by Cat Porter
His eyes narrowed, his jaw tensing, the long lines of his facial scars deepening. Scars that Med had put there. He averted his gaze for a moment. He knew I’d done it for her. Had he found her? Were they finally together again? I hoped so, for both their sakes, but fuck it, it wasn’t my business. I was here for one reason only.
Mishap took out a pack of Marlboros, the click of his lighter the only sound between us. Finger’s dark gaze found mine again. “You gonna take over Chicago now? Be the fucking king?”
“King?” I let out a laugh. “I have something else in the works. And whoever survives is going to hate it.”
Finger’s lips tipped up at the edges. “You starting a war, DeMarco?”
“I’m ending the goddamn war.”
Chicago
51
Turo
I made it back to Chicago with Mishap on his bike, and I’d had my suitcase FedEx’d to my mother’s office. Being a former Special Forces soldier, Mishap knew how to tape me up properly for the trip, and I swallowed the last of my pain meds. Riding on the back of his bike from Colorado had certainly not been the most comfortable, but that was meaningless. I got to Chicago undetected, and that was key.
“I don’t have no guest room. Couch okay for you?” Mishap bolted his door behind us, his heavy boots tracking through the stuffy basement room that was his apartment.
“That’s fine,” I said.
The acrid odor of pot and tobacco was thick in the airless room. We got on the phone with Finger for updates and further refining of our plan. After, I called Marissa and told her to meet me at Rush.
Mishap and I got on his bike again, helmets on, and he took me to the hospital in the heart of the city. He would shadow me, wait for me until I was done.
I pushed open the door to my mother’s room. She was motionless. Face bruised. Lips pale pink. One arm had burns, a leg fractured. Lung punctured. Lots of blood lost. Lots of blood transfused. Tubes and cables connected to her, bleeping, monitoring.
“Mom.” I slumped forward on the rails of her hospital bed, my head dropping, my shoulders giving way. “Dear God. Mom.” A groan escaped my lips.
This wasn’t my Erin Cavanaugh.
This pale, lifeless, helpless form was not my mother. My heart thudded loudly in my chest. She couldn’t die. She couldn’t. I still had to tell her that I regretted hurting her, that disappointing her had pained me. I wanted—
I took her cool hand in mine and stroked it. Leaning in close to her, I whispered, “Mom? Mom, it’s Turo. I’m here.”
An eyebrow jumped. Yes, she heard me. Recognized me. I knew she would. I knew.
My fingers ran through her hair. “You’re being taken care of, and I’m right here. I’ve spoken with Marissa. We’ve got this. But we need you. You wake up. You’ve got to wake up though. Make that choice.” And when she did wake up, she’d learn the horrible truth that she’d lost her husband.
I planted a kiss on the side of her face, and my vision blurred. I sucked in a breath. “I’ll be right here with you.”
“Turo?”
I jerked back, pivoting. Marissa. Short dark blonde hair, blue eyes gleaming, elegantly cut suit over a slim figure. We shook hands. “Marissa. Good to see you. Unfortunately.”
She let go of my hand. “Yes, it’s a huge shock.” A heavy breath heaved from her, her glance averting to my mother. “Absolutely horrible,” she whispered.
“Yes,” was all I said as she moved to the table in the room and opened her briefcase. She opened a folder and slid it in front of me. “James is gone. You are the only beneficiary in the will other than a number of her favorite charities. You would get the personal and commercial real estate holdings in the city which include their apartment, the parking garages James owned, the house in Michigan, the condo in Aspen—”
“Marissa—”
Her gaze flicked up at me. “You need to be prepared if she does pass.”
Acid seeped through my mouth. I only nodded.
“We’ve worked together before, Turo. You know what it takes to run Erin’s corporation, and you know her style. You’ve been on the inside. Your instincts were always good, and I’m sure with your recent professional experience, they’ve only sharpened.” She paused, the silence crackling, her eyes opaque, an eyebrow arched. “But, again, I don’t trust you.”
