33. Paige
33
PAIGE
“Where are you taking me?” I ask for what feels like the millionth time. Not that I expect it'll work this time either, but I'm so frustrated, so freaking angry. I need some kind of response, something, anything.
Fabbri slaps me, knocking me sideways into the window, my cheek lighting up in pain like a firework went off in my face. It burns, and as much as I try to stop it, my eyes sting as tears come running. Alright, maybe that's not the response I needed.
“Shut the fuck up,” Fabbri says, not even looking at me. “I'm trying to think.”
We're both in the back, and my aunt is up front, driving. Fabbri's arm is bleeding all over his ruined suit.
“This backwater town is fucking useless. The cops don’t know their place and the bikers are just as miserable here as they are everywhere. Fucking vermin! The goddamn Outlaw Sons are going to fucking pay. Every single one of them. I'm going to fucking burn down that stupid church of theirs and then level the whole fucking compound to the ground.” He looks my way like he's going to hit me again, but just snorts angrily before he turns to look out the window.
“It’ll be fine, darling. I’ll take you somewhere they won’t think to look. We can stay there until things are safe,” Aunt Heather says soothingly.
No, I should just call her Heather now I guess. It sounds funny in my head, but she betrayed her dead husband for a mobster. I don’t need to be fake polite anymore.
“Where?” Stefano asks, and nobody slaps him for it.
“Walter’s little laundry place. It’s been closed for weeks now, hasn't it? It’s not far from here and there must be first aid kits or something in the building, right Paige?”
I ignore her.
“Paige?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I hate to be rude. Were you talking to me?” I snap. “You’re aware that Uncle Walter’s corpse was basically slow roasted in the loading bay for most of that time, right?” I watch the rearview mirror to see if she reacts. “Are you still sure you want to go there?”
Heather’s face goes a little green on the edges and her eyes go wide. “I…”
“Just drive there. It’s too late to change plans.” Stefano orders. “Don’t be squeamish. You knew what you were getting into.”
Her knuckles go white around the steering wheel. I have a feeling she might have jumped ship from Uncle Walter to a man she thought had a better chance of improving her lifestyle, but she hadn’t thought out the gory details.
“Just fucking drive.” Fabbri sounds so done with everything. He slumps into the seat, looking sullen as he looks out the window. Him being unhappy sure makes me feel a little better, but it doesn't exactly improve my situation, and I don't want him slapping me around any more than necessary.
But I still risk a question to my former aunt, because it's been eating me up inside since I realized that she's betrayed me and is on Fabbri's side. “How could you, Heather? I know Uncle Walter wasn’t exactly an amazing man, but he was your husband. You’ve been together for almost as long as I remember.”
Fabbri snorts like my question is irrelevant.
“Walter was a dead end,” Heather says cooly. “Did I want him dead? No, but I’ve spent the past twelve years having to practically spoon feed him every decent idea the man thought he came up with himself. He was going to turn down the money! Can you believe that! He thought it was too risky, but I contacted Stefano and made sure we wouldn’t be left behind when the Fabbris established themselves. But he couldn’t even do that right. I told him to keep the business running as usual but he was too greedy and short sighted to understand that nobody with the brains God gave a chicken would be fooled by the way he let things go.”
Fabbri snorts again.
She looks at me through the rear view mirror. “And then you had to come back. The ownership of the business should have gone to Walter. You don’t even want to work there!”
“That's gross, Heather. Why didn’t you just leave him if it was that bad?”
“Sunk cost fallacy, dear,” she says sadly. “Even when you know you’re in it, it’s hard to break out. And what was I supposed to do? Get a job?”
In another world, she would be a brilliant crime lord, but in this one she’s just a sad, greedy old bitch. She turns off the highway, and I start recognizing the neighborhood. We're almost at the warehouse. Territory I know well too. Maybe there'll be an opportunity. Fifteen minutes of silence later, we pull up to the delivery bay.
“Go open the door,” Fabbri orders, stepping out of the car and looking around like he’s in a dump. “I'll keep an eye on the girl.”
“Yes, darling.” Heather gets out of the car and starts to punch in the code. She turns around as the door starts to open, but never makes it back to the car.
Fabbri pulls out a gun and shoots her in the head.
I scream as her body drops to the ground, lifeless. My breakfast comes up and I puke on the backseat floor between my legs. “Wh—Why did you do that?”
