10. Eli
10
ELI
I put the gas pedal to the floor. My Bentley will go fast, but I really wish I had some other car, something built for speed instead of comfort. I weave in and out of traffic as I cross Montcove toward the Carbone estate. I’ll be lucky if Uncle Gianni doesn’t shoot me where I stand when I tell him about this. I ignore the honks of car horns as I barrel my way through the city streets. No cops are out, not that I’m surprised. I imagine they’re all still down at the docks.
Fucking Noah. I can’t believe he would do this to me. I didn’t even tell him where the deal was happening. He must have found out some other way and ratted me out. I’m so fucking stupid. I can’t believe I fell for all his bullshit. I even showed him my apartment. My fucking apartment, the one thing I kept secret from everyone. I thought he was fucking safe. I thought he was genuine, but this whole time it was just a bullshit ploy to get information about my fucking family. I launch my fist into the steering wheel, busting my knuckles and savoring the pain.
My mind flashes back to Noah, to our time together, the way he turned pain into the ultimate pleasure. I hit the steering wheel again and roar. How could he do this? How could someone be so goddamn fake? How could he have convinced me that he wasn’t? A split second of doubt creeps into my mind, but I shut it down. He lied. He fucking lied to my face, over and over again. Somehow he thinks he’s the fucking “good guy.” Such ridiculous bullshit. I love him. No, no, I loved him. That’s been replaced with hate. That fucking bastard ruined me.
I barely even register where I am when I pull into the circular drive of the Carbone estate. I skid to a stop in front of the main doors and get out. When I try to stand up, I wrench my shoulder and yell a few colorful expletives as I slam the door shut. I storm into the grand entryway and up the stairs toward my uncle’s office. I’m sure after the shit-show at the docks he’s up there trying to do some damage control.
I burst through the door to find my uncle and my father in deep discussion at his desk, and they both look up at me in shock.
“What are you doing here?” my father blurts out.
“What the fuck happened out there?” I yell, and gesture toward my injured shoulder.
“We were told you were killed,” Uncle Gianni says, his eyes narrowing on me.
“Obviously not.” I glare back and forth between the two of them. They both eye me warily. They definitely don’t seem relieved that I’m alive. Suspicion rises in my blood as I stomp up to the desk. Uncle Gianni has a video conference up on his computer, and the person on the screen is none other than the Montcove Chief of Police.
“What the fuck is going on?” I shout.
“Nothing to bother yourself with,” Uncle Gianni says. “You need to rest. Why don’t you go back to your room?”
“No!” My eyes dart back and forth between the two men and the screen. “What happened?”
“Just tell him,” the face on the screen says. “If he managed to survive this, he’ll make a great asset.”
“Asset?” I bark. “What are you talking about?”
“No, he’s compromised,” Gianni says to the screen. The police chief shrugs and remains quiet. “Mario, take care of this.” Gianni gestures toward me.
“I want to know what happened! Why was I almost killed? Why are you talking with the Chief?” I shout, but my father stands up and takes my arm. I snatch it away, but my father grips my injured shoulder, sending blinding bolts of pain through me.
“Come with me, son. I’ll explain,” he says. I glare at my uncle for a second, but then willingly go with my father. He stays silent as we walk out of the estate and toward my father’s sedan. My body feels weak and heavy as I drop into the passenger seat and lay my head back, closing my eyes.
“You weren’t supposed to survive,” my father says after a painfully long silence. I try to open my eyes, but the world is swimming and I feel like I’m going to be sick.
“What?” I manage to gasp. We should already be back at my father’s part of the estate. “Where are we going?”
“To tie up loose ends,” he says. I lay my head back against the headrest again and start to slip from consciousness. I fight to stay awake, but I can’t. Darkness swallows me.
When I open my eyes again we’re sitting at the docks. My father is still in the driver’s seat, only now he’s holding a 9mm pistol in his lap. His expression is pained, and my heart starts pounding.
“What the hell is going on?” I ask.
“I guess your undercover friend came clean, since you came back to us,” my father says without looking at me. I narrow my eyes at him, but I don’t answer. They know about Noah? “I wish this could be different, Eli. You had so much potential.”
“What? You wish what was different?” I ask. I start reaching for the handle, but my father turns to me.
“You weren’t supposed to survive,” he says again.
“Survive what?”
“We had a fucking deal, Eli,” my father says, and my chest constricts. I know I won’t like where this ends. “We were working with the Chief of Police to bring down the Russians. They’ve been shorting us for a while now, and we wanted to send them a message.”
“What does that have to do with me?” I ask, inching closer to the door.
“You did exactly what you were supposed to do. You lead the narc right to the weapons, but you were supposed to die. If you survive, then the Russians will know we were working with the cops.”
I shake my head as the pieces fall into place. They weren’t worried about Noah being undercover; they were worried that I’d figure it out before they could pull off this bullshit raid.
“So you have the cops doing your dirty work,” I whisper. I shift in my seat. “So what? I’m just collateral damage?”
“Yes,” my father says, and looks back down at the gun in his lap.
