BOSS_Hard Deal

by Jolie Day

  Anthony Dunham, his mind supplied. He’d grown up with the youngest of the Bianchi brothers, CJ, who wasn’t too bright, but tried to be as threatening as possible. His family was poor, but his father had good values growing up. The other man was named Frankie…something. There’d been less about him, but Bruce had reason to believe that he was a foster child, taken in by Carmine to be a mule for their money laundering business. He wasn’t as large as Anthony, but there was something dangerous in those icy blue eyes. Something murderous.

  Bruce tried to ignore him as he turned to Carmine.

  “We’re here for a pickup, Mr. Bianchi,” he said. “Of small proportions.” He and his colleagues pulled out the small envelopes with the money symbols on them. They were blue, rather than green, signifying that they belonged to the Bianchi family brand. This was how Bruce had first caught on to what Carmine was doing.

  “Very well,” Carmine said. “Where are these going now?”

  “Michael Tortello,” Bruce said.

  “Mikey?” Carmine Junior said. “But I dropped off his money this morning. Personally.”

  “You sure about that?” Bruce asked. “Because he just sent me over from his house, telling me to get his payment from Carmine. Maybe you were mistaken.”

  “I ain’t mistaken, man. I’m doing his daughter, Leila. She and I had a little bit of fun just after I dropped off the money. I know what I’m about.” He turned to his father. “I swear I dropped it off, Papa.”

  “I’m sure that you think so, CJ,” Carmine said, standing up, “but I know how scatter-brained you get when it comes to that floozy.”

  “Leila ain’t a floozy, Pop, she—”

  “They’ve got guns!” Somebody shouted and before Bruce knew what was happening, he and Mack were on the ground. He could hear the boom of guns in his ears, and shouts that sounded as if they were coming from miles away.

  Then he felt the pain in his back and nothing else…

  *****

  Present day…

  “I’m sure of it now,” Bruce continued, ignoring his daughter’s gaping mouth. “Anthony Dunham is the one that revealed us to his boss. It’s his fault I’m like this, Brooke. You cannot continue to see him.”

  Brooke didn’t even try to argue with her father’s logic. She agreed, wholeheartedly. Standing up, she walked around the desk and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I’m so sorry, Pop,” she sniffled, before turning and walking out the door. Bruce watched her with tears in his own eyes as that day flashed across his mind, over and over again.

  Like torture.

  *****

  Anthony looked shell-shocked when Brooke told him that they could no longer see each other, his brow furrowed and his mouth gaping open as he stared at her.

  “What changed?” he asked.

  “You shot my father,” she retorted, her voice filled with anger and vitriol. “You paralyzed him. How could I possibly continue to see you after knowing that?” She shook her head and pulled out her name tag from the casino. “How could I possibly work for you, either?” She placed it down on his coffee table and made a move for the door.

  “Brooke, wait!” Anthony called, reaching out and taking grip of her wrist. “I can explain, if you’ll just hear me out.”

  “No.” Brooke ripped her wrist out of his grasp and backed away from him. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say, Anthony. Let’s just….end it before it gets any more serious.” She took a deep breath. “Tell Tessa I said goodbye and have a nice life.”

  She made her way to the elevator again, half-expecting Anthony to try to stop her again, but he didn’t, this time. He just let her go and she slumped back against the wall as the doors closed between them, allowing the tears to fall down her cheeks.

  In the lobby, the man at the front desk, Lou, greeted her with a smile and a wave, obviously not noting the red eyes and running mascara. She forced a smile and waved back as she made her way across the lobby and out onto the street. She had walked to Anthony’s, but as it was just starting to rain, she considered flagging down a cab and realized that she could spare the expense.

  Stepping out into the street, she raised her arm and called out, “Taxi!” spotting several nearby.

  Instead of a taxi pulling over, however, one of the black town cars with the tinted windows pulled over. Brooke was about to lean down and tell the driver that she didn’t have nearly enough for his services, when the back door suddenly opened and she was tugged inside. Brooke screamed for help, but her mouth was soon stuffed with a piece of cloth and a bag was draped over her head, making it hard to breath. Before she even knew what was happening, everything went black.

