Muscle

by Michelle StJames

  “Am I to understand that you’re interested in a partnership?” Sanchez said.

  “Not at all. I’m just trying to get the lay of the land. Stay under the radar until I can get the girls to safety.”

  His lips turned up into a chilling smile. “How chivalrous.”

  Luca tried to shrug within the bounds of his restraints. “We don’t often get the chance to do the right thing. I take it when I can.”

  “Maybe I should kill you,” Sanchez said. “Make sure the Italians aren’t trying to take over our business.”

  Luca laughed, but it came out sounding harsh and guttural though his split lip. “The Syndicate has fallen. Our business is in shambles.”

  “I did hear something about that.” He shook his head sadly. “And that some of the men turned traitor to their own.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that.” A knot began to form in Luca’s stomach. How much did Sanchez know about what went down between Nico and Raneiro? And did he connect Luca to any of it?

  “Is that right?” Sanchez held his gaze.

  “That’s right.” He sighed. “Listen, I don’t know what else you want me to say. Fuentes can rot in hell for all I care. I’m not interested in being part of your war. Just tell me when would be a good time to get the girls out, and we’ll be on our way.”

  He seemed to consider Luca’s words, his men silent, still standing off to the side, pretending like they weren’t listening when Luca knew they were probably absorbing every word.

  “Why should I do such a thing?” Sanchez finally asked. “If you are lying, I could be letting a spy back into the waters of our business.”

  “And if I’m not, you’ll be responsible for the continued abuse of two innocent girls, not to mention getting on the bad side of some men who would hold their own with your flunkies here. And while I’m sure you’d be willing to take the chance if things were stable, have a good old fashioned war, my hunch is that things aren’t stable right now. A war with my people would make things exponentially more complicated for you.”

  He didn’t know if it was true. The people who had been his brothers in the Syndicate had scattered to the wind — all except Mario and Elia, and maybe Farrell in a pinch. But letting someone like Sanchez know he was alone was almost as dangerous as allowing him to think Luca was going after his territory.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Sanchez said. “You tell me when and where my drugs are coming in, and I’ll let you go.”

  “Where your…” Luca shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Sanchez looked at the big man on his right and nodded. The man came forward and punched Luca’s already throbbing face.

  “Fuck!” Luca said, spitting blood onto the concrete floor of the warehouse. “Beating me senseless isn’t going to give me information I don’t have.”

  “If you don’t have it, you are of no use to me.” Sanchez turned away. “Kill him.”

  “I said I don’t have it,” Luca said. “Not that I couldn’t get it.”

  Sanchez turned around, walked back toward him. “And can you?”

  “I think so,” Luca said. “If you tell me what’s going on.”

  “If you worked for Fuentes, you should know.”

  “Well, I don’t,” Luca said. “Why don’t you fill me in so I can help us both.”

  “Diego Fuentes has been selling in my territory.” Sanchez said it slowly, like he was talking to a child. “I have let it go until now because it is my understanding he is not entirely… stable, and so far, the damage to my business has been small. But now he has tapped my supplier in Columbia in direct violation of our agreement. When my supplier sells all his drugs to my competitors, it creates a supply problem for me. Do you understand?”

  “Diego’s got a big shipment coming in from your supplier?”

  “That’s right,” Sanchez said. “And I’d like to know when and where, both so I can reclaim what is mine and so that I can deal with Fuentes in a convincing manner.”

  Luca thought about the spreadsheets he’d taken off Diego’s computer when they’d stolen the video of Isabel. “I think I might be able to get that information,” he said. “In exchange for a heads up so I can get the sisters out before the shit hits the fan.”

  He tried not to think about what would happen if Sanchez found out Diego was MIA and Luca hadn’t said anything about it. He was playing fast and loose. He knew it could get him in trouble later, but right now he was just trying to stay alive long enough to save Sofia and get her and Isabel as far from Miami as possible.

  He was still debating whether the strategy was a good one when Sanchez turned on his heel and started from the big room. “Cut him loose,” he said to no one in particular. When he got to the door, he turned around. “I had better hear from you soon, mi amigo.”

  48

  “Stop moving, my love.” Isabel held the ice pack against Luca’s split, swollen brow.

  He stilled, then touched her hand like he wanted to reassure himself that she was real.

  “And those fuckers just took you?” Elia asked, pacing the living room. “Right off the street?”

  Luca nodded, then winced when the motion caused the ice pack to bump against his wound.

  Isabel had been worried when Luca didn’t appear by two in the morning. He’d gone out to do what he called an “investigation” into Diego’s whereabouts, but she knew that was just a nice word for the kind of digging that could get him killed. She had been torn between begging him not to go — what would she do if something happened to him? — and her desperation to find Sofia. In the end, she’d let him go. Luca was a grown man who could more than take care of himself. Sofia was a little girl in the hands of their coked-up brother.

  “Isn’t that against some kind of honor code?” Marco asked.

  He’d been silent throughout Luca’s explanation, leaning against the wall with hooded eyes. She’d come to recognize it as something he did when he was considering all the information. He was more careful than Elia — who swore and shouted first and asked questions later.

