Violet Darger (Book 4): Bad Blood

by Vargus, L. T.

  He figured there were three others in the car. Probably Carlo, Lombino, and Marasco, though he was only certain about the third.

  He knew what they wanted, too. Same as the cops, though for a different purpose. They wanted Vinny the Bull. An address. The boss’s current location. And if he gave it, he may as well serve up Vinny Battaglia’s head on a silver platter, might as well cut it off himself. That’d be more merciful than what Rocco would do to the old man.

  They had tracked him somehow. It was the only thing that made sense. But how?

  And the memory fired in his head — Lombino borrowing his phone back in Cutter’s house, taking it into the hall for a few minutes. They must have known about his connection to Vinny even back then. Suspected, at least. Lombino had put something on the phone. An app or something to track him via GPS. They’d traced him right to this parking lot, interrupted him before he could take out the agent.

  Was that possible? Or was he just being overly paranoid? He couldn’t think clearly enough to say.

  No theory seemed unreasonable when you had a hood over your head in the back seat of a car full of gangsters. Nothing at all.

  He replayed the scenario in the lot. The car had circled and circled. Even when a gunshot was fired, they hadn’t fled. They’d been there a long time.

  Maybe it wasn’t GPS or technology at all. Maybe they’d simply followed him. He had been so preoccupied with Darger’s car, he hadn’t noticed the other tail — the real predators closing in on him all the while.

  Lombino spoke.

  “Bossman wants to handle the interrogation personally, he said. No knife work for you tonight.”

  “Too bad,” Marasco said. “I love making the big ones squeal. Big, muscular men — masculine killers — whimpering like little girls.”

  They fell quiet for a beat.

  “Don’t you think that seems a little, I don’t know, homoerotic?” Carlo said.

  “What? No. I’m cuttin’ the motherfuckers, not blowin’ ‘em.”

  “I mean, why are you getting off on how muscular and masculine they are, is all I’m saying.”

  “I’m not gettin’… I mean, I’m not saucin’ in my shorts over it. It amuses me.”

  “Kinda changes the meaning of homo-cide,” Lombino joked.

  Jaworski’s mind seemed to sharpen upon hearing their voices, verifying pieces of the information he’d been guessing at.

  Part of him tried to chart their course, get some feel for where they might be in the city, but he gave it up just as quickly. Useless. He had no clue. Better to focus his time and efforts elsewhere.

  He knew where this was ultimately going, even if he didn’t know the location. They would interrogate him. And that would include torture, if necessary. Maybe even if it wasn’t necessary, based on the way Marasco was talking.

  Death was probably a 50/50 shot, optimistically — the flip of a coin, Jaworski figured. He’d faced worse odds and scraped through.

  For the most part, the men in the car did not scare him. Not truly. But there was one man who did frighten him.

  Rocco Battaglia. And he had a feeling that Rocco was precisely the one waiting at the other end of this car ride.

  Chapter 50

  Darger hit the brakes and stared through the windshield at the unfamiliar scenery. The paved road she’d been on had suddenly turned to dirt. Huge willow trees bordered the road on one side, tall grasses on the other. The only other living things in sight were the moths fluttering in the glow of her car’s headlights.

  Obviously she’d made a wrong turn somewhere. The pain and what she thought must be shock muddled her thoughts. She was disoriented and tired and angry with herself.

  She found the GPS app on her phone and followed the automated voice’s instructions. After backtracking for about ten minutes, she finally found the highway.

  Over the steady hum of the engine, she tried to organize her thoughts. To make sense of how things had gone so wrong. Just an hour ago she’d been certain she was on the verge of breaking the case wide open, and now everything had fallen apart. Jaworski was gone. Her ankle was broken. Huettemann was still missing.

  The car hit a pothole, and the sudden jolt sent a spike of pain into her ankle that radiated all the way up to her hip socket. It was enough to bring tears to her eyes.

