15. March 2024
15
March 2024
V aughn had planned to head back to Titian after dropping Willow and Lili home. He needed to finish up some work. But as the car pulled away from Willow’s apartment building, Antonio called, and his evening went in an entirely different direction.
‘What’s going on?’ Vaughn asked when he was met with silence on the other end of the phone.
Antonio sniffed. ‘I fucked up.’
Vaughn’s eyes sank shut. He knew the rest before his brother had even explained a thing. So much for the gambling being under control. ‘Where are you?’
‘Little Bourke.’
‘How much?’
Antonio swallowed. ‘$200,000—cash.’
‘For fuck’s sake…’ Vaughn met Finn’s questioning stare in the rear-view mirror. ‘Head to Little Bourke.’ He put his brother on speaker so he could track his location, then sent the address to Finn’s phone. ‘We’re fifteen minutes away. Do not move from that—’ The call ended before he could finish his sentence. ‘Shit.’
Finn accelerated. ‘How bad is it?’
‘$200K bad.’
‘Can you get that amount?’
Vaughn pressed his thumb into his forehead. ‘Not in the next ten minutes.’ He tried calling his brother back, but it went straight to voicemail. ‘Phone’s off.’
Finn muttered a few curse words that perfectly summed up Vaughn’s feelings also. They all had their vices, but Antonio’s unlawful gambling was the family’s most fickle demon. Just when they thought it was contained, they got a call like that one.
Ten minutes later, they turned onto Little Bourke Street. Vaughn checked Antonio’s last known location before his phone had been switched off. ‘Take a left up here.’
The car pulled into an alleyway, and Finn navigated his way around the dumpsters, stopping when they could go no further. