25. Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Four
CRUE
I f I knew how, and could love, it would be Fiametta. She’s proven the point time and time again. Hell, I almost blurted those words out while holding onto her last night. But filling her head with the false promise of my making it back would be a mistake.
There’s a strong chance I won’t return. If she must face my death, I’d prefer she do it with me as the monster. Not her dearly beloved.
“Jesus, man, have you gone full batshit?” Mark roars as I step out of my car and take slow, calculated steps toward him.
Okay, enough of dwelling on the what ifs . It’s time to get down and dirty.
Mark sent me a text early this morning, long before I woke up, saying he'd found my present. He named a time and a place to meet him, and I have arrived, as always, perfectly on time.
I’m surprised it took him this long to figure out where Tomas was waiting. I managed to get a full day, yesterday, following my normal routine as if my world wasn’t on fire. I went to the gym, bought groceries, which will no doubt spoil in my fridge after today, and even had time to stop in and see how Fiametta was.
Not bad, considering I thought I’d be dead before sunset. That Mark would find Tomas, and this text would come sooner. That I’d arrive at the appointed destination to find that he was waiting, surrounded by Baronne men, and not alone as he stands now. I would have said Napoli’s men, but as two of their dons have died within the span of a week, the name’s reputation has been tainted.
“Probably.” His question was a reference to Tomas. My answer is not.
It’s meant for her. Sitting alone in her log cabin. Without a car, she has no way to follow me, so she must be afraid of what might happen today. It matters little. All of this is for her, and Fiametta probably knows that. She must understand. I can’t risk her life. She’s the best chance our child has to be normal. To be the complete opposite of its dad. Not a perfectly punctual monster, but a perfectly innocent angel.
She can teach it to be that way. It will follow in her footsteps not mine. It will see the light my Little Flame shines so brightly, instead of stepping into my black shoes.
Speaking to her last night, like a normal person would, was liberating. Much of what she learned are secrets I’ve held so close to my chest they might as well be made up.
“Is that all you’ve got to say to me?” Mark’s face contorts into a wicked snarl.
“You should have told me sooner that you were working for him. I wouldn’t have come back.” It would have saved me a ton of trouble along the way.
“That’s why I couldn’t tell you.” Mark kicks himself off the hood of his car and walks over to me. We stop a fair distance apart, weary of one another. It’s for the best. We’re both out for blood.
“I thought that if I got you here, and showed you what was in store and gave you what you wanted, you’d come around to seeing things my way.” He half-smiles ruefully.
I wonder if he set our meeting here because he can show me that he came alone. There’s nothing but a sea of green grass around us, apart from a single tree, far out in the distance, that’s too thin to hide behind.
It’s a mistake he won’t be able to make twice.
“What I wanted?” I ask.
“Fiametta,” he says bluntly.
“Trying to play one of Matteo’s games, are you? Offering the world for a soul I don’t use. I’m not Tomas. I don’t need anything.”
Because I have Fiametta already.
“We don’t have to do this, Crue. No one knows about Tomas, yet.” Mark presses his hand to his face and drags it down. “Think about it. With the Napoli’s gone, the only thing standing in our way of taking over this city is Matteo. We can—”
“I want nothing to do with this city.” I stop Mark before he gets too far ahead of himself.
“Right,” Mark’s shoulders sink, and he shakes his head.
“You don’t have to do this, Mark. You can turn around and walk away. I won’t ask you to join me. Not this time. But don’t throw your away life for Matteo Baronne.” It’s my first and last warning.
Mark cocks a brow, then chuckles. “You know how it goes, Crue. There’s no walking away from the mafia. Believe whatever you want, we both know you came back here because of that.”
“I came back here because you wanted me here.” And because she needed me here. “I’m not afraid of Matteo.”
“You should be,” he says. It’s solid advice.
I’m sure I would’ve been afraid if I were anyone else. Or even just a fraction less me than I am. But although my shadow has mostly gone quiet since getting its release through Tomas’s death, I know it’s still there. It’s guiding my instincts. Heightening my senses. Keeping the fire burning, until this thing is through.
“You know, Mark, I’m not angry that you’ve chosen to stand with him instead of me. But after all we’ve been through, I am very disappointed.”
He chuckles again, but his eyes turn dark. Did I hit a nerve?
“Then let’s have some fun,” Mark says, and removes his jacket. When it falls from his back, I see the armory he has attached to his body. Four different calibers of pistol, all holstered with their clips undone for easy access. Some throwing knives and a couple of stars line the length of his belt. He has a belt pouch, which could contain any number of things, although my gut tells me it houses some form of poison.
But interestingly, the thing Mark reaches for is a Bowie knife. It’s wider than my dagger and longer too, with serrations along the tip to make the first pierce all the more painful.
Hand-to-hand it is, but I don’t reach for my dagger. I lift my hands into a boxing stance, keeping my palms open and loose for an easier opportunity to grab if I must. I crack my neck, side to side, and approach Mark.
“Turn around and go home, Mark,” I say, though it comes out as an order.
“You know I can’t,” he swipes at me. I step back, seeing the steel glint beneath the sun as his knife passes close.
“Why?” I throw a fist. He dips his head to the right, pre-emptively ducking the opposite way to avoid a left jab I don’t send.
“Apart from Matteo killing me?” Our eyes are locked together. Our bodies act out of years of muscle memory and training, rather than tactical thoughts.
“Yes?” I swing again. The same right, and Mark evades it with the same double bob.
Got you .
“Because we’re either in this together, or not at all.” He drives the serrated edge towards my chest. I slap his arm above the wrist and step aside.
“This is a silly thing to die over.” I wait for him to return to position.
I fake a right and Mark bobs his head. I send a left hook which connects squarely against his jaw as he tries to double once again. It stuns him, and makes him stumble backward, but I’ll give credit where it’s due. Not many people could take a blow like that and walk it off.
A single drop of red falls from his lip, and he charges at me like a bull, not holding back anymore. I evade the first few slices of his blade, by keeping my distance, but I can’t avoid him forever. The next time he charges at me with a pointy-edged stab, I throw myself into him. The blade narrowly misses something important, but cuts a hole into my favorite jacket. I wrap my arm around his and pin it with mine and my body. I halt my grip near his elbow, and grab the flimsy joint with my hand. I bend it back until Mark howls.
“Mother fucker,” he shouts.
“You’re not wrong,” I say, realizing that the only bad joke is the one you don’t try to tell. He won’t understand it, since the only three people who know/knew Fiametta is pregnant are the two of us and the now decaying false king.
I bend his elbow again, harder this time. I am testing it to breaking point, but the angle doesn’t allow it to go all the way. I drive my forehead into his nose once, twice and then a third time for good measure. He tumbles back and I let him go. He falls to the floor, and I follow.
I feel a sharp sting in my upper thigh as I straddle his body. I look down and see the Bowie’s handle sticking out of me, the same knife I thought he’d dropped after taking those severe blows to his skull.
My momentary lapse of concentration gives Mark the opportunity to throw a punch that both me and my shadow miss. It collides with my face, and I see stars. Another lands, and the universe unfolds behind my eyelids.
My turn.
I catch his arm as it travels toward me for a third strike. Mark is still too dazed to topple me over, but too strong to give up the fight, He tries to topple me though. I halt him by digging my knees into the crooks of his elbows, thus pinning his arms in place.
“You.” I hit him. “Should.” Again. “Have.” Three punches in quick concession. “Gone.” One more against his swollen, bloody face for good measure. “Home.”
He’s not dead. I don’t think I want him to be. But he isn’t moving.
I roll off of him, and stare at the knife’s handle again. It hurts now, but it’s going to be much worse when I pull it out.
Mark makes a shuffling sound, and I turn back to him. Too late, he’s already up and his hands are reaching for a pistol.
Fuck.
I grab the knife handle and pull it out like. I don’t scream, even though I really want to. Mark lifts his gun to my head, but I grab his hand. I push it just in time. He fires twice and deafens my left ear.
I use his arm as a rope, and pull myself back to him. Falling back on all my years of military training in close-quarters’ combat, I roll myself on top of Mark. My weight advantage topples him over again, but I don’t stop until I’m behind him, pulling his wrist to me the whole way. A sickening pop comes from his shoulder, and he bellows.
He tries to sit up, but I wrap my legs around his sides and pull him closer. He tries to squirm, but notices that his Bowie’s blade is approaching. With one arm out of commission, he catches my wrist in his good hand.
Mark says something, but I can’t hear it. I am still deaf from the gunshots, but after receiving the knife to the leg, I won’t let myself lose my focus again.
“Fuck, wait, stop.” I do hear that time, as I drive my second hand onto the handle of the Bowie knife, overpowering him.
If he’d have let go, it wouldn’t have happened so quickly. The blade would’ve sunk and pierced what it needed to. But he doesn’t, and so it goes slow. The knife inches its way deeper even as he tries to push me away. Finally, it is in till the hilt, and too deep for him to survive.
“It’s over, Mark. Don’t fight it.” I hold the handle, one-handed now. I swear I can feel his heart beating through the blade. “Go easy into the great beyond.”
Mark coughs and a first trickle of red trickles out of his mouth. He swallows, coughs again, and groans.
Just die already.
“You remember that kid...” He struggles to get the words out, heaving short, sharp breaths into his punctured lungs. “Fucking Dalton something.”
“Douglas Dalton,” I say. How could I forget him? He’s the boy who set me on the path I walk today.
“That’s right,” Mark wheezes. “ Double D like your momma’s tits .” He laughs and coughs, remembering how the other kids used to tease Douglas. I never took part in their bullying, and for some reason that made me his target. “For a bully, he sure got bullied a lot himself.”
I don’t interrupt him. If his dying wish is to reminisce, I’ll let him.
It’s the least I can do for my oldest friend.
“D... Di...” He chokes and sputters over every syllable. But no matter how hard it is, he fights to get it out. “Did you hear what happened with him in the end?”
“No.” I’ve never cared.
“His folks pulled the plug after his third year in that coma.” I still don’t care. “He should’ve known better than to fuck with you.” Mark swallows a mouthful of blood. “Him and me.”
“Should have.” I say it too late, not that there was convenient moment earlier. His body goes limp in my lap, and his eyes glass over with that empty stare I usually get such a kick out of seeing.
I choose not to watch his light go out. As much as it will irritate my shadow, Mark isn’t one of my victims. He was a friend, and I like to think he was a good one. But how can I say any different, when he’s my only reference?
I leave him there, in the field, staring at the sky where his soul drifted to, without my shadow to snatch it. I am hurt worse than I thought I’d be, and I limp to my car.
Inside, I grab a medical pack from the glove box and pour a healthy dose of antiseptic ointment onto the cut on my leg, then bandage it up. I douse my lip with the same ointment, though that’s out of habit rather than the fear that a fat lip will get infected. Finally, I plaster my knuckles where Mark’s teeth tore the skin.
One more. The BIG one. Then I can go home to her. To them.
It’s a pretty thought, although it clashes with my certainty that I won’t make it out of Matteo’s villa alive.