  Luca reached up and gently removed Isabel’s hand from his forehead. He looked up at her. “Thanks, sweetheart. I’m good.”

  She sat next to him reluctantly, feeling helpless, and worse than that, useless.

  Luca looked at Elia. “What honor code? This isn’t the Syndicate. And even if it was, you saw how well that worked out. As far as Sanchez is concerned, we’re free agents.”

  “As far as Sanchez is concerned, we work for Fuentes,” Marco said.

  Luca shook his head. “It’s the same thing. We’re low level. We don’t mean anything in this world. It’s not like in the Syndicate where once you’re Made you’re untouchable.”

  “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore,” Elia said.

  Isabel laughed a little. Was that really Elia quoting The Wizard of Oz? Sometimes she felt like she was trapped in a different story. Like she’d fallen down the rabbit hole into a world she hadn’t known existed just a few months ago. Of course, she always knew Diego — like their father before him — was in the drug trade. But it had always been an abstract kind of knowledge.

  She was ashamed of that now. Ashamed that she’d been able to lose herself in the paintings she could no long bear to touch. That she could lay on the palazzo and swim in the pool, all without knowing the extent of the business that paid for it all. The moral implications were something. Strangely, she’d never questioned the morality of the business. It had been there for as long as she could remember. It was too big a question to contemplate now. And what did it matter? Diego was gone. All she wanted was to get Sofia and run as far away from Diego and Miami as she could.

  No, the questions that really plagued her were about her own complacency. She knew more about the business than Diego realized, but not nearly enough to help them find Sofia or find a chink in Diego’s armor. She’d signed release form after release form granting Diego access to their inheritance — all
without asking a single thing about where the money was going. It had been enough to keep Diego satisfied, to hold at bay his violent temper for one more minute or one more hour or one more day.

  “So what now?” Marco asked.

  Luca gingerly touched the wound on his forehead. “Now we work double time to find information on that shipment. Because I have a feeling Sanchez knows something is up, and once he realizes Diego’s in hiding, we’re in deep shit.”

  “So we look at the information you copied from Diego’s computer,” Isabel asked.

  “I already checked it,” Luca said, “although I didn’t tell Sanchez that.”

  “That was before Lorenzo kidnapped you. Before he mentioned the shipment,” Isabel said.

  Luca rubbed his jaw. “You have a point. Before we were looking for possible safe houses, places Diego might have taken Sofia. But if we look for international points of entry, find out when and where the shipment is coming in…”

  “We can be there when it does, take that fucker Diego, and force him to tell us where the kid is,” Elia said.

  “And then tell Sanchez where his drugs are to keep him off our backs,” Marco added.

  They sat in silence for a minute before Luca spoke again. “It's worth a try. I’ll go over it all again.” He looked at Isabel, took her hand. “One way or another, we’re going to find her. And I’m going to make Diego pay.”

  49

  Luca was in the living room combing the spread sheets he’d taken from Diego’s computer when his Inbox dinged. Surprised — he hardly ever got email since he’d stopped working for the Syndicate — he tabbed over to his email and opened the new message. At first he didn’t know who it was from. The return address was too cryptic to identify the user. But everything stilled inside him when he saw the text inside the message.

  You shouldn’t have been stupid. Both my sisters would have stayed alive without you.

  He clicked on the video with his heart in his throat, then watched as Sofia’s face appeared on the screen. She was sitting on a tattered sofa, her hands making sweeping gestures across something in her lap that looked like a coloring book. At her side was a teddy bear Luca didn’t recognize. Definitely not the prized rabbit she slept with at home. She appeared to be alone until Luca heard Diego’s voice in the background.

  “You didn’t do the dishes, little puta.”

  Luca balled his fists at his sides, resisting the urge to punch the computer screen. Calling your eight-year-old sister a whore. Nice.

  But he needed clues. Clues about Sofia’s whereabouts and Diego’s intentions.

  Sofia stopped coloring. “I’m sorry, Diego. I can do them now.”

  “I didn’t tell you to do them now, did I? I told you to do them after dinner. Do you think I want the men to see a dirty kitchen?” He continued without waiting for her reply. “It’s your job to keep the kitchen clean. That’s what putas do — among other things.”

  Luca’s stomach turned over as he heard laughter in the background. The bastard was calling his little sister a whore, making references to sexual activity, in front of his men. And who was with him besides Eduardo? He’d used the word “men”, which implied more than one. Did he have more loyalists who’d stayed with him even in the midst of the impending war with Sanchez? If so, Luca almost felt sorry for them. Having looked into the cold and calculated eyes of Lorenzo Sanchez, Luca had no doubt that he would come out on top in the turf war. Diego’s violent temper and willingness to do anything would only take him so far. At the end of the day, even a criminal organization was a business, and it would fail without a strong and stable leader at its helm, something else he’d learned from his time with the Vitale family.

  Sofia set aside the coloring book and picked up the teddy bear, then started to slide off the couch. “I’ll do it now.”

  Even through the computer, Luca heard the strength in her voice. She was scared, but like Isabel, Sofia exhibited control beyond her years. It almost hurt him as much as the things Diego had said to her. Kids shouldn’t have to be strong. Shouldn’t have to measure and weigh their words for fear the wrong ones would have dangerous consequences.

  Luca knew that better than anyone.

  A hand appeared at the bottom right of the frame. “I’ll have to take this until you learn to do as your told.”

  The hand snatched the bear from her grip. Sofia started to cry. “I’ll do the dishes now, Diego. Just please give me Teddy. He’s my friend.”

  “Just please give me Teddy,” Diego mocked in a high pitched voice. “He’s my friend.”

  Laughter erupted in the background — definitely more than one man — as tears welled in Sofia’s eyes.

  “You’ll get Teddy back when your whore of a sister learns her lesson.” Diego’s voice was cold. “Now move your ass to that kitchen, little puta.”

  Sofia edged backwards out of the room, her eyes wary until she disappeared through a narrow door frame.

  There was blurred movement on the camera, and a moment later Diego’s face appeared. From the angle of the camera, Luca assumed he was videotaping himself.

  “Hear that, Isa,” he said into the camera. “I’m in control now. You should think about that.”

  The screen went dark, and Luca sat back in his chair, exhaling all the air from his body in one breath. He was about to close the computer in disgust when he heard the whimper behind him.

  He turned around to see Isabel, her face a mask of shock and fear as she stared at the computer screen. Luca cursed himself. He’d been so wrapped up in the video that he hadn’t heard her come into the room. He should have waited, watched it somewhere more private, given thought to how to break the news to Isabel.

  “Isabel…”

  He stood and reached for her, but by the time his hand got to her she’d fled the room, disappearing into the hall.

  50

  Isabel could hardly see straight through the fury running through her veins. It was an all-consuming roar, like a giant wave rushing overhead while you were caught in the spin cycle underneath, forced to submit to its mighty power, in another world with only the scream of it in your ears.

  She barely registered Luca’s voice as she fled the living room, making for her studio on instinct, seeking the refuge that only her paintings could give her.

  She stepped into the room and shut the door, then paced the floor restlessly, her anger coalescing into something dark and unnamable. It was an animal chewing at the trap around it’s foot, determined to get free, a monster that would devour her if she let it out.

  Diego has Sofia.

  Diego has Sofia.

  Diego has Sofia.

  The words repeated in her mind like a mantra. Except they were nowhere near comforting. He had their little sister, in hiding and cooped up with men who were probably every bit as vile as Diego himself.

  Maybe worse.

  The thought made her want to claw her way out of her skin, and she scratched absently at her arms while she paced in front of the canvases lining the wall, the big piece full of blues and greens and all her hope for the future still sitting on its easel where she’d left it before Sofia went missing.

  Usually she could lose herself in the colors and movement of art. It’s why she’d run instinctively to this room. It was the one place she could shut out everything else. All the disgusting, hateful things that were earmarks of her life with Diego disappeared behind the beauty and release of art.

  But she didn’t see it now. Didn’t feel it. There was just the slow boil of the blood in her veins, a kind of poisonous broth to the terror that was expanding inside her, the frantic desire to run through the house, comb the streets yelling Sofia’s name in the vain hope that she would be able to find her and bring her home.

  She narrowed her eyes, looked at the paintings scattered around the room. What was the point? What good had they ever done her? All they’d done was allow her to pretend she wasn’t living a lie. To pretend she and Sofia were safe, when they h
ad never been anything close to it. They’d contributed to the apathy that had allowed them to stay under Diego’s thumb for so long. Had given Isabel the unearned luxury of keeping her head in the clouds, painting in the quiet room like all was well when she should have been using every resource, every trick, to free them from Diego. If she’d done that, Sofia would be safe right now. They would be living in peace somewhere far, far away from his clutches.

  Instead Sofia was alone and scared. In the company of people who might hurt her. Under the control of Diego, who Isabel knew firsthand wouldn’t hesitate to use Sofia to his own end, regardless of the consequences to her.

  And it was Isabel’s fault.

  She scanned the room, her eyes landing on the palette knife she used to mix and spread paints. She stalked toward it, picked it up, continued pacing in front of the canvases against the wall, eyeing them like adversaries while the rage blossomed inside her, lush and unstoppable.

  It didn’t even hurt when she picked up the first painting, plunged the knife into the canvas. The palette knife wasn’t very sharp. She had to put some force behind it. Force that felt good, that gave release to the fury coagulating in her body, her bones, her blood.

  She tugged at the knife, and the canvas gave way with a ripping sound that satisfied a dark need inside her. She plunged it into the painting again and again, ripping the canvas to shreds, decimating the once lovely arcs of color she’d painstakingly applied over a period of weeks and weeks.

  When there was nothing left but fragments of canvas, still attached to the stretcher in strips, she threw it aside and reached for another one, working the knife until it, too, was unrecognizable. She lost herself to the rhythm — the initial plunge, the slow drag through thick canvas, the removal of the knife while she sought another spot to decimate. She worked methodically, tossing each of them aside when she was done, letting them collect against the wall like carcasses picked almost clean.