he let you know. And when he was feeling kind, he showed it. He had opened my beer. That was nice Vito. Nice Vito didn’t want to kill me.

  I was placing all my bets on someone opening a beer. Not a great move.

  I didn’t pay much attention to where we were driving until I realized that we were in a familiar neighborhood. Alexis’s neighborhood.

  “What the fuck, man?”

  “Excuse me?” Vito asked.

  “You’re taking me to Alexis. She will kill my ass for sure.”

  “Alex won’t kill you. She may not like you very much, but she isn’t going to kill you.”

  “The bitch is psycho,” I said.

  “Hey, watch your tongue. She could have killed you a hundred times and she didn’t.”

  “Great, that makes me feel all better.” I rolled my eyes. “If I die, it’s your damn fault.”

  “Calm down.” Vito parked in front of Alexis’s house.

  “I’m having trouble staying calm in general. This is not helping.”

  Vito got out of the car and waited for me on the sidewalk. Reluctantly, I got out. For good measure, I pulled on my jacket. It was getting dark. Good enough. By the time we got to the door Alexis was waiting. She looked not happy. We followed her inside. Sal and Bobby were waiting inside. So was the don. Shit. Fuck.

  DiGiovanni, Alexis, and Vito went into another room, leaving me with two angry looking thugs.

  “Hey, guys.”

  Nothing. Sal rubbed his shaved head. Bobby made absolutely no expression. This was going to be fun.

  “You want something to drink?” I turned to go into the kitchen.

  “Sit down,” Sal said.

  “Fine.” I fell onto the couch. As far as they knew, I’d done them a massive favor. They could at least be cool about it.

  We spent an awesome ten minutes in silence. Sal and Bobby were trying to have a staring contest with me. I made just enough eye contact for them to know I was aware of it, then pointedly, disinterestedly, looked away.

  When the don and his lieutenants returned, Sal and Bobby sat up straighter. I did not.

  “Cooper,” the don said.

  “Mr. DiGiovanni.” I figured if we were saying names.

  “I understand that I owe you a debt of gratitude.”

  “Whatever.”

  He stepped closer to me. From behind him, Vito gave me a hard look that made me get off my ass. As I stood, the don held out his hand. I shook it. He smelled like lavender, but with something musky underneath it. And cigarettes. The faintest aroma of smoke clung to him. My grandfather didn’t smell like this at all. He smelled like soap and newsprint and pine trees. I remembered sitting on my grandpa’s lap when I was a kid. He was always so warm. And he would always adjust his newspaper or book or whatever he was reading so he could see the pages and still have room for me.

  Reese and Ryan didn’t talk about their grandfather much. From what I’d heard about him, I didn’t blame them. He was angry and self-obsessed and an all-around arrogant douche bag. And a fucking tool. A tool who smelled like lavender. Very odd.

  The don gestured to Alexis who handed him a small duffle bag. Then he gave me the duffle. It was lightweight and a little bulky. Cash.

  “For taking care of the problem,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “My bastard of a grandson. Thank you for taking care of him.”

  I looked in the bag and estimated. “Killing your grandson is only worth ten grand? So you’re cheap, in addition to being an asshole.”

  He laughed. “You’re right, Vito. She is a spitfire.” Vito laughed too, but I could tell he was nervous.

  “Alexis and the boys will escort you to a safe house. In a few days, we will have arranged for new identification and safe passage to Canada.” He expected me to fall at his feet and thank him. Fat fucking chance.

  “Hell the fuck no.”

  “Excuse me?” People probably didn’t tell him no very often.

  “You leave me alone with Alexis and her boys”—I nodded in their hostile direction—“and I’ll be dead in an hour.”

  Alexis smiled. “I have assured my uncle that I won’t kill you unless he tells me to.”

  “Comforting.”

  “Cooper, this is the safest option for you. On the street it will only be a matter of time until you are arrested.”

  Not exactly true. But he didn’t need to know that a small faction of Chicago’s finest were trailing my ass with the Feds to make a fake arrest if this thing went south. More importantly, I hadn’t gotten enough information. Unless being an evil asshole was a crime. Which totally should have been.

  I guess I was too quiet for too long because Vito said, “Cooper?”

  “What?” I jerked a little when he said my name.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Uhh, yeah. I was trying to think of decent leverage to keep me alive, but I got nothing. So, please don’t kill me?” I realized after I said it that it was exactly what Reese had said. She was smart. Hopefully, she wasn’t prophetic.

  The don leaned back and stared at me. He seemed to be vacillating between amused and disturbed. I’m not sure which emotion won because he blinked, shook his head a little, and stepped back.

  “I recommend South America. You will like it. Or find a small island that does not extradite criminals. Good luck, Cooper.” He shook my hand a final time, then left faster than someone of his age should have been able to.