“The woman had the loyalty of an alley cat,” he growls. “She was useful for a time, but a man wants to know that the woman he allows into his life has at least a small spark of attachment beyond what’s in it for her. I don’t need her anymore. Now get out of the car.”
I do, staring at my ex-aunt’s body and unhappy to actually be in agreement with Stefano Fabbri. “Please don't kill me.” I know there's no way I can change his mind if he's decided, but I have to say it. “Please.”
“Oh shut up. At least for now, I need you in case your overprotective brutes figure out where we are. Behave yourself and I'll let you go.”
I don't believe that for a second.
He walks like he has a stick up his butt, but he’s holding his left arm close to his body like it pains him to even move. If the gun wound is worse than he's been letting on, maybe there's an opportunity there. One thing's for sure. If I don't figure out a way to deal with him, I'm going to be as dead as Heather.
“I know you are familiar with this place. Show me the way inside so I can take care of this wound.” He’s ordering me around like I’m his employee, not a hostage.
I hurry to obey, wanting him to get used to the idea of me being meek and obedient. If any of the guys saw me, they’d laugh, but Stefano is so used to being obeyed that it probably doesn’t occur to him that I’m being strangely cooperative.
Inside the delivery bay, a rancid odor still clings to everything. I can’t imagine what this was like when they found my uncle. Stefano coughs, but he can’t cover his nose, hold the gun and baby his arm at the same time. I cover my face with the bottom of my shirt and take a little pleasure in knowing he’s stuck breathing it in. On the other end of the delivery bay, I enter the second code that unlocks the door into the laundry. The air is stale, but cleaner here.
“You know where the first aid kits are?”
I want to say no, but he won't believe me anyway. “Yeah. I do.”
“Good. Let's get them out.”
I take him to the break room and grab one of the kits from the cabinet next to the sink. Fabbri peels off his suit jacket, only putting the gun down for a moment. Definitely not long enough for me to get my hands on it. If I survive this, I’m going to set up regular shooting lessons with Bonnie.
“Do the best you can. I will shoot you if you make any move that I find suspicious, do you understand me? I find it useful to have you here, but I do not value that over my own safety.”
I nod. “I understand.”
It takes about twenty minutes to clean the wound up and get it bandaged. He probably should get stitches, but there are some butterfly strips in the kit and I do the best I can. Very briefly, I entertain the notion of jamming something hard into the wound and hoping it’ll hurt so much I can put him out of commission, but I can’t risk it. But I hate that I’m patching him up when I’d rather tear his throat out.
“Alright, you sit over there, while I try to find a way out of this fucking mess.” He points me at the chair across the room with his gun while he takes his phone out. He starts scrolling, and sometimes texting people, leaving me to think.
Not that I have a ton of ideas.
God, this is my home base. I practically grew up here, but it's not like it has secret doors to safe rooms or weapons or… well, anything. If he left me alone long enough I might be able to mix enough chemicals to gas him out, but he doesn’t look like he’s going to trust me out of his sight.
I have no idea how much time passes, it could be ten minutes or ten hours. I don't have a sense of time, but the silent waiting is interrupted by him standing up. “Fuck, I have to piss. Want to come hold it for me?”
My grimace must say it all. What a freaking pig. Apparently when he doesn’t have an audience to perform for, he isn’t as worried about sounding superior.
“Didn't think so.” He looks around in the cabinet I got the first aid kit from, and pulls out a container of zip ties. We use them to bundle hangers sometimes, or just to keep things in place. Except this time, I'm guessing I'm the one being kept in place. He grins. “Perfect. Arms on the armrests.”
This keeps going from bad to worse. It only takes him a couple of moments to attach my wrists to the armrests and my ankles to the chair legs. I try to struggle against them, but they're tight and refusing to budge.
He pats me on the head. “Don't go running off. Where's the head?”
“Down the hall, second on the left.”
“Good girl. Maybe you aren’t as unpleasant as your aunt.” The way he says good girl sends chills slithering around my spine, not like when Crank says it. “Don't go anywhere.” He laughs as he walks off.
Forgetting that he's left his phone on the desk. And it's still unlocked from him using it, so if I'm quick…
I'm not going to get another opportunity like this. I can't get out of the chair, but the chair isn't heavy. It's going to be noisy, but can I do it? Obviously, I can't run away like this, but I can kind of hop it, or shuffle it forwards.
I have to try.