  Nobody on the Manhattan street had even seen what happened.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Brooke had never been a particularly big fan of the dark.

  As a young child, if her nightlight went out, she would wake almost immediately and begin to hyperventilate. She would call for her parents and pull the covers up to her chest until her father or mother came to comfort her. Sometimes, they even brought her back to their own bed, finding their young daughter inconsolable.

  This wasn’t one of those times.

  This time, the darkness wasn’t brought on by a blown out nightlight, but by a black sack tossed over her head. She couldn’t see anything, but she also couldn’t remove it with the way her hands were tied behind her back. The men holding onto her arms on either side of her kept her moving forward and Brooke’s fear was immense as she began to hyperventilate right then and there.

  “Please!” she begged. “I don’t know anything!” She turned to her left, hoping that the man might be persuaded by just the desperate tone of her voice. “I’m just a dealer. And I’m not even really that good!” He just tightened his grip, so she turned to the other. “This is all a huge misunderstanding!” she exclaimed. “I’ve never even met anybody in the mob! I don’t care about anything having to do with it, either. Just please let me go! I won’t say anything about this.”

  “Shut up and keep walking,” the man on her left growled in her ear, shoving her shoulder. Brooke grunted and felt her eyes start to fill with tears.

  “Please,” she said. “Just let me go.”

  “Not a chance.” The man on her right said. “The boss would like to speak with you.”

  “The boss?” Brooke asked, feeling her heart pound with fear. “What boss? Where are we? I can’t see anything!”

  “That’s the point, bitch,” Left barked. “Now keep walking or I’m hefting you over my shoulder and carrying you! And I ain’t gonna be gentle about it, either.”

  Brooke pressed her lips together and stumbled forward, leaning on the men on either side of her for support. She took deep breaths, but became dizzy quickly.

  “Can you at least remove the bag?” she asked. “It’s hard to breathe with this on; I feel a little faint.”

  There was a long moment of silence and then she felt Right’s hand release her, only to be replaced by a different hand. She could feel a muscular chest at her back and imagined a faceless Left holding her still so that she wouldn’t try to foolishly make a break for it. Not that the thought hadn’t crossed her mind, but her father had always told her that, in cases of abduction, it was always better to do whatever your captors said, so as to lessen the risk of injury to your person. Unless you were in mortal danger, then her father had instructed her to do whatever she could to get away from her attackers and collect whatever physical evidence she could.

  Sadly, this was not exactly an opportune moment to make her escape. Brooke doubted that she could escape from one of these meathead goons, let alone two. So she stayed perfectly still as Left held onto her and Right lifted the hood from her head, breathing in a dramatically deep gulp of air the second she was free from the claustrophobia-inducing bag.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, keeping her eyes on the ground, so as not to anger Left anymore. Right, at least, seemed the more docile of the two. But just by a sma
ll margin.

  She made to start walking again, but was stopped by Left’s hands still wrapped tightly around her arms, holding her still. She turned to look up at the men in question and saw only a glimpse of green eyes and red hair before some kind of fabric was tied around her eyes, blindfolding her. It felt like silk; maybe a tie?

  Brooke didn’t know, but she was glad that, at least, it wasn’t the sack that had threatened to suffocate her.

  They continued walking and this time Brooke was silent as she was led down a long hallway. There was concrete under her feet and the walls must have been tile or metal, because she could hear the echoes of their steps reverberating around them. She knew vaguely what Right looked like, but she also wondered if she would learn what Left looked like, as well. She could already feel, from the size of his hand on her left arm, that he was rather bulky. Right had been smaller than she imagined, but he could have just had small hands.

  Brooke chuckled slightly at that, then coughed in an attempt to hide her mirth. Left tightened his grip, but then it loosened as they seemed to stop. Brooke was pulled to the right and noticed that Right had a more gentle grasp than his friend as he held onto her.

