Chapter 3 #2
“I bet you do,” he growled. He cocked the Beretta and aimed it at my head. “How about you get out of this fuckin’ car, real slow, with our hands on top of your head?”
“Tony, I swear. I’m just here ‘cause Carmine and Bobby called me,” I pleaded, as I got out, putting my arms up.
I had a gun in a holster under my jacket, another in my ankle holster, and two knives, but I didn’t think I was going to need to whip them out.
I wasn’t worried about Tony’s gun, or his swollen, gym rat body.
Tony got out and got behind me. He clamped his big, meaty arm across my neck and jabbed the gun barrel up under my chin. “Nice cologne, fuckboy,” he hissed into my ear. “Let’s go see who’s inside the house. And if I see any fuckin’ thing I don’t like, I’m shooting your face off.”
“Got it.” I made my voice appropriately strangled and shaky.
We shuffled across the pavement stones, out of sync. Tony shoved me ahead of him, kicking the back of my heels with every step. “Yo!” he bellowed. “Who’s in there? Anyone? I’m home! Where is everyone?”
No one answered. No one opened the door.
Seconds ticked by. The gun barrel pressed harder. “Vinny,” he said. “If it turns out you fucked me, I will shoot you. But not before I break all your bones, and stomp your junk into paste. We real clear?”
“Yeah, boss,” I assured him, my voice choked. “Real clear.”
“Okay then, fuckboy. Open the door.”
I did, and he shoved me into the foyer, holding me like a shield. The room was big and garish, lots of gilding, a double staircase, a massive crystal chandelier.
“Papa!” he yelled. “Where’s my father? Where the fuck is everybody?”
“I swear I don’t know,” I said.” But he’s been holding the war meetings in the gold room. Let’s look there. The girls should be in the pool house. Carmine said he’d tell ‘em to wait for you there.”
I felt the indecision in his body, the way his arm tightened on my throat. It was almost too much for me, not to give into instinct, free myself with a few swift, brutal moves, and end this guy. Cave in his head. Rip out his throat.
Stick to the plan.
Tony jerked us around toward the library, thank God. I had counted on him being contrary to any suggestion made by Vinny, the ass-faced pretty boy.
We stopped at the big mahogany my door with its stained and beveled glass inserts. Tony was panting, on the back of my neck. “Open the door, fuckwad.”
I turned the big knob, and let Tony herd me into the big room.
The door slammed shut behind us. Tony spun around with a shout, bringing the gun up at the people he saw. Click…click…click. The gun wouldn’t fire.
I took advantage of that instant of shocked disbelief, and twisted, jerking out of his grip.
I lunged back, leaving Tony stumbling in an unsteady circle, eyes wide in panic as he saw the people arrayed before him.
People I had carefully picked out because I thought they could handle it, and follow the strict rules that I had set.
Joe Sciancalepore, the burly building contractor, and Mrs. S, his elderly mother, plus four others.
There was the big, grim-faced Tommy Harding, whose sixteen-year-old daughter had been raped at one of Tony’s clubs.
She’d begun doing pills, ending with a fentanyl overdose a few years ago.
Sam Withers, a horse breeder whose prize stallion had been horribly butchered in front of him, as punishment for some infraction or other.
Calvin Crane, the father of a man who had been late on his protection payments.
Calvin’s son had died of toxic smoke inhalation when his auto-body shop was torched.
Roxana Wilding, a tough bartender in her late thirties whose sister had been pressured into prostitution, and then murdered by a client.
These disasters were all Tony’s doing. Kat’s sisters weren’t Tony’s only victims. There was a lot of payback to be dealt out, and these people were down for it.
And they were just the tip of the iceberg. I could have made the mansion overflow with angry victims. I’d chosen a sparing representative handful of them.
“What the fuck is this?” Tony demanded. “Who are these freaks?”
“You don’t recognize us?” Mrs. S.’s voice was so hard, I almost didn’t recognize it.
“Aww. You cut me to the heart. Remember all that ossobuco I made for you? The ragu Genovese? The bollito? Then remember my grandson Joey, and his kneecaps, just ‘cause he wouldn’t throw that fight for you? Little shrimp-dick Tony.”
“Don’t call me that, you dirty old bitch,” he snarled, but he shrank back as she lifted a baseball bat.
“Yeah,” she said thickly. “Recognize me now, pig?”
Tony’s eyes darted from one person to another as they closed in around him, backed up by me and the Drakes, the four of us holding guns on him. He lunged toward Mrs. S., but stopped, recoiling, as Amos aimed at his chest.
“Don’t even think about it, asshole,” Amos said.
“Where the fuck is my father?” he yelled. “This is his house! You’re all trespassing!”
Mrs. S. let out a bark of laughter. “Like you trespassed in Joey’s gym the night you smashed his knees?”
“Where is my father?” The pitch of Tony’s voice was rising.
“Big Tony’s dead, cazzone,” Joe Sciancalepore said.
“Last night, up in Troy. Pavel’s people killed him, with Lazzaro Marzocca’s crew.
He ripped someone off, they’re saying. Messed with the wrong guy.
It was on the news when we was coming down here.
They’re all dead. You’re all alone, Tony. How does it feel?”
I could see calculations crunching in Tony’s head. Who to hurt first, to get his break and run. I kept my gun trained on him. My place was by the door, keeping things under control. Making sure they didn’t kill him. That Tony did not hurt them.
These people had responded to my discreet invitation with wild enthusiasm.
They craved payback, and they had willingly taken on the legal risks, but I never wanted it to come to that. They had all suffered enough. Like Kat had.
Tony’s nerve broke. He slung his useless gun at my head.
I ducked, and it hit the beveled glass panes in the door.
There was a shattering, a tinkling of broken glass.