  “Tell me when the car is ready.” Alexis spun on her heel and left the room.

  Sal nodded in my direction. I followed him.

  *

  The safe house they took me to was in a suburban neighborhood outside the city limits. It looked like a lot of other suburban neighborhoods I’d been in. Sal pulled the town car into a garage. When the big door finished closing, Alexis let me climb off the floor where I’d been hiding.

  Sal led me inside the house. I was given a room on the second floor and told to keep away from the windows. Bobby took the room across the hall. Sal took the one next to mine. Alexis claimed the master bedroom, obviously. But she left soon after we arrived. Bobby went out to get us some dinner.

  We tried to watch TV, but the news kept mentioning me and that was weird. I gave
up and went to bed. Which just gave me time to stare at the ceiling and think. Not a good idea. But it was better than sitting between two dudes who wanted to kill me. I heard Bobby go into his room around eleven. Sal waited until Alexis came back before going to bed as well.

  I tried to sleep, but that’s a hard thing to do when there are people waiting to kill you. It seemed that Alexis had killed a number of people her uncle did not tell her to kill. Why would I be any different?

  That was the lovely thought I fell asleep to.

  *

  The next morning, I fell out of bed and pulled my jeans back on. I remembered at the last second to grab my phone and pocket it. Wouldn’t want to forget my wire.

  Bobby had retrieved my backpack from Vito’s. But I hadn’t packed much so I only had one more clean T-shirt. I wasn’t going to waste it when this one only had half a day and a night on it. I wasn’t too concerned with appearances.

  There was coffee brewed downstairs. After opening every cabinet in the kitchen, I found the mugs. Fortified against everything except bullets, I went to find my keepers. Or guards. Or saviors. I wasn’t sure yet.

  Bobby and Sal were playing Xbox. Cards were so passé. They barely acknowledged me, which I was fine with.

  “Am I allowed to go out in the backyard?”

  Bobby grunted.

  “Keep the door open so we can hear you. And don’t let the neighbors see you. So no looking over the fence or anything,” Sal said.

  I saluted them with my coffee and went out back.

  It was nice out. Warm, not hot. Kind of sticky, but I didn’t mind it. I’d grown up in dry, hot heat. Sacramento was like that. So humidity was a novelty to me instead of straight up annoying.

  I wondered where Alexis was. Only briefly. Then I realized that if she wasn’t giving me shit or beating the crap out of me, I was happy. Of course, the more she gave me shit, the easier it would be to piss her off and make her slip. If I could just get her to say something stupid, then I could get the fuck out of here. Go home, wherever that was. I’d never have to see these assholes again. Except maybe in court. That would be ideal. Actually, it would be ideal if they all just killed each other.

  The only good thing this family had ever done was make Reese and Ryan. I’d thought once that the twins were my salvation. Maybe they were. In a weird, codependent sort of way. But like a healthy codependence. It was a little sad that the don never realized that the twins could save him too. Carry on a legacy that wasn’t built on hatred and fear.

  That was his legacy. Alexis, in her depravity, was exactly the legacy he had created. Maybe that would be his undoing. If you build your life, your world on tradition, at some point all you’re left with is a dying regime. Alexis had changed the game, expanded it, but her foundation was crumbling. It didn’t matter how much she updated it. Something, somewhere was going to break.

  I realized then, in that sunny moment on the porch of a mob safe house, that I had to win. Not just for my safety or that of the people I loved, but because the DiGiovannis needed to be taken down. Maybe some new crime family would take their place. I couldn’t control that. But this was something I could control. Maybe they would kill me. Maybe I’d be a footnote in Ogilvy’s case file. But I would do everything I could to change the outcome of this contest. Simply because it was the right thing to do.

  Ryan would probably knock up some girl. Maybe one day I would knock up Reese. And maybe my actions would make this world a safer place for them to grown up in. All I had to do was survive the next week.

  Chapter Nineteen

  A door inside slammed. I knew somehow that it was Alexis. She stopped and spoke with Sal and Bobby. I could hear their voices, but I couldn’t really hear what they were saying. I didn’t give a fuck either. I just drank my coffee and enjoyed the sunshine.

  I wondered where Reese and Ryan were. Probably in that same hotel room driving each other and all the Feds crazy. Thinking about them must have made me reach for my necklace because, when Alexis stormed outside, she found me dragging the charm back and forth across the chain. She stared at the necklace and looked like she might hurl. For a devious bitch, she was surprisingly bad at hiding certain reactions.

  “I thought you should know that you’ll be out of here in two days,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  “Shouldn’t you be happy?”

  I shrugged. “I find very little to be happy about.”

