by Nicole Fox
Chapter Twenty-Two
King
It was crazy how the course of my life seemed to have changed in a few short hours.
I had been ready to leave and spend my life on the run.
I’d been ready to hunt down my old crew and get revenge for my betrayal, no matter how long it took to find them.
I was ready to leave behind Rossi, Romano, and the club.
I couldn’t say that I was ready to leave Christy behind, but I’d accepted it.
Christy had had another agenda, of course. I didn’t know if I was even surprised by now, but some part of me was almost expecting her to storm into my room as she’d done. If anyone else had tried to blackmail me, I was sure that I wouldn’t have taken it as well as I did, but, with Christy, I knew that she just cared about me.
So, as we sat there, staring into each other’s eyes, I found myself releasing a long sigh and mentally preparing myself to say yes.
“Okay,” I conceded.
Christy’s reaction was so immediate and excited that she almost knocked me over with the sheer force of her excitement. She jumped at me.
“Thank you, thank you!”
She may have been happy in that moment, but we both knew there was a long way to go before we would even be close to reaching our goal.
Since I knew there would be no shaking Christy, something that I probably had known from the very beginning, if I was being truly honest with myself, I decided to go all in. What was there to lose, anyway? Either option led to me losing in some way, so I might as well risk everything to fix my life and make Christy happy in the process.
It didn’t take long to finalize our plans to break into Diamond Castle. We both knew that we had as little time to waste as possible, so it would have to be tonight. There wasn’t any point in holding off anyway. We knew exactly when the place closed, when nobody was going to be in there, and the best time to catch Rossi unawares.
We also knew that the place wasn’t completely locked down until Rossi, himself, left, and that was a whole half an hour after everyone else had already gone home. Everything fell into place easily after that, since Christy and I both non-verbally agreed that we would wing it once we were inside.
Rossi wasn’t a big guy and definitely not a big fighter. I wasn’t surprised that he’d had to hire people to do his dirty work and fighting for him.
Christy had been adamant that we use force to interrogate him, but I had a feeling that it might not even be necessary. Rossi was a coward. It was as simple as that. I was betting that. as soon as he found himself alone and outnumbered, he would tell us anything we needed to know.
It hadn’t escaped my mind that I could just kill him tonight and go to Romano, who would probably help clear my name. The only problem with that was that I didn’t know if he would want anything in return for helping me with my problem with the law. Also, I wouldn’t be able to track down my old crew. There was no way I was going to let their betrayal go without a fight.
I didn’t completely trust Romano either, and I was reluctant to use him for anything. The fact that he wanted me to kill a man was enough for me to know that I shouldn’t be dealing with him at any time. The best-case scenario would be a situation where I found a way to hand Rossi off to the police, or at least get him out of the way, and clear my name at the same time. Then, no murders would take place. I wouldn’t be on the wrong side of the law, and I would be able to sleep easier at night.
That was too good to be true, though. I doubted that everything would be wrapped up as smoothly, especially knowing the bad luck that had haunted me my entire life. Perhaps the best-case scenario was more along the lines of just getting out alive.
That would be enough for me—ending things without the police on my tail and with Christy by my side.
I hadn’t admitted it to her earlier, but her plan wasn’t an altogether bad one. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t expected her to come up with something, but it shocked me that she’d covered all her bases, planning out how to take care of Rossi, Romano, my old crew, and the cops.
Yes, Christy’s plan might just work, but it had so many variables that I was trying my hardest not to get my hopes up.
Christy had joked earlier that she was too stubborn to let the plan fail, and though it was undeniably true, there were just too many things to control in the situation. I supposed we wouldn’t know for sure how it would turn out for another few hours.
“Are you ready?” Christy called out, interrupting my thoughts.
“Yeah, I am.”
The drive to Diamond Castle wasn’t as tense as I thought it would be. Christy found a way to put a lighter spin on everything, even if I wasn’t in the mood for it. I wondered what life would be like after we were free of all our burdens and had the chance to do what we wanted.
Christy would follow her dream and open up her club, but what would I do? If the cops weren’t after me, then at least my options would expand, though not by much. I’d spent half my life partaking in illegal activities; breaking and entering, theft, and fraud, just to name a few. It would be a wonder if I’d even have much of a life after all this was over.
Would Christy and I even be together, without the looming threat of danger hanging over us? Were we even together at the moment? To be completely honest I had no idea what we were doing. It had started out as just fucking whenever we were together, but, despite us still getting in bed often enough, things had definitely changed between us. We were even friends at times. After all, she was putting herself in all sorts of danger for me, and if that didn’t spell friendship, then I didn’t know what would.