He made a break for the door, aiming a vicious kick at Joe’s knee, but jerked back as Amos brandished his SIG.
Then he stumbled over the baseball bat Mrs. S.
stuck between his legs. “For Joey!” she howled
Tony thudded to one knee. Roxanne surged forward and kneed him in the face, knocking him onto his back. Blood flooded from his nose. “For Candace,” she said.
The whole group piled on, yelling, screaming, punching, kicking.
I heard grunts, howls from Tony, but could barely see him beneath the thrashing mass of people on the ground.
Holy fuck, what had I unleashed? I forced myself to remember Kat’s sisters.
How many people had suffered and died for this guy’s cruelty.
I waited for as long as I dared, but when Tony’s thrashing began to flag, I stepped in. “Enough,” I said. “Everyone! Get back.”
But Mrs. S. didn’t listen. She lifted her baseball bat. “This one’s for Raffi!” she shrieked, and whipped it down, onto the back of Tony’s neck.
Crunch. Tony whimpered, and went still.
I grabbed Mrs. S. before she could hit him again. “Enough,” I said sharply. “We’re done. Understand? Calm down. We’re all done. It’s enough.”
Mrs. S staggered back, wiping sweat off her forehead as she stared down at Tony. Her eyes were wet, her mascara running. “Nah,” she said. “It ain’t enough. It won’t ever be enough. Not for Joey. Not for Raffi.” She looked up at me, blinking frantically. “But it’s better than nothing.”
It took some creative people management to get the shocked, overwhelmed people loaded into the Drakes’ SUVs to be taken home.
I’d assumed that none of them would be fit to drive, except for maybe Tommy Harding.
From his grim, purposeful expression, I guessed he was ex-military, probably a combat veteran.
Took one to know one. The others were all wrecked.
I was already doubting myself. It was a dangerous thing I’d done. In the effort to give closure and justice, maybe I’d injured those people still more, and given them guilt, trauma, and toxic nightmares to add to their grief and anger.
But Joe shook my hand hard, and thanked me, voice shaking.
Mrs. S. grabbed me into a one-armed hug, since the baseball bat was still clutched in her plump, be-ringed hand.
She gave me an overpowering nose-full of hairspray, stress sweat, and White Shoulders.
“You’re a good boy,” she told me. “You take care of your business. Franci found herself a keeper. We flattened that dirty sumbitch but good.”
After the cars had gone, I texted Cade back in Seattle, and told him to use an untraceable burner and make the nine-one-one call, so Tony could be found and taken to the nearest hospital with an ICU unit.
After that, it was all up to chance.
What mattered now was how Kat felt when she found out. I hoped I hadn’t done anything unforgivable. I had definitely behaved in a sneaky, Machiavellian way.
But damn. There were only so many times a guy could apologize for being what he was.
Kat
I was unpacking from the second tournament when my smartphone buzzed from the bed. Freya was the name on the display. I loved Freya. She was Ethan’s sister. Tough, smart and badass. I hit ‘talk.’ “Frey, what’s up?”
There as a brief, but ominous silence. “You haven’t heard?”
Dread slammed into me. “Heard what? Is Ethan okay? Holly? What the hell are you talking about? Is anyone hurt?”
“No, no. Don’t worry, we’re all good. Are you near a TV?”
“Sure, but who cares about TV? Just tell me already!”
“Turn it on to CNN,” Frey said. “They’re talking about it now.”
I grabbed the remote, hit the button. A well-known newsman was speaking, his brow furrowed in concern.
“…brutal mafia turf war. The death toll has risen to sixteen, since some men who were brought to local hospitals have died of their injuries. There are no survivors of the massacre, and the majority of the deceased were known associates of a prominent New Jersey crime family, the Petruzzis. One of the first victims identified was, in fact, seventy-nine-year-old Anthony Petruzzi, Sr., the leader of the crime syndicate. The police investigation is ongoing, and there does not appear to be danger to the public at this time. The attack took place at one of Anthony Petruzzi’s properties near Troy, in upstate New York. More on this at six.”
The man’s voice faded into a babble as he began talking of something else.
“Ethan.” His name came out of my mouth, but I didn’t recognize my own voice. “This was Ethan’s doing.”
“They’re saying it was a turf war,” Freya said.
“It happened in the middle of the night, outside Troy. Ethan was in New York City last night. I video-called him there. I saw his surroundings. I saw Darius and Remy in the call, too. He was at his Central Park West penthouse, Kat, at the time this thing happened. It takes almost three hours to drive to Troy. He did not participate in this. I promise you that.”
“I don’t believe it,” I said. “He hares off to the East Coast on some mysterious business that he won’t explain, schedules it when he knows I can’t come with him because of the tournaments—”
“Oh, come on. This was random. He isn’t that convoluted,” Freya scoffed.
“I told him not to get mixed up in it. He promised he wouldn’t. Damn him.”
“Kat.” Freya’s voice was worried. “Please. Don’t do anything impulsive—”
“He lied, Frey! Right to my face!”
“I wouldn’t fly off the handle before you get the whole story straight from him,” Freya urged. “I’d be the first to call that dude a meddling control freak, but remember…he adores you. And he wants you to be free, and who can blame him? All of us do.”
“Sorry, Frey. I gotta go.” I closed the call, turned off the phone, and opened my laptop, looking up sites that sold last minute airline tickets.
No point in asking the Unredeemables for help.
They were Ethan’s, to the last man, and they would just sit on me bodily and keep me right here.
I couldn’t have that. I was going to New York.
If Tony Sr. was gone, then a big part of the death machine that had been poised to crush me for the last fourteen years was gone.
But not all of it. Not quite all of it. And if Ethan had gone after Tony Sr., he’d be sure to have something in mind for Tony Jr., too.
I didn’t want that monster anywhere near my man.