Dante's Redemption

by Jaime Whitley

  “Good to know, I’ll work on that.” She sits back down placing the waters in front of our plates. “Angelo should love that.” She jokes.

  “I honestly don’t know how you put up with his advances all the time.” I scrunch my nose and pull my eyebrows together in disgust. She shrugs and continues eating.

  I hate that she just brushes it under the rug, but I continue, “After Killian bailed me out, he took me to Sal’s house. Angelo was getting a verbal tongue lashing upon my arrival.” She looks up at me with surprise. I nod that she heard me correctly. “We may have not succeeded with getting Angelo arrested, but I think it worked out even better in our favor.”

  “How so?”

  “Now, there’s an issue regarding the loyalty Angelo has for Sal. If he questions it even for a second, there’s always going to be that doubt in the back of his head.”

  Her smile turns wicked, “That’s perfect. Turn them against each other.”

  “We’ll try to at least.”

  As we continue to eat our meal, I tell her about everything that happened at Sal’s house. How I might be getting in closer with him after today and how Angelo suspects something is up with me. Ava wasn’t happy to hear about Angelo’s suspicions, but I convinced her that it wouldn’t be a problem. He’s not focused. His mind is all over the place all the time. I also know for a fact that he doesn’t have what it takes or the connections to even begin to figure out who I am. From everything I’ve seen about him so far, he only cares about himself and where his next piece of ass is coming from. He will do anything to get him to the top as long as it doesn’t involve his reputation getting hurt in return, which surprises me that Sal would have someone like that as his second in command. He is too much of a loose cannon, in my opinion.

  It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve been arrested and things have been looking up for me. Sal has me accompanying Angelo on most of his jobs. To say that he flipped his shit upon hearing this news was an understatement. He proceeded to tell Sal that I had no business being there and he didn’t even know if I could be trusted yet.

  Ava and I have been doing everything to make sure there is a rift between Sal and Angelo. We have been sabotaging anything and everything we can without drawing attention to ourselves. Just as I suspected, Killian is easy to get information from. He’s always telling us where and when Sal and Angelo are going to meet and we always make sure to place a couple cops there. Killian had mentioned that Sal was getting irritated with the constant company of the officers that only seem to appear when Angelo is around.

  Today I’m going with Angelo to meet with The Cobras, a local gang, to work out numbers on product they will need from me. They will still be going through Sal’s guys, but seeing as I’m his supplier, he figured it was best I be here.

  I always feel a little uneasy when I’m out on these. I have arrested a lot of people in my day and I’m always worried about the possibility of someone recognizing me. Working with the street gangs was never part of the plan. I was supposed to be working with the Onorato family, so this makes things a little tricky. Riggs and Ava do not like the idea of me being out here on the streets but what was I going to do? Say no and have suspicions raised against me? Absolutely not.

  As we are walking to an abandoned building, I keep my eyes open as my body goes on high alert. There’s something about this that doesn’t feel right. Every meeting so far has had its moments where I got a bad feeling, but that was more of the fear of being recognized. This though, this just screams out bad idea.

  “I know I haven’t been working with you that long, but does this seem a little sketchy to you? I ask Angelo as he slowly walks up to the building.

  “I was thinking the same thing. I’ll go around back and check it out, you check out this area. If you see anything sketchy, whistle loud, it will echo in the building, so I know and then book it the hell out of here.” Angelo instructs before heading to the back of the abandoned building.

  I draw out my gun and start to scope out the front of the building. There’s no one in front and so I slowly make my way through the front door. It appears to be empty, but I hear some hushed voices coming from the second floor. My heart rate begins to quicken as I slowly walk toward the stairs, I take each one with light feet, hoping not to make any noise. As I round the corner, I see two men in view.

  “As soon as they get here we take them out. There is no room for error. We need to send a message that we are our own boss. Everyone else may be okay with the Onorato family running their streets but I’m not.” Seeing the man’s face, I know he means business and Angelo and I are not supposed to walk out of here alive. Backing up, I walk back down the flight of stairs. As soon as my foot hits the last step it makes a loud creaking noise. Shutting my eyes and holding my breath, I quickly come to a halt, standing still in my spot, hoping they didn’t hear that. Footsteps move quickly across the floor and I know they are coming. I know if I whistle to warn Angelo, it’s going to make my presence known. I do it anyway, alerting the people coming down the stairs of my presence.

  I try to exit quickly, but I see a couple guys coming towards the front entrance so I run for the back. As soon as I have the exit in my sight, a body jumps out, slamming me into the wall. I clutch my gun as my body makes impact and I fall to the ground taking down the assailant with me. We both fumble on the ground for a second before I grab his gun and stand up. Giving him a good kick in his abdomen, I need to get out of there fast before the rest of the guys find me. As I’m about to run out the back, my worst fear happens.

  “So the Onoratos are now sending cops to do their dirty work? Tell me, how much is he paying you?” I stand silent, trying to figure out a quick solution to this. “Wait a second. Don’t tell me they don’t know who you are. Oh, this is going to be good.” He’s holding his abdomen as he starts to get up. I know I have no choice on what needs to be done. My stomach starts to turn at the thought of shooting an unarmed man. But if the situation was reversed, he wouldn’t have a problem. I mean shit; he came here to kill Angelo, to send a message. I lift my gun and fire two shots straight into his chest and make a run for it. As I round the corner of the building, I’m shocked to see Angelo waiting for me in his car.

  “Go!” Jumping in his car, he pounds on the gas and takes off. I look behind us to make sure we aren’t being followed before I can sit back.

  “What the hell was that? I heard gun shots!” Angelo asks.

  “They were going to kill us. They wanted to send Mr. Onorato a message.” I tell him trying to catch my breath.

  “A message? What kind of fucking message?” He looks over to me, clearly taken by surprise in what just happened.

  “That they don’t work for anyone but themselves. I take it you didn’t see this one coming?”

  “No. Fuck!” He yells as he bangs his fist on the steering wheel. “This is not good.”

  “I have to be honest, I’m surprised you didn’t hightail it out of there without me.”

  “Why would I do that?” He’s looking at me out the corner of his eyes.

  “It’s no secret you don’t like or trust me.”

  “That’s true. But, you could have just left me there to die with no warning but you didn’t. What kind of man would that make me if I just left you there?” Oh, so now he has morals? I can’t complain because I could be running on foot right now instead of in his car.

  “Well thanks for waiting for me.” It kills me to have to thank this piece of shit.

  “Don’t thank me yet. We have to go back and tell Mr. Onorato about what happened. He’s not going to be happy about this.”

  “Whose group was this? I know that the streets were divided up between the guys. Was this your group?” I want to know who dropped the ball so badly on this one that it nearly cost me my life.

  “Joey’s. I told Sal he shouldn’t have been put in charge of any. He’s just a kid and has a lot to learn.” The concern in Angelo voice worries me for Joey’s safety. If Angelo i
s worried, then you know it’s going to be bad.

  “Why is he around if you consider him just a kid?”

  “He’s my nephew. He was going to fall into this life whether I liked it or not, so I chose it to be under my watch. Some job I’m doing, huh?” He lets out a nervous laugh. For once, I can see Angelo as a human being. It still doesn’t erase all the bad he’s done, but it’s nice to know he’s capable of having a little bit of compassion.

  As we pull up to the restaurant where I first met Sal, Angelo parks the car not moving to get out. Turning to me, he says, “I need to know you’re going to have my back in there.” My eyes widen as he catches me by surprise.

  “What do you need me for? There’s no way we could have known that was going to happen.”

  “Some strange shit has been happening lately. Mostly around me. I don’t need another fuck up on my list that has been building, so do you have my back or not?” He asks agitated.

  “Yeah, man. Come on, let’s get this over with.” I open the car door and Angelo is right behind me.

  As we head towards Sal’s usual table, I’m not sure how this meeting is going to play out. I do know he is not going to have a smile on his fucking face, that’s for sure. Reaching the table, we both occupy the two vacant seats and say hello to Sal and Killian. The server asks us if we would like a drink and I order two shots of tequila, causing Sal to cock his eyebrow at my choice. After what we tell him, I’m pretty sure he will be ordering one as well.

  Sal is finishing up his meal, so both Angelo and I sit silently idle as we wait. We’re about to ruin his afternoon, might as well not spoil his dinner. The server places our shots on the table and I waste no time. Picking it up, I pour the tequila down the back of my throat, not bothering with the lime.

  “What’s wrong with you two?” Killian eyes narrow as he squints at us. I pull on the collar of my shirt, suddenly feeling like it’s choking me.

  “What makes you think there’s something wrong?” Angelo speaks up.

  “Well for one, you’re ordering shots. Two, he’s pulling on his shirt like the damn things choking him and he’s trying to break free and you’re sweating like a whore in church.”

  Sal breaks out into laughter and slaps Killian’s knee. “That’s a new one, I like it.” He pushes his now empty plate off to the side.

  “Thanks, Uncle Sal.”

  “So, as Killian pointed out, something is wrong. Seeing as you just came from a meeting, is there anything I should be made aware of?” Sal looks between the two of us before his gaze stays locked on Angelo.

  “Look boss, there’s really no way to make this sound good so I’m not even going to try and sugarcoat it. It was a set up. If I didn’t have Dante with me, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”

  Sal smacks the table, causing the restaurant to silence for a moment before going back to its normal hustle and bustle. “A set up, how?” His voice fills with anger and contempt.

  I know this is going to go from bad to worse any second. “Everything just screamed that something was off when we got there.” I clear my throat and continue. “They had us meet them at an abandoned building that had no traffic around it. The surrounding stores were vacant and there wasn’t anyone on the streets.” I look over to Angelo. He wanted me to have his back and if this is a way I can get him off mine, then so be it. I’ll do all the talking. “Angelo scoped out the back while I checked out the front. I heard hushed voices coming from the second level and when I went to check it out, I overheard the guys talking about taking us out.”

  “And why would they want to do that?” Sal interrupts me.

  “To send a message. They wanted you to know that they don’t take orders from you, or anyone else for that matter. We managed to get out of there, but you should know, I shot someone on the way out. He had his gun aimed and ready to shoot, so I did what was necessary.” I had to lie about why the guy was shot, but he needed to know in case it causes any backlash on him.

  “Angelo, why is it that all these thorns suddenly being put in my side always happen when you’re around?” He pinches the bridge of his nose.

  “I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been asking myself the same fucking question.”

  “Killian, call Joey and get him down here. Now.” Sal waves his hand in the air to get the server’s attention. “Bring me a drink. And sweetheart, make it a double.”

  “I know I’m stepping out of line, but he’s family and I have to ask. What’s going to happen to Joey?” Angelo’s leg is bouncing up and down under the table.

  “Relax, Angelo.” Sal waves his hand in dismissal. “We knew there would be some resistance on some ends, we just didn’t know with whom. This could have happened to anyone. I want Joey down here so he knows he will no longer be in contact with these cowards.” Angelo lets out a sigh of relief as his leg stops bouncing.

  “What do you want to do about the body?” Killian asks Sal.

  “Leave it. Let them clean up the mess. We’re going to send a message of our own. Take them all out. Send the best guys we got and make no mistakes. We need to make sure we send a message to anyone else who may want to deliver one to us.”

  “And if they suddenly have a change of heart?” Killian asks getting up.

  “I don’t give second chances. You know that.” Killian nods and leaves the restaurant. “As for you two, I’m happy to see you’re still alive.”