So, we were definitely friends. Friends who had sex? Had I unknowingly entered a relationship with her? Did it even matter? It was true that I hadn’t been looking for anything before, and that I wasn’t looking for anything now. But Christy was different. And, more importantly, I was different when I was with her.
It may not have happened in the traditional way, but I didn’t think I cared. Whatever was going on with Christy and I, and wherever it was going to go, I would be on board.
But, of course, that meant we had to get out of this whole thing unscathed first.
We finally pulled into Diamond Castle, the air feeling like a mixture of anxiety and foreboding tension.
“Is it okay to say that I’m scared?” Christy whispered from beside me.
“Yes. But it’s okay. It’s just Rossi.”
“I know, I know. I just want this to be over.”
I patted her reassuringly on the back as we nodded at each other and made the silent decision to move forward.
We were entering through the back door, not only because it was quieter and less suspicious, but also because, if there were any unexpected people inside, we could get out of there without being seen.
I swung the door open easily, relieved that it was unlocked like we’d thought and that Rossi hadn’t become infinitely more paranoid since Christy and I worked there. He was probably too arrogant to expect any more retaliation, and it angered me to think that, if it weren’t for Christy, he would’ve been right to be unworried.
Our footsteps were silent as we sneaked through the back of the club, keeping a careful eye out. We were only a few steps in, and I could already tell that the place was abandoned. The lights were all out, except for the one in Rossi’s office, and it was eerily silent. We couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.
Coming to his door, we waited for only a second before bursting in, taking Rossi completely by surprise.
“King? Christy?” he asked but didn’t have time to say anything else before I landed a punch straight to his jaw. He stumbled and fell back on his seat, wheeling himself backward and sitting there frozen in fear.
Maybe he knew that he would be no match for me when he was all alone or maybe he doubted that we’d do anything too unthinkable for him but he didn’t even attempt to fight back or move.
“Hi Jarren,” Christy said in a syrupy sweet voice
that I recognized as one that covered an intense amount of anger and hatred. “How are you tonight?”
“What are you doing here?” he shouted, eyes darting between the two of us.
“Don’t worry, Jarrenny. We just have a few questions that we want to ask you.”
Christy turned around to lock the door behind her and leaned up against it.
“We want this to be easy on all of us, okay? Do we need to get out the rope, or will you behave?”
I was beginning to think that Christy was enjoying this much more than she’d let on earlier.
“I’m not telling you anything,” Rossi scoffed, moving to get up off his chair.
I was ready for him, though, throwing another punch, this time to his stomach, and watching as he bent over and released a cry of pain.
“Fine, rope it is.”
Pulling the rope from my pocket, I went to tie him firmly around the chair. He struggled like a madman, of course, but I hadn’t expected him to just sit still. It only took two more punches and a lot of thrashing before he was secured, arms tied behind the back of the chair and feet to the legs, for good measure.
“Now, where should we begin?”
# # #
It took about half an hour of Christy having what seemed to be the time of her life interrogating Rossi, while I beat the shit out of him. It actually took longer than I expected.
Rossi was sitting there, face bruised and bleeding, eyes swollen and unrecognizable, as he shouted the answers we wanted to know.
“I stole your money, you bitch!”
I gave him a punch for the insult, as well as a demand to keep talking.
“Andres thought he could teach me a lesson, attacking me behind the club because I mentioned that I wanted you. That fucking bastard thought that I’d keep my hands to myself, just because he and his men roughed me up a little. I did, but stealing your money was more than worth it.”
“Where is it?” she asked, deadly calm.
Rossi refused to open his mouth, glaring at her with as much hatred as he could manage.
“Where is it?” I repeated with a growl, and his eyes flicked up to mine.
“Behind the filing cabinet,” he muttered at last.
The envelope of cash was exactly where he said it would be, taped to the back of the filing cabinet, not a single note missing.
“And my crew? Where can I find them?”
At this, Rossi let out a cackle, as if he knew more than he was letting on.
“Want to get revenge on them? Be my guest. You’d be doing me a favor too.”
Once he’d given me the address and Christy had her money tucked into her back pocket, we had accomplished everything we’d come for.
“I know you won’t kill me,” he laughed. “You don’t have the balls.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I won’t kill you. But only because I don’t know if we’re done with you yet. I guess we’ll see.”
I turned and walked off, Christy following in my footsteps.
“At least untie me!” Rossi shouted after us.