  Her instinct was still to call Loshak. Or Luck. But how could she explain what had happened? That she’d let Jaworski get away. Or be taken away.

  Actually what she really wanted was to talk to Owen, but she couldn't do that, because she’d fucked that up, too.

  Everything she touched was turning to shit.

  The car bumped over the curb as she steered into the motel parking lot. She clenched her teeth against the pain and realized it wasn't just her ankle. Her arm that had taken the brunt of Jaworski's chain attack also hurt like hell.

  As she wheeled into a parking space, the illumination from her headlights caught on something. No, someone. A familiar figure clad in a gray suit stood near her motel room door. It was Luck.

  She pulled the key from the ignition and cut out the lights.

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  She wasn't even all the way out of the car yet, bobbling to and fro as she tried to keep weight off her ankle.

  She thought of her failed chase, the fight with Owen, and lastly, the missing deputy, and she tried to figure out how she could possibly explain it all. Instead, she felt the wetness of tears in her eyes.

  Without thinking, she stumbled face-first into Luck’s chest and wrapped her arms around him.

  Seeing that she was upset, his whole demeanor seemed to shift. He held her close, then readjusted his position so he could see her face.

  “Violet, what happened? What's wrong?”

  She launched into her tale then, a rambling, jumbled account. How she'd waited at Jaworski’s, then followed him out of the city, to the storage facility. About searching for him in the labyrinth of buildings and being blindsided by his attack. About the other car that took him away.

  While Darger floundered through her story, Luck helped her to her room, letting her lean on him to take the weight off her ankle.

  When they reached the door, she fumbled with the key. Luck took it from her and unlocked the door in one deft motion.

  It was dark inside the room, and she hit the light switch next to the door as they shuffled past. Luck lowered her onto the bed, careful not to jostle her.

  He hadn't said much throughout her story. Maybe because he only had half an idea what the hell she was babbling about. But instead of asking questions or demanding clarification, he had gently removed her shoe, slid up her pant leg, and was now gripping her injured ankle between his fingers.

  “Well?” she said. “Are you going to call Price now or what?”

  Luck released his hold on her foot and let her pant leg fall back into place.

  “That can wait,” he said. “Right now I'm more concerned about you.”

  “It's broken, isn't it?”

  “No,” he said, sounding calm and certain.

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m from the Midwest, Violet. I played football. Watched the trainers check ankles a hundred times, including my own at least twice,” he explained. “I had a high ankle sprain just like this. They hurt like hell and can take months to heal.”

  “Oh.” Darger sniffled. “So what are we going to do?”

  Luck sighed.

  “You are going to sit tight. I'm going to get some ice for that ankle.” He turned toward the door, then paused. “You don't happen to have any Tylenol, do you?”

  Darger's eyes went to the black travel bag resting on the dresser. She thought about what she'd promised herself earlier. That she was going to flush the Norco. Be done with it for good.

  She glanced down at her ankle which was still throbbing in pain and at her arm that ached to the bone. The resolve from earlier was gone. The fight with Jaworski had taken something out o
f her. She needed the pills.

  “Bring me that bag,” she said, pointing across the room.

  Luck grasped it by the handles and set it on the bed beside her.

  Her hand shook as she pulled the bottle from the depths. The tremors were more about fatigue than nerves. She knew the drugs would bring a welcome release. The pills rattled in their plastic container as she pressed down on the childproof cap.

  “Here, let me get you some water,” Luck offered.

  She didn't need it. Could swallow them dry. But she waited for him to retrieve the cup of water from the bathroom sink anyway and washed two pills down with it.

  Plucking the ice bucket off the top of the dresser, Luck crossed the small space to the door.

  “I'll be right back,” he said.

  When he turned back to glance at her, she saw true concern in his eyes, and she wondered what he’d think if he knew she’d just downed a palmful of narcotics.

  Chapter 51

  The car finally stopped. Shifted into park. The engine’s whine hit a higher note for a few beats and cut out.

  Silence.