“You’re willing to kill your own son for a business deal?”
“It’s more than that,” he says as he finally looks at me, his eyes dark and calculating. “This raid secured much more than just getting the attention of the Russians. Now that they know how hot the market is they’ll be willing to pay much steeper prices for our products, most of which are supplied by the PD. It also secures the Chief’s alliance with us. We won’t have to bother with keeping our heads down if the cops won’t touch us.”
“And you get all this for the low, low, price of Eli Carbone,” I growl. Suddenly, I wish Noah was here. It looks like he was just as much a pawn in all of this as I was. The thought of a cabin in California suddenly feels very enticing.
“I didn’t want it to be this way,” my father says, and it almost seems like genuine pain in his voice. I pull in a deep breath. Noah lied to me, my own family used me as an expendable playing chip, and my whole world is crumbling around me. I lean back in resignation. This is it. This is the end.
“Fucking get it over with, then,” I say, and close my eyes.
“Get out of the car,” my father says. I should have expected that. He wouldn’t want to have to clean my blood out of his fucking car. I do as he says. There’s really no point in fighting anymore.
He gets out behind me and trains the gun on my back. I lift my good hand into the air and walk toward the waterfront. I step up to the edge and close my eyes, waiting to welcome the darkness.
I hear a loud pop and flinch, but the anticipated pain doesn’t come. I open my eyes when I hear a heavy splash and look down to see a body floating on the water…my father’s body. I gulp for air as I look around. A man stumbles out from behind a cargo trailer and trains an unsteady weapon on me.
“Where’s Sorrento?” the man growls at me. His clothes are torn and bloody, and he looks like he’s taken more than one gunshot. I narrow my eyes at him as he stumbles toward me. I take a few tentative steps away from the water’s edge. “Don’t move or you’re next,” the man gasps, but he can barely stand.
“I don’t know where he is. Who are you?” I ask, keeping my hand in the air. I take a few more steps, distancing myself from the black water.
“I’m his fucking handler, the guy he’s supposed to be working for,” the man says.
I blink a few times in confusion.
“You.” He stumbles and drops to one knee. “You fucked up everything. He actually called you ‘innocent,’ the fucking halfwit.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say as I put more distance between us.
“He blew the whole damn operation,” the man continues, though I think he’s talking more to himself than me. “I guess you know him as Noah Andriotta.” I narrow my eyes. “I had all the fucking Carbones dead to rights. You were all going down, but he had to go and catch feelings for a fucking thug!”
He pulls the trigger and I drop to the ground, my injured shoulder screaming. He misses three shots before the gun starts clicking. The man drops to his hands and knees and tries to fumble around in his pockets for a new clip, and I take the opportunity to run. I scramble to my feet and zigzag through the cargo trailers until he’s lost behind me. I can hear him shouting incoherently, but I keep moving, even though I have no idea where I’m going.
When I finally get my bearings, I realize that my apartment is close by. I have no idea if it’s safe anymore, but it’s the only place I can go right now. I quickly get inside and bolt up the stairs until I’m safely locked behind the door. I pull a picture off the wall to expose a small safe, the only secret I have left. I pull out a few stacks of cash and the keys to a car that’s been parked in the garage for months. It might not even start, but I have to run. I put it all into a small bag and look around, then grab a couple changes of clothes and shove them into the bag, too.
Dizziness rushes over me, so I sit down on the bed, then fall down onto it. The pillows still smell like Noah, and emotion overwhelms me. Tears flood my eyes as I bury my face in Noah’s scent. This is all too much. I can’t even bring myself to believe it’s worth the hassle to run. The Carbones will never stop looking for me, and neither will the police. Noah is gone, my father is dead, and my uncle is a heartless bastard. Nothing is as it should be. The world has shattered and I don’t know why I should bother picking up the pieces.
Pain stabs at my shoulder as I cry into the pillow. Even though I know he’s a lying asshole, I’d give anything for Noah to be here with me right now. Darkness starts to close in around the edges of my vision, and I know I won’t be awake much longer. If I’m lucky I won’t wake up at all. The dark finally envelops me completely, and I fall into a dreamless sleep.
* * *
I wake up in the morning, or at least I think it’s morning. Everything hurts. I reach into my pocket for the pills that the doctor gave me before I left the hospital and take three, washing them down with water from the sink. Now that I’ve slept, I can think a little more clearly, but my situation doesn’t look any more hopeful.
I start piecing everything together. I know that Noah was a fucking cop, and I know that my father and uncle set me up to fail and die. Now my father’s dead, Noah’s handler is probably dead, and Noah is missing. I grab my phone to check my messages. I shouldn’t be surprised that he hasn’t tried to contact me, but my heart still sinks even farther.
I roll off the bed and head for the shower. This whole damn apartment is full of memories. I don’t even know what I would say to Noah if he did try to contact me. I don’t think this is something we can get past. Even if I gave him the chance to explain, how could I ever trust him again?
Suddenly, things start to make sense. All the times I thought I was being selfish when Noah was just feeling some sort of way about lying to me. When Noah was having a bad day it wasn’t because of school or family, it was because he was arguing with his fucking handler . The man last night said something about Noah telling him I was innocent. I don’t even know what that means. My chest constricts as I turn the shower on, and flashes of Noah threaten to blind me. How many hours did we spend together in this apartment?
I shut off the water as tears threaten to overwhelm me again. I have no idea what to do next. It almost seems like the best thing would be just to wait here until someone finds and kills me. None of it matters anyway. I wanted out of the family, and now I’ve gotten my way. Be careful what you wish for and all that. As I begin to pull my clothes on I hear a soft tapping on the door and my breath stills in my lungs. I reach into the drawer of my nightstand and pull out my .45. Thankfully I left it here before the raid, something I realize was incredibly stupid in hindsight.
The tapping starts on the door again, and I pad over toward it in my bare feet. I tiptoe up to peer through the peephole, and my heart comes to a complete stop in my chest. I take a deep breath and yank open the door. I grab Noah by the shirt, throw him onto the floor, and slam the door shut behind me, locking the deadbolt before training the pistol on Noah as he scrambles to regain his footing.
I expect him to look angry or betrayed, anything other than the pure guilt and agony I see in his eyes. My heart twists as I look at him, and I have to remind myself that he’s a fucking liar.
“What are you doing here?” I hiss at him. He raises his hands as he gets to his feet.
“I didn’t…I didn’t think you’d be here, but I wanted to make sure you knew that this place wasn’t safe anymore,” Noah says, and I lower the pistol slightly.
“Yeah, thanks for that,” I snap, and he winces. I immediately feel bad, but I shove the feeling aside. He deserves the pain.
“Rossi’s dead,” he says, and I guess that’s supposed to mean something to me. “He was my handler and he’s told the entire department that I’ve turned. I’m not safe here anymore.”
“Join the fucking club,” I say, and his eyes narrow. “I met your fucking handler last night. I guess I should thank him.”
“For what?” Noah asks.
“He claims you ruined everything, and I’m inclined to agree,” I say, lowering the gun. Noah’s obviously not a threat, at least not physically. He takes a step toward me, but I shake my head and he stops.
“Eli, I’m sorry,” Noah says. Tears sting my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. I won’t let him see what he’s done to me.
“Fucking save it, Noah,” I bark. “It’s not like I can believe you. Everything you’ve ever said to me was a lie.”
“Not everything,” Noah whispers as he looks at the floor. I’m not falling for it, though.
“You should be proud. Your handler killed Mario Carbone last night,” I say instead.
“What?” Noah’s eyes shoot to mine, searching for something.
“Yeah, I’m supposed to be dead, and the only safe place for me in this fucking city has been compromised thanks to you, so save your fucking apologies for someone who gives a shit.”
“I tried to stop him,” Noah says, his gaze turning back to the floor. He takes a step forward and God help me, I let him. “I tried to stop all of this. I tried to tell you, I swear.”
God, I want to believe him. I want to believe him so bad I almost do. Instead I say, “Fuck you, Noah,” and he flinches like I struck him.
“Eli, I really do love you,” Noah whispers, and my throat tightens.
“Fuck you! No you don’t! It was all a lie!” My voice breaks. Tears start to slide down my cheeks, and I hate Noah even more.
“No it wasn’t,” Noah whispers, and I take a step closer to him. Tears stream down his face, though they’re silent. “Eli, I fell in love with you, hard,” he continues, and I fight to keep the sobs at bay. “I fucked up, I know I did. I should never have been in this goddamned position in the first place. I don’t know how I could ever make it up to you, but I swear, I fucking swear that I’ll spend the rest of my life trying, whether you want me to or not.”
I drop the gun to my side and collapse onto one of the barstools in the kitchenette. How can I love this man so much? Even after all he’s done, I just want to run into his arms and tell him everything’s okay, but I can’t. That would be beyond stupid. I want to tell him that we can figure it out. I want to tell him that I love him and I always will. But I don’t.
“Get out,” I hiss at him as I gasp for air.
“Eli, please,” Noah begs as he takes another step toward me. He reaches out a hand, but I slap it away. I know I’ll melt completely if he touches me.
“Get out,” I say again, this time with a bit more strength.
“It’s not safe here,” Noah says, and I launch myself from the stool until I’m only inches from his face. His eyes are dark and pained. I can smell the tears on his cheeks, but he doesn’t move.
“Get. Out,” I say slowly, shoving every ounce of anger and menace into my voice as possible. I need him to go before I do something stupid…like forgive him.
“Okay,” he says, dropping his gaze. Something in me cracks, but I stand firm. He drops something onto the counter but I ignore it, waiting for him to walk out the door. He pauses once he turns the handle, but I don’t move. I don’t even breathe. He looks back at me one last time before he pushes through the door and closes it behind him.
I collapse onto the barstool once again and finally look at what he dropped on the counter. It’s a hotel keycard for the motel a few blocks away with a room number written on it. I don’t know what he’s playing at, but there’s no way I’m going to allow him to lead me into another trap.
I’m not that fucking stupid, am I?