Christy and I shared a look, and I couldn’t help the way my lips twitched in amusement. We had the information we needed, and we knew what to do next. It was a small victory for now, but a victory nonetheless. We would both take what we could get.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Christy
We’d done it. I wouldn’t lie and say that I wasn’t extremely happy that my plan had worked like I thought it would, because I was. I was ecstatic. I had my money tucked safely into the back pocket of my jeans, and King had information about where his crew was. Even better, we’d left Rossi tied up on a chair in his own office, probably without a chance of getting loose for at least several hours.
Perhaps that made us bad people, but I was coming to find that, in this life, bad was a subjective term. We were doing what it took to survive and to live a life without being weighed down by the wrongful actions of others. We couldn’t possibly hope to right all the wrongs done to us without playing a little dirty.
Yes, I was happy with our efforts, and I knew King was as well, though he was a little more reserved than I was. In fact, he seemed to be getting more aggravated, the further we drove away from the club. I didn’t know if I was imagining it, but, by the look on his face, I was getting more concerned the further we drove.
“King?” I asked finally. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, unconvincingly and unsurprisingly.
Well, that was a load of garbage if there ever was one. If I knew King like I thought I did, then he was probably thinking about what was to come, about finding his crew, and getting even. There might also be a chance he was thinking about what we’d done to Rossi. It would be natural for either one of them to be distracting him, and I didn’t blame him for a second for being slightly preoccupied. I would be too, but I wished I knew what he seemed aggravated about. Was something wrong that I hadn’t thought of or anticipated?
“Is this about finding your crew?” I probed. That was the only explanation for his emotions. If my girls had betrayed me, then I would be feeling exactly the same. It was different for King, though. The way he was affected by his crew’s betrayal made me think that they weren’t so much his friends as they were his family. I could understand why he was upset, if they had betrayed him.
King nodded heavily to my question. “I have to. I have to do it. They betrayed me. My childhood friends, basically my family, just betrayed me like it was nothing. How can I let that go?”
I was right about what he was thinking, but I was still worried. King shouldn’t be dealing with it all on his own.
“Nobody expects you to let it go,” I said. “It’s okay to want vengeance.”
“But I don’t. I want revenge. I want them to pay for framing me, and for almost ruining my life.”
“King, you can’t let your emotions get the better of you. That’s what you’re always trying to tell me, right? I believe that you’ll do the right thing, but just make sure you think things through before we go find them.”
King locked his jaw and kept his eyes on the road.
“You’re not coming with me,” he said firmly. “I have to do this on my own.”
My mouth dropped open, but I found myself unable to say anything. I knew what he was saying, and I knew why he was saying it. I’d blackmailed him into doing my bidding, but I couldn’t keep controlling him.
I wasn’t ignorant enough to think that he’d just let me come along this time. No, this was something I knew he had to do on his own, and I wouldn’t try to get in the way. Not this time.
“Okay,” I agreed.
King released a breath and turned to me gratefully.
“No arguing?” he asked, the slightest trace of humor in his voice.
“No arguing,” I affirmed.
King had to find his own way, and if he didn’t want me around for that, then I wouldn’t be. As much as I wanted to go with him, to be with him, and support him, there were just some things that I would have to let him do on his own. We weren’t attached at the hip. We had our own lives to live and decisions to make. I’d have to accept that I couldn’t be part of every aspect of his life. I just had to trust him, and I would have to trust that he’d come back to me.
# # #
The next night, after King had left, the neighborhood had become silent, all the lights had gone out, and when I was at my most alone, I began doing a little thinking.
When I’d come to King with my plans for getting our lives back to normal, I’d told him that I had planned everything out so well and covered all the bases. In actuality, I hadn’t quite done that yet.
I hadn’t mentioned it to King, but I was still undecided on how I was planning to deal with the Romano situation. He’d given King an ultimatum—kill or be killed—and that was a difficult situation to get out of. I wouldn’t lie and say that it didn’t occur to me while we were interrogating Rossi that it would just be easier for everyon
e if we killed him. I wouldn’t lie and say the thought hadn’t crossed my mind, despite how terrible that might be. It wasn’t my fault that my loyalties lay with King, especially in an ultimatum like the one Romano had proposed.
An ultimatum like that wasn’t one to just be ignored. An ultimatum like that wasn’t one to just go away either. If we knew anything about Romano, it was the fact that we couldn’t underestimate him.
He’d carry out his promise, and that was a fact. We couldn’t just put it off and hope that maybe he’d forget about it, or change his mind. No. Andres Romano was a serious man, and if he gave the order for King to be killed, then I had no doubt it would happen.