“I don’t blame you. One step at a time,” I replied. “Know that I’m committed to making this work for my mother.”
“Good.” She tucked the folder back in her briefcase and snapped it shut. “She was never afraid of him, you know. No matter what he said to her, or did. I’ll bet it pissed him off, made him keep trying to hit her harder, in new ways. You need to know that she always fought for you.”
“Now it’s my turn to fight for her.”
Marissa pushed back from the table. “I’ll see you in the office tomorrow morning?”
“I have something to take care of first. No one can know I’m back in Chicago. Our meeting today is between you and me.” I got up from the table. “I’m trusting you, Marissa.”
“Nobody will know. I promise,” she said.
“Our priority is that the new restaurant be cleaned up and fixed up, I don’t care how much it costs. We’re opening on schedule.”
She shook my hand firmly. “I’ll get right on it.”
52
Turo
The faded jeans bunched and wrinkled at my ankles. The waist gapped. I ripped off the black hoodie, the surfer boy sunglasses and threw them on Mishap’s lumpy couch.
Mishap’s clothes didn’t fit me properly. He was much bulkier and taller than me, but I didn’t give a shit. They were clean, and I was dressed appropriately for my day.
My one burner phone beeped with a text message. Marissa.
Got your suit & shoes—will have them at church
She’d bought me a black suit and shoes as per my specifications from Barneys. I’d change at the church. I couldn’t go to James’s funeral dressed in a hoodie and jeans.
I flicked a thread off the thick cotton black T-shirt. So many funerals in my future.
Mishap had been gone for the past two days, laying down the plan we’d come up with along with Finger while I stayed put at his place except for a quick errand just now. Marissa kept me informed of what was going on at the company, and we’d arranged for James’s funeral for today. Erin’s vitals remained strong and steady. There was hope for her to wake up very soon.
Wake up, Mother. Please wake up.
My other burner phone beeped. Finger.
“Yeah?”
“Grandpa’s all settled in at the nursing home,” his distinctive, deep grumbly voice filled my ear.
Mishap is in place.
“Glad to hear it. I look forward to seeing him,” I replied.
“I know you are. I got him the minestrone soup. My special recipe. I made plenty for everybody.”
The Italian deli was a go ahead, and Finger had designed the explosives himself.
I was getting the Finger VIP treatment. I was going to owe him in a big way, and it would be worth every fucking cent and particle of sweat off my back.
“You think of everything,” I said. “You’re the best.”
“Oh, hey—” he continued our code conversation. “Our baby cousin showed up just like you said. ”
He got me Little Anthony.
“Great.”
“A friend of mine from the old neighborhood is coming too.”
He was taking the opportunity to involve a member of his enemy bike club, the Smoking Guns, Med’s club, the Tantuccis’ gopher boys. Fuck yes. Like me, Finger was an excellent multitasker.
“Glad to hear it. The more the merrier,” I replied.
“So is your girlfriend coming?” he asked.
“She’s picking out an outfit as we speak.”
The prostitute from my stable who I’d hired for Med’s last moments on Earth was on standby, well rehearsed and ready to do as I’d instructed.
“She bringing her special cupcakes, I hope?” Finger asked.
“You bet. Can’t have a party without those cupcakes.”
I’d gone to the bank earlier and accessed into my safety deposit box. I had saved DNA evidence from Med’s corpse, his clothing, that motel room, all in professional police-grade packets. Saved it for a rainy day.
Forecast for today in Chicago: Clouds. Rain. Heavy thunderstorms.
The dense musk of salami assaulted me the moment I stepped through the door of the shop. Such nostalgia. I’d always disliked it, that overabundance of cured meat, damp sawdust on the floor, the sour odor of pickled everything in this pre-war grocery, but I’d grinned and bore it. Only Sal’s prosciutto had ever enticed me, the parmesan, of course, and his rosemary scented focaccia. Not today, though.
I felt his eyes on me the moment I stepped through the doorway.
“Hey kid, what can I get ya?” said Sal. His swollen face scrunched in a frown. “Turo, that you?”
A hush fell over everyone, the chewing even stopped.
Mauro sat at his usual table, his close compadres and capos Oscar, Tony, and Beni sitting with him, smoking and drinking coffee and beers. Mauro’s eyes widened as I came to a stop in front of his table. His jowl got fuller, jaw tenser.
“Good morning, Mr. Guardino,” I said.
He took in a deep breath, scanning me from head to toe. Toe to head. He’d expected never to see me again. He expected me to be dead and gone. “Turo,” his voice was sharp, taut, and a shot of adrenaline went through my veins, spiking my pulse even higher. “You’re back.”
“Yes. I wanted to tell you the good news myself,” I said.
“What’s that?” he said.
“The doctors are very hopeful that my mother will be waking up from her coma.”
Mauro tilted his head slowly, his eyes on me. “Terrible accident.”
“This neighborhood, just isn’t what it used to be,” I said.
He sat up straighter, eyes narrowed. “How was your trip?”
“Eventful,” I replied. “Full of surprises.”
“Oh yeah?”
“It opened my eyes to a great many things.” Planting my hands on the table, I leaned over. A hiss escaped Tony’s mouth as he inhaled on his cigarette angling toward me. Mauro raised his palm, and Tony and the others stiffened.
I stood up, raised both my hands in the air, my unzipped hoodie opening to reveal only a stark black cotton T-shirt fitted to my torso. No gun, no weapon. Mauro flicked a finger, and my eyes held his hard gaze as Tony got up and searched me, his big hands patting down my chest, middle, sides, my back, my legs.
From the beginning, our dealings were always in private, shrouded, between us.
Not now. No more.
“He’s clean.” Tony remained standing.
I said, “I told you to leave my mother alone. I asked you to let it go, for me. But you couldn’t do that, could you? For years now. You had other plans, bigger plans. For her, for me.”
In the corner of my eye, I caught Tony’s hand moving across his middle, slowly oh so slowly. Oscar’s too.
“Your point?” my father said.
My pulse raced at a high pitch, an L train screaming down a black tunnel. I held his drilling gaze and gave him a grin. “You always taught me, like a good father should, that no enemy should ever go unpunished.”
Pop.
One burning hole in the middle of Mauro’s forehead. The pinpoint accuracy of Mishap’s aim from a distance was extraordinary.
Mauro’s body shuddered perversely, dropped forward on the table over a plate of cheeses. His beer glass crashed onto his ashtray, liquor splattering. Yells ricocheting. Shouts, hollers.
I swiveled and Mishap, a steady rock in the center of the deli, threw me a gun.
“Mauro!” Sal yelled, a gun raised.
I shot Sal in the chest, and he crumpled to the tiled floor in a messy heap. Tony’s eyes hardened, his gun raised, and I shot at his head. His neck jerked back and he fell over on the table, his head crashing on the tray of sweet rolls and ham slices, his gun going off. Rolls flew, the old Depression era lamp hanging from the ceiling shattered. A shower of splintered glass.
Chairs stumbled around me, Oscar lunged at me. My leg shot out, my foot slamming into his throat, knocking him back. He let out a howl, and I fired at his head. His body fell like a heavy stone over a chair, the chair collapsing under the shock of his weight.
Mishap charged over the bodies and debris toward the back door, and I followed, hurdling over the stacked three liter cans of olive oil in the narrow hallway, out the back door. We dove into the waiting car.
Bwoom. Boosh.
Our vehicle rocked and shook. An orange-black mushroom cloud of fire and smoke rose in the gray sky. The Dumpsters rattled out of their spots, bricks flying. Particles crashed and pelted the car windows as we took off around the corner, down another side street. Screams, alarms, sirens blaring.
Motherfuck.
Finger had told us we’d have a seven second window to get the hell out of there. His exactness shot my adrenaline level even higher.
I rubbed at the gun handle with my hoodie and handed the gun to Mishap. He tucked it in his boot and dismantled his weapon into small parts. I tore off the hoodie and Mishap grabbed it. My gaze flicked back for just a moment. That little deli, the original cornerstone of Mauro Guardino’s empire, had been obliterated, and him and his right hands along with it.
