Chapter Twelve
BECCA
B obby Sartorre’s glassy-eyed stare makes me feel like an exhibit at a zoo.
“Do I know you?”
He blinks, the fog lifting. “My apologies. You look just like my late niece. The resemblance…” He runs a shaking hand down the front of his shirt as he straightens. “It’s uncanny.”
Not my first time hearing that, but okay.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“ Grazie . And you are…?”
“Becca,” I say, extending my hand with a smile. “What was your niece’s name?”
He takes my hand. “Victoria.”
I stiffen, my smile dropping. “Victoria Fiero?”
Bobby pinches his eyebrows together and opens his mouth to say something, only for his entire demeanor to shift as he turns toward the entrance. Focusing through the aura of lights crowding my vision, I see Leo come barreling through the door, hands fisted.
“ Che circolo vizioso del male ,” Bobby spits out, turning to me with eyes that are now hard and cold. “You’re the replacement.” He drops my hand as if it burned him. “I should’ve known.”
I push my chair back and stand on unsteady legs. “With all due respect, Mr. Sartorre, you know nothing about me.”
His laugh is sharp enough to shave steel. “I know all I need to.”
My unease tightens to a righteous knot. “I don’t know what you think you know, but allow me to educate you.
” I lift my chin. “I’m no one’s replacement.
Now, if you’d like to have a civilized conversation, I’d be happy to elaborate.
Otherwise, I suggest you check that unwarranted aggression and put that energy into something more productive. ”
He stares at me like he’s trying to chisel into my mind. Eventually, he folds his heavily tattooed arms across his chest and lets out a clipped huff. “I can see why Marchesi chose you.”
“So you know my husband well?” I ask, my balance stabling. Leo is still standing by the door fuming like a firework lit on the wrong end, but I don’t care. I’m not wasting this opportunity.
“We have mutual acquaintances.”
“Does he come here a lot?”
“Occasionally.”
Jesus. It’s like trying to swim in an empty pool.
“For what?” I prod. “Meals? A payout, perhaps?”
“Look, I know what you’re trying to do, and while I applaud the effort, it won’t work. If you want to know the business between your husband and me, talk to him.”
I glance over his head to where Leo has his cell phone in his hand and a “game set match” look plastered across his face.
Shit. He’s calling Gianni.
I must look like a panicked kid who dropped her ice cream cone because Bobby holds up his hand, stopping my protest before it even gets off the ground. “That being said, I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t warn you…”
“I don’t need?—”
“The Marchesis are a cancer,” he says, overriding me.
“They’ll take everything from you, and when you’re no longer useful, they’ll destroy what’s left.
” Pulling a notepad and a pen out of his apron, he scribbles on the back of an order ticket and hands it to me.
“You seem like you have an honest soul, Becca. I pray the ring on your finger doesn’t stain it. ”
Tossing one last heated stare toward Leo, he disappears through the swinging doors, leaving me more confused than when I walked in. I hear the distinct sound of Leo’s shoes click-clacking across the floor as I glance down at the paper in my hand.
Call if you ever need help.
555-9490
I crumple it in my hand and shove it in my pocket seconds before Leo takes a firm hold of my arm and steers me out the front door.
The traffic is heavier on our way back to Montclair.
Leo had a “gut feeling that wouldn’t go away,” so instead of taking the Garden State Parkway, we tacked on an extra twenty minutes by taking the less convenient and more congested highway.
Cars crowd us, crossing lanes and weaving around each other just to gain another six inches.
Leo is cursing and engaging in one-man road rage, but all I can focus on is Bobby’s warning.
“The Marchesis are a cancer. They’ll take everything from you, and when you’re no longer useful, they’ll destroy what’s left.”
It seems like every hour brings another bombshell.
My stomach turns at the thought of confronting Gianni about his father’s side business, but I refuse to just buy a gun and put up a wall.
A storm doesn’t disappear just because you close your eyes.
I have to face it head-on or risk getting swept away.
That starts with leveling with my husband.
I’m not sure two hours offered enough of a buffer for calm and rational conversation to begin with, and with Leo being a dirty snitch, the odds are even lower. The hostile tension he carried out of the restaurant was thick enough to slice.
I lean my head against the glass of the rear passenger side window and try not to think about it, only for Leo to cut a hard right, then a rapid left, slinging me away from and then straight into the glass with a skull-crushing thud.
“Sorry about that,” he calls out from the front seat, his gaze bouncing between the rearview mirror and the road. “You okay back there?”
“Yeah.” I straighten my glasses, wincing as my fingers brush my temple. “Did I miss the part where we joined the Indy 500?”
His laugh is way too loud for a joke that isn’t that funny. “Nah, just typical Jersey traffic.” The panicked way he keeps looking in the rearview mirror says differently.
“Please don’t lie to me.”
He meets my stare and draws in a deep breath. “Okay, don’t freak out, but I think we’re being followed.”
We’re what ?” I twist around, the shoulder strap of my seatbelt slipping off as I crane my neck toward the back window. “Where? Which car?”
“Glad you didn’t freak out.”