  It wasn’t until the quiet that the significance truly hit Jaworski. They were here, wherever that might be.

  After the long drive, the inertia felt wrong, the quiet felt wrong. Goose bumps prickled along his spine like an animal getting its hackles up.

  The whole world seemed to hesitate for a beat. And Jaworski couldn’t help but remember sitting in a car with these same men not so long ago, feeling an odd togetherness as they went to work on Cutter. It was the bond men inevitably felt when they’d experienced such drama together, such darkness together.

  They’d gone into battle as a group. Killed as one. Hearts hammering in their chests. Bloodlust taking over. All the colors turned up brighter, their senses of smell and taste and touch similarly enhanced. Boosted. Emotions whittled down to naked aggression. Something animal and pure. Intensity they’d remember for the rest of their lives.

  And maybe the others felt this nostalgia now, too, as no one moved for a beat. A reverent silence passed among them. A feeling that reminded Jaworski of the handful of times his aunt and uncle had taken him to the Church of the Nazarene when he was a kid.

  “Last stop,” Marasco said, breaking the spell. “Everyone off the train.”

  Jaworski could hear the smile in his voice, could picture the sadistic glee on his face. Even the bag over his head couldn’t block that image out.

  At last, there was movement. Doors opening. Weight shifting. The car suddenly riding higher.

  The car door swung away from his left like a wall ripped away from him. Gravity tugged at his head and shoulder which had been propped against it, pitching him into the void. Falling. Falling. With his arms bound behind him, he had no means of catching himself. Nothing to do but wait for the ground to politely stop his face with its delicate concrete touch.

  But someone caught him.

  His fall dead-ended into a thick torso, and a hand gripped his upper arm a beat later. Giant palm and stubby fingers flexing around his triceps, steadying him. That must be Big Joe.

  And now a stiff yank pulled him the rest of the way out, jostled him into an upright position. He struggled to find his feet in the absolute darkness, balance wonky and wobbled.

  His captors said nothing as they pulled him along. Into a building where the air was dryer than outside, a little musty. Through multiple doorways. A few twists and turns that he tried to remember, tried to etch into some mental map, but couldn’t quite track. At the end of the meandering walk, they sat him in a chair, shackled him into place there, and withdrew.

  Seated. Waiting. The footsteps died away.

  He adjusted a little in his seat, tried to find a way to make the arms cuffed behind him comfortable, to kill the ache settling into them, and failed. The chains at his ankles rattled but little else was accomplished.

  And now his attention turned to the room around him. Something about the ambient sound made him certain it was a big space. Industrial, he thought. High ceilings. Rock hard floors and walls, possibly composed of concrete.

  If anyone else was in the room, he couldn’t feel it, couldn’t sense it, so he thought not.

  Alone. Strange.

  Were they making him wait on purpose? Letting the anticipation build? Probably.

  He remembered the stories, legends of torture, Rocco Battaglia burning some sap’s scrotum with a road flare. Charring it into a shriveled thing. Blackened. Hunks of ash falling away.

  And other stories as well. Stories of boiling, castration, flaying, and on and on. The legends were endless. Grim tales that echoed up and down the streets of Detroit.

  He could hear the blood squish in his ears. The tiny patter of his pulse.

  This was what they wanted. They wanted him to panic. To let the fear worm deeper and deeper into his head until he was frantic. Psych him out before the interrogation even started. It was a sophisticated bit of psychology for psychopaths like this crew, Jaworski thought. Then again, they’d done this enough times to learn a thing or two along the way.

  The threat of torture was ultimately worse than the torture itself, or so the egghead types claimed. Right now their method of torment could be anything. It was an unknown. And Jaworski had to admit, it intensified the dread in a way that was somehow more maddening than any pain.

  They wanted him to squirm, just the way Jimmy Crampton wanted him to squirm all those years ago. All Crampton got for his interest was his brains bashed in with a hammer, of course. Jaworski would do the same to these motherfuckers if they gave him even the sliver of a chance. He prayed they would.