  Alexis rolled her eyes. “He was a useless little shit. Let it go.” My hands started to shake. I tried to hide the tremble, but she saw it. “Oh God. Why did you even like him? He was a pansy ass stoner. He didn’t have a single redeeming quality.”

  “Fuck you.” I stood to go inside.

  “What’s the matter, Cooper? Don’t like hearing about how pathetic your little friends were?” She was trying to piss me off. Hell, if she wanted to pick a fight I was cool with that.

  I spun back to face her. “They weren’t just my friends. They were my family. They were my whole fucking world.”

  Alexis laughed. “What a sad little world. Trust me. You did us all a favor. The only thing you could have done better was kill Reese too.”

  I was suddenly furious. “Shut the fuck up. I don’t want to hear any more of your shit.”

  “Maybe I should just do you a favor and kill Reese myself.”

  I bitch-slapped her. Hard. I’d like to say I wasn’t proud of slapping Alexis. Violence wouldn’t solve my problems. But it was one of the most satisfying things I’d ever done.

  In an instant, Sal had me locked in an iron grip. I didn’t know where he had come from, or how he had gotten there so fast. I decided not to fight his hold. Wouldn’t get me anywhere.

  Alexis stared at me with something icy and terrifying in her gaze. Every inch of me was suddenly very, very cold. She slid close to me. I started to squirm in Sal’s grip. I didn’t know what was coming, but I knew it was bad. Alexis twined her fingers into my hair and yanked until my ear was pressed to her lips.

  I expected to her whisper. She didn’t. She didn’t yell either. I think she just wanted to touch me as she delivered her threat. As if forced intimacy would make it more threatening. It did. “You pull that shit again and I will kill your precious Reese.” With every sentence, she tugged on my hair. “I’ll get off on it.” I tilted my head to take off the pressure. “I’ll track her down and watch her die.” She pulled hard enough to bring tears to my eyes. “Just like I did to her mother.”

  I was suddenly filled with a sort of pure happiness. Followed by utter panic. Alexis had just told me she was a murder. Would that be enough to put her away? Was she making shit up just to get to me? Would I live to testify?

  I didn’t know.

  Almost as an afterthought, I realized that Alexis had killed Carissa. That the warm, vibrant woman who had taught me to swim, and played endless games of hide-and-seek, and given me hugs when I fell was deliberately taken by the fucker standing in front of me.

  All of my quips and clever threats escaped me. I felt such emptiness that I couldn’t breathe. I went completely slack. Sal let go of me and I crumpled to the ground. They left me like that.

  *

  Bobby got takeout for lunch. I couldn’t eat. I didn’t try. I just sat outside, wishing I could run away. When I had enough, would the Feds pull me? Why hadn’t they done so already? Maybe Alexis’s confession hadn’t been enough. Maybe there wasn’t evidence to back it up. Maybe someone else had killed Carissa. Maybe no one was even monitoring my wire.

  That night I couldn’t sleep either. But when I finally crashed, I crashed hard. Blissful, dark sleep. That was probably why I didn’t notice Alexis coming into my room. It wasn’t until the next morning that I realized that something was off. Literally.

  I rolled over, sat up. And something was missing. A slight weight on my chest. Its comfort had followed me from Vegas to Spain. My hand went to my throat, as if the act of reaching for it might bring it back. It didn’t. The necklace w
as gone. I didn’t know how she had managed to get it off me while I was sleeping, but I knew Alexis had taken it. Why would Sal or Bobby have any use for it, any need? But Alexis required a trophy of some sort. A tie to her family. A severing of my own tie to her family.

  But that St. Christopher was mine. And I was getting it back. I was so pissed about what she took, I didn’t even think about what else she might have done.

  I ran downstairs. “Alexis!” No response. “Alexis, where the fuck are you?”

  “She went out.” Sal met me at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Get her back here. Now.”

  “She’ll be back,” he said.

  “Now, God damn it.”

  “Sorry.” He walked away.

  I realized I didn’t have my phone. Or pants. So I booked it back to my room. I punched in Vito’s number with one hand and pulled on my jeans with the other.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me.”

  “Why are you calling me?” he asked. At least he recognized my voice.

  “Alexis took my St. Christopher. I want it back. Fucking now.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “You really want me to speculate on that?” I asked.

  “No. I’ll make some calls. Stay there.” And he hung up.

  He sounded pissed. It was probably stupid to call him. But he was my best chance. And I was getting that necklace back.

  Alexis was a stupid motherfucker.

  *

  It was late when Vito finally showed up. Well past dark. He was alone.

  “Come with me,” was all he said.

  I didn’t hesitate. Just grabbed my jacket and followed him. Probably shouldn’t have. If a mobster orders you to do something, do the opposite. Also, run.