I toss a flat stare at him over my shoulder. “You can’t say something like that and expect me not to react. Besides, these windows are beyond illegally tinted. No one saw me.” I whip back around, scrutinizing the trail of impatient drivers. “I don’t see anyone tailing us.”
“That’s because they’re on your left.”
I peer out the side window. “The red minivan?”
“One lane over. The white Camry.”
It takes half a second to locate the car he’s referring to.
It’s running about five miles per hour less than us, enough to keep up while staying out of direct sight.
I can tell a man is behind the wheel, but between the Benz’s heavy tint and the glare of headlights off my glasses, that’s pretty much it. “Are you sure?”
There’s more hope hanging on those words than I care to admit.
While there’s nothing suspicious about the car or the man, I can’t shake the growing unease that’s lingered all week.
Something feels off—like the eerie calm of a summer day moments before an EF5 tornado wipes out an entire civilization.
“No,” he admits crisply. “Which is why I didn’t want to say anything.
The guy mimicked a few lane changes and rode my ass a little too close for my liking.
It could be a simple case of shitty driving, but I enjoy having kneecaps, so I’m not sticking around to find out.
” His eyes shift back to the mirror. “Fix your seatbelt.”
“Huh?” I glance down to find my shoulder strap still hanging loose under my elbow and barely slip it back on just as Leo slams on the gas, launching the car into a G-force torpedo. Cutting a sharp right, he threads the car between two SUVs and skids onto the exit.
My brain is still sloshing around in my skull when he lets out another heated string of curses, drawing my attention over my shoulder moments before I see the white Camry cross three lanes of traffic, plowing into two cars as he speeds off the exit.
I scream as he slams into the back of us, sending my head snapping forward like a slingshot.
“Shit! You okay, Mrs. Marchesi?”
“I think so.” I palm the back of my neck, my vision hazy. “Why is he doing this?”
“Hard to say,” he says, his razored glare bouncing from the road to the mirror as he takes two more sharp turns. “Just try to stay calm. This happens all the time.”
He’s a terrible liar. The thin line of sweat beading across his forehead tells me this is anything but normal. I’ve lost count of how many side roads we’ve taken trying to lose this guy. Nothing is working. A sick feeling settles in the pit of my stomach.
What if I brought this on myself by going behind Gianni’s back?
“Fuck. Get down!”
Everything moves in slow motion. I turn to find the white car inches beside us as Leo pulls a gun and fires a bullet through the passenger side window. Horns blare as the Camry swerves wide, only immediately to close back in.
“I said, get down!”
My head wobbles in a useless nod as I bend forward, then freeze when, out of the corner of my eye, I see the man in the white car turn toward me and flash a chilling smile.
Instantly, I’m back in that living room.
Red hair.
I smell the coppery scent of my mother’s blood in the air.
Small eyes.
I feel it, warm and wet under my palms and knees.
Big teeth.
I hear his Irish brogue taunting me.
“ Bullets and blades, Rebecca. The first shot punishes the sinner, but it’s the second that pays the sin .”
I glance down at my hands. They’re red. I look at my feet. They’ re redder.
Dark red.
All red.
Forever red.
As I disassociate behind a thick frame of glass, the Camry slams into the side of us, sending us spinning in an ear-splitting crunch of metal. I scream, white hot pain tearing through my shoulder as another direct hit turns my world upside down.
Literally.
Up. Down.
Over. Under.
Again and again, until suddenly, it all stops, and everything becomes eerily quiet.
I tell my eyes to open, but they don’t. I command my limbs to move, but they refuse. My brain feels so mushy I can’t decide if I’m unconscious or dead. However, a faint wail of sirens and the muted whispers of a gathering crowd let me know I’m very much alive.
“Leo,” I wheeze, the effort sending me into a violent coughing fit that fills my mouth with a familiar, metallic taste. “Leo, can you hear me?” Silence. “Help is coming. I hear ambulances, so hang on, okay?”
Silence.
A cold dread sweeps across me.
“Leo?”
“Ma’am? Ma’am, can you hear me?”
This time, my eyes open, and I turn my head toward the blurry face of a man with closely cropped brown hair and a toothpaste-commercial smile. I blink, but without my glasses, the haze refuses to lift. Fighting the freight train barreling through my head, I force a nod.
“Good. My name is Jason. I’m a medic, and I’m going to help you. Can you tell me your name?”
“Becca,” I rasp, the rattle in my chest getting louder .
“Becca, what ?”
Shit.
In Providence, the name Reese opened doors and cut lines. But I’m not a police chief’s daughter here. I’m a mob boss’s wife and a societal pariah. Instead of special treatment, there’s a real risk of him leaving me here to die.
I lick my lips, the name “Brennan” right there on my tongue. But just as I’m about to say it, I hear the whisper of my wedding vows in my head.
“I once told you that in order to change the person you are, you have to remove the anchors holding you to the person you were. I’m tossing all my anchors here, Gianni…”
But I didn’t. For three weeks, I’ve been clinging to an identity that’s no longer mine, while demanding he shed skin I’m not willing to expose.
How can I give him a future when I’m chained to the past?
Simple . I can’t. So, untying the last knot, I toss my final anchor.
“Becca Marchesi.”
I watch the smile fade from his face...
Then everything goes dark.