  The anger focused him. Calmed him, strangely enough. He heard that squish in his ears slow down, if only a little, the gallop falling away to a trot. He was scared, but he wouldn’t let it all the way in. He couldn’t.

  He figured they’d have pulled the bag off his head by now. He knew they would eventually. That Rocco would want to look him in the eyes when he spoke, read the animal truth in them.

  Leaning forward, he found the edge of a table at about chest height. Close. Good. He rested his head on the surface. More tension draining from the muscles in his back.

  He laid there for a long time, taking deep breaths. And he thought of Urszula. Memories of her flashing in his head. Abstractions, mostly. A few images of her physical presence took shape in his mind, but these were outnumbered by less concrete impressions, the memory of being with her as a feeling, a mood, a tone. The singular experience of feeling together with her and what that did to his consciousness, almost as if it were a particular color blooming in his head. Something unique. Something special.

  And if he were to die to here today, he was thankful to have shared those moments with her, to have known her, to have spent time with her. Thankful for this above all things.

  After a while, his anxiety started to wane. The sweat once sopping in his armpits and along his hairline went dry.

  He began to doze. Drifting in and out of a light sleep. Dreamless.

  Peaceful enough, all things considered.

  * * *

  He woke when the bag was ripped off his head. His forehead rising and falling and smacking back down on the tabletop.

  He blinked. Coughed a little at the fresh air.

  Blinding light assailed his eyeballs, rendered the whole world in bright white flashes that blurred and smeared and wouldn’t keep still. So bright as to stab shards of light into his skull, penetrating his pupils and trying their damnedest to spear his frontal lobe.

  At first he could only make out a lamp on the table, the source of that hurtful light, the rest of his field of vision shadowy and dark. But the world beyond the table soon came into focus.

  He saw an empty factory floor. Concrete on all sides — floors, walls, ceiling — scuffed and craggy and water-stained cement. Yellow paint flaking everywhere, safety stripes on the floor and walls giving way to time and erosion.

  The remnants of a
few machines still towered over the room, oddly placed, rotting things, corroded steel starting to sag at various joints, their top halves slouching now with what looked like stooped shoulders.

  And there, dead ahead — Rocco Battaglia standing by himself, smiling, a tabletop filling the space between them.

  A rectangular object squatted on the table just in front of the acting boss — a toolbox, Jaworski realized. He eyed it for a moment, blinking a few times.

  Oh.

  He swallowed in a dry throat as its meaning hit him.

  Shit.

  Rocco smiled at Jaworski, perhaps reading this moment of fear on his face.

  The younger Battaglia always looked neater than the rest. Always. From his clothes to his physique to his hair and skin and teeth, he just looked sharper. The best groomed of the pack. That was an alpha trait, Jaworski figured, just as much as his piercing stare was.

  His face looked leaner than the rest of his muscular frame, almost a bony look about his cheeks and brow. The kind of cheeks that sucked in just a little at all times, so you could see cords and muscles ripple through with each syllable that he spoke, with each micro-expression that passed over his features. Jaworski had heard that heavy cocaine use could lead to this kind of incongruent facial atrophy — “cocaine face” was the term, he remembered — but he didn’t know if that was a real phenomenon or an urban legend.

  Rocco flashed those big white teeth now. Gleaming and straight. A little threatening. His eyes smiled as well, though they looked a little more sinister.

  “Just the two of us,” Rocco said. “That surprise you?”

  Jaworski just glared at him.

  “Funny thing about you and I,” Rocco said. “We have something in common.”

  He paced along the table as he spoke. Three paces forward and back.

  “You know what it is?”

  Jaworski said nothing. Kept his face stony and blank, not breaking his stare into Rocco’s eyes, not even to blink. He hoped the other could feel the cold in it.

  “Well, it’s not your effervescent personality. I can assure you of that,” Rocco said. “No, I lack your wit and charm. Your finesse.”