  She could hear the metallic, rusty sound of a key entering a lock and turning, then a door opened in front of her and she felt a slight draft. She wondered if they were going outside. But why would they go inside in the first place if they were just going to take her back out?

  Was this where she was to be executed?

  The very thought filled Brooke with panic and she suddenly began to struggle against the grip of her two captor, trying to twist and turn her way out of their grasp, but to no avail. Left lifted her like a ragdoll and she felt herself be turned until her midsection hit a broad, muscular shoulder and her hair hung around her face.

  “I told you I would do it,” she heard him say. “You’ve got nobody but yourself to blame for this, girly.” Brooke huffed in response and continued to struggle. He just held on more tightly and continued to walk.

  To her shock and delight, the blindfold that was tied around Brooke’s head began to slip with the force of his steps and her rising and falling body. Finally, Brooke could see out of one side, her only obscuration the fringe of strawberry-blonde hair in her face. But it was enough that she could see that they were not outside, as she’d once thought, but rather, they were in a large, spacey room. There were crates piled all around them and a flight of stairs led up to another level with a balcony overlooking the rest of the room.

  They were in a warehouse.

  As they walked further into the room, Brooke began to notice that they weren’t alone. With every step that Left took, she could see a new figure, dressed in blue or black, with gelled hair and a very visible gun on his hip. They spoke to each other so conversationally that it was as if they didn’t even notice their colleague carrying a tied up woman over his shoulder.

  Amazing.

  When Left placed her down, she finally saw his face. It looked as if it had been carved from stone—and not in a good way. His jaw was sharp and his face was asymmetrical. His eyes were a muddy brown that held little emotion (other than the obvious anger and annoyance) and a long scar ran horizontally over his crooked nose, making it look as if his face had been split in half at some point. And, as Brooke had predicted, he was bulky, his thick fingers almost the width of her wrists. Brooke tried not to cower away from him, keeping up the pretense that she didn’t have her vision.

  Right patted him on the shoulder and stepped forward, removing the blindfold from her face. As he pulled it away, Brooke saw that it was actually a silk tie. He replaced it around his own neck and tightened it under his collar with a lopsided grin. Right wasn’t ugly, but he wasn’t exactly what she would call handsome either. He was muscular, but his body type looked like he’d been a lanky kid. His arms were a little too long for his body and his neck was skinnier than it probably should have been. His suit looked like it had been brought in more than once.

  Luckily, neither man was paying attention to Brooke as she took in every detail of their faces and bodies, cataloguing them to describe to cops later—if she got out of there alive—and instead their eyes were focused over her head, their faces turning serious.

  “We got the girl, boss,” Left said.

  “No shit, Sherlock,” a deep voice said from behind her. “Ain’t like she’s sitting five feet away from my very eyes.” He sighed. “You’re dismissed.”

  The two men nodded and turned, walking in different directions to stand with their own small groups of thugs. Suddenly, Brooke could feel a million eyes on her as she squirmed and tried to ignore them, blowing the hair from her face.

  “So,” the voice said, startling her slightly as his steps brought him to stand in front of her, “we meet again, my dear.” Brooke’s eyes widened at the sight of Carmine Bianchi and suddenly ice crawled up her spine as she realized that she might not be making it out of there alive, after all.

  She swallowed thickly and shook her head. “What do you want with me?” she asked. “I…I’m just a poker dealer. I’m nobody important.”

  Carmine laughed out loud at that. “That’s funny,” he said, “because I ain’t never met any of Tony’s women…until I met you. He don’t usually like to bring them around where I could see them, you know? So, either he got too comfortable…or you actually mean something to him.”

  “I assure you,” Brooke pleaded. “I don’t. In fact, I just broke up with him, so he probably doesn’t even care to come and get me.”

  “Oh, he’ll come for you,” Carmine said, reaching for his waistband. “Whether you believe it or not, that man has some real feelings for you. It touches my heart, honestly.” He pulled out a gun and Brooke tried to make herself small as he walked toward her. “Get the camera ready,” he ordered.