  “About that. I didn’t sign up for this shit. I’m your supplier, not your errand boy. From now on, I will no longer be going anywhere with Angelo. If you’re not good with this, then you can find yourself another supplier.” I don’t give him a chance to answer as I get up and walk away. I can’t sit here any longer. I’m sick to my stomach with having to stick up for Angelo and images of me killing the guy back at the building start flashing through my brain. I know it’s all part of my job, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. And honestly, what good will I do anyone if I’m dead. I need to make it clear that I’m not part of his organization and I don’t work for him.

  My chest is tightening as the anxiety of the past couple hours sets in. I could have fucking died today. There’s only one person I want to see right now, so I text her.

  Me: I don’t give a fuck what you’re doing. I need you at my place now. I’m on my way there now.

  She responds immediately.

  Ava: Well, since you asked so nicely. I’ll just let myself in, if I get there before you.

  When I get home, I see that I somehow managed to make it here before Ava. I’m a bit relieved, because I really want to take a shower and wash today off of me. I waste no time getting into the house and head straight for the shower. Turning on the water, I strip down as I wait for it to get to a nice, scorching heat before stepping in. Letting the hot water trickle down my body, I place my hands against the tile and lean forward, lowering my head. The pressure of the water hitting my back sends some relief to my tense muscles as they begin to loosen up. As I close my eyes, today’s events take over and replay in my mind. I can see myself being tackled from the side and falling to the ground, followed by the sound of two gun shots being fired. At the same exact time, a hand touching my shoulder startles me and I jump up, grabbing the hand.

  “Jesus, Dante. What the hell?” Ava says as I hold a firm grip on her wrist.

  “I’m sorry.” I let go and grab the soap off the railing. “I’ll be right out.” She stares at me for a minute but then hesitantly turns and leaves the room. I hurry in the shower and throw on a pair of sweats and walk out to the bedroom, where Ava is waiting for me.

  “Mind telling me what that was all about?” She’s biting the inside of her cheek as she shuffles her feet across the floor.

  “I’m sorry if I hurt your wrist. You caught me off guard.” I sit next to her on the edge of the bed.

  “I can see that. But what I don’t understand is why. You knew I was coming over.” I open my mouth, but it immediately shuts. Never had I cared what any
one other than Joe thought about me. But suddenly, I’m worried that Ava will think I’m some kind of monster who just goes around killing people. I let out a deep breath.

  I sit on the couch and pat the seat next to me for her to sit, I need her close, I need her strength. “I went with Angelo today to meet up with a group of people. Well turns out, not everyone was on board. They wanted to take us out and send a message to the family that they will not be taking orders from anyone but themselves. I managed to get us out of there but someone recognized me.” She gasps but I quickly continue or I risk not getting it out, “We got into a scuffle and I managed to take away his gun. I was about to run out the door when he identified me as a cop.”

  Ava grabs my hands and pulls them into her lap. “So what did you do?”

  I’m thankful for the support she is showing me. I continue on with my story but cringe at the images that are going through my mind. “What could I do? I couldn’t knock him out and bring him with me. Angelo was still there and I couldn’t risk him telling anyone who I am. I shot him, Ava. I shot an unarmed man. For the first time since I’ve been involved with these criminals, I actually feel like…”

  “One of them?” Ava places her hand on cheek as she finishes for me, knowing exactly what I was going to say.

  “Exactly.” It’s only a whisper and I risk actually breaking down in front of her.

  “Dante.” Grabbing my chin, she forces me to look at her. “You are not like them. You did what you had to do to survive. If you didn’t, there’s a good chance you wouldn’t be sitting here right now. You did the right thing today.” She squeezes my knee with her other hand.

  “Who am I to decide who gets to live or die? Yeah, I’ve shot and killed people before, but it was always in self-defense. This, this was just plain murder. His blood is on my hands. Not Angelo’s, Killian’s or Sal’s, but my own. I have to live with the fact that I am now a murderer.”