It was done. He was done with. And I had done it.
Destroyer.
53
Turo
The driver dropped me off about two blocks away from the church. I’d made my way through the back entrance, and found Marissa in the special room reserved for brides and their bridesmaids before a wedding. I scrubbed my hands, my face clean, got dressed in the new suit and shoes she’d brought me, rolled up the clothes I’d been wearing into tight rolls and tucked them into a plastic bag and then into the oversized handbag Marissa had brought with her upon my request.
Marissa’s phone rang and she answered it, her eyes popping wider. “I’ll let him know, thank you.” She grinned at me. “She’s awake. She’s awake. Thank God, she’s awake.”
I glanced back at my reflection in the mirror and took in a breath, my every muscle relaxing. My heart drummed in my chest, sending a new high seeping through every vein. I grinned back at Marissa as I buttoned my suit jacket.
So many friends and associates had showed up for James’s funeral, all dressed to the nines, all saddened and shocked, and all surprised to see me. The social set, politicians and local government officials I knew from my days working with my mother, and those I’d gotten to know from working for Mauro. All here under the glorious roof of this great cathedral. Incongruities gave me a thrill. The service concluded, the priest introduced me, and I stepped up to the lectern in front of the altar.
“James Bradley was a good man, a kind stepfather,” I said to the crowd at Notre Dame de Chicago, my voice steady, firm. “James made my mother very happy,” I continued. “And as her son, that has always been the most important thing to me no matter what. My mother’s happiness. She can’t be with us today, but I’m very pleased to announce that she is conscious, recovering, and getting stronger.”
A jovial murmur moved through the crowd like a gentle wave.
“I know I make her proud by standing here, in her place, where she would have been, sharing with you how her husband will be deeply missed. He was a dependable, trusted partner, a cherished stepfather, and a beloved husband. His loss will be deeply felt and grieved by his wife and all of us who knew him.”
The dour faces before me in the church nodded. My gaze landed on Marissa in the front row, her dark red lips curled in a discreet smile, an eyebrow raised. In the third row behind her was the police detective who was investigating the “accident” at my mother’s new restaurant. He looked at his watch and lifted his chin at me.
At this ve
ry moment the police were searching Valerio’s house. They would find the photograph of Med’s dead body that he had showed me and Mauro, that he and Mauro had touched. They would find Med’s DNA on a pair of his shoes, in a shirt crumpled at the back of his mudroom closet in his McMansion. At my former soldier Little Anthony’s apartment, they would not only find his dead body and evidence incriminating Valerio in his death, but also more of Med’s DNA in one of Little Anthony’s gym bags.
I returned my attention to the paper before me on the podium and began to read the poem “Ithaca,” from the Greek poet Cavafy, one of my mother’s favorites. I recited the verses about not hurrying to arrive at the island, that the journey there needed to be full of adventure and knowledge. That one should enjoy the delights of summer mornings, enjoy the precious riches the voyage itself has to offer. To always keep this Ithaca fixed in your mind.
My breath burned in my lungs.
I hadn’t expected my trip to Greece to offer me pleasures or riches.
But it had.
Oh, it had.
I recited, and with every verse, Adri’s hand squeezed mine, the glittering Aegean before us. Her rich laugh over glasses of wine. Her hair draped on my breathless body, warm lips on my skin. Her trust. The gift of her love that she’d given me freely, asking nothing in return.
I agreed with the last verse of the poem that left my lips. I had gained a particle or two of wisdom from my voyage. I had crossed the sea. I had charged forward on a fool’s crusade where there was no Holy Grail to be found. I had been betrayed in the cruelest way, yet had returned, alive.
I had killed for Mauro Guardino’s greed.
For my greedy ambitions.
For Serena’s justice.
For Evgeny’s entertainment.
Now I had killed my father—who was no father—for my mother. For me.
“They tore Dionysus up and ate him, but his heart survived and he was resurrected.”