  Another man stepped up, holding a simple red camcorder in his left hand. He pointed it at Brooke’s face as she attempted to back away from Carmine’s gun, but the older man tugged at her hair, pulling her back.

  “Don’t make me fire a warning shot in your kneecap, Sweetheart,” he hissed. “You wouldn’t want that.” Brooke whimpered, but stayed still as Carmine turned back to the camera. “Start rolling,” he said, clearing his throat. The cameraman gave him a thumbs up and Carmine grinned at the camera, leveling the pistol against Brooke’s temple. “Hello, Antonio,” he said, in a sickly sweet tone. “Happy to see me?” He laughed. “Or maybe you’re excited to see your little sweetheart here.” He pushed the barrel against Brooke’s forehead and she felt the tears begin to drip down her cheeks, gathering at her chin. “Well, maybe not like this, huh? But, you know, Tony, this can all be rectified in a matter of minutes if you just do as we ask. No big deal, ya know?” She could feel the man above her move and she imagined him giving a dramatic shrug. “Just let us do what we need to do and we’ll let your little sweetie go free.”

  She heard the safety go off and more tears dripped down her face.

  “Otherwise…” She could practically feel his finger on the trigger. And then she heard a loud ‘click’ and felt her entire body tense up as her heart jumped up into her throat. “The next one won’t be a blank,” Carmine warned. “You’ve got twenty-four hours.” He nudged her with the gun and Brooke sobbed.

  “Please, Anthony!” she exclaimed, without preamble. “Please, help me.” She looked up at the camera, catching her reflection in the playback. Her eyes were bloodshot and her face was red. “Do what they ask. Please. I’m begging you.”

  Then the red light went off and the gun was removed from her head. Brooke visibly relaxed and she heard Carmine laugh as he put the gun away. “Good job, Sweetheart!” he said. “He’ll have you out of here in no time.” He turned to the man fiddling with the camera. “Deliver that to him ASAP, Moochie. No side trips, neither. You make sure he agrees to the laundering and we get at least a couple million by tomorrow morning or the deal is off. Let him know that.”

  “Got it, boss,”
Moochie said, before closing the camera and making his way out the door that Brooke and the goons had just come in, minutes before.

  “Why do you want him to launder money for you so badly?” she asked Carmine, surprising herself with the sudden, bold question. “Don’t you have other contacts that could do it for you?”

  “‘Course I do, Sweetheart,” Carmine replied. “But none of those contacts have betrayed me quite the way that your man Antonio has.”

  “Betrayed you how?” she asked, furrowing her brow as she looked up at him. “All he did was open a casino.”

  “After he abandoned his family. Nobody abandons the Bianchi family, dear. You can leave for better opportunities, but you always gotta give back to the community that raised you. That’s the rule. Antonio knew that when he signed up for this. He was eager to do that for us after all the hardship he’d been through. He and CJ were the dream team. My boy wasn’t always the sharpest tool in the shed, but Tony brought out the best in him. They were like brothers, growing up, but then Tony turned against all of us. Like he was suddenly above all the jobs he’d done for me in the past.” He huffed. “You don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

  Carmine walked away from her, his hands folded behind his back. “Now that he’s wealthy and donating to charity and shit, he acts like he don’t gotta give back to the people that raised him, that made him what he is right now. The nerve! Nobody does that to Carmine Bianchi. Nobody. So if he needs a little more convincing…well, that’s where you come in, sweetheart. You’re our little bargaining chip.”

  “That’s despicable,” Brooke growled and Carmine snorted.

  “Despicable,” he mocked. “What’s despicable about getting what’s owed to you? Huh? What’s despicable about wanting one of my own to remember where he came from? You know he’s done this kind of work before? Laundering? He used to intimidate other business owners into signing contracts with us, so even if they got caught, we were protected by nondisclosure agreements. He used to make millions for us, if not billions. If he skimmed a little off the top, I looked the other way, because he was my son. My boy.” He shook his head in disgust. “And he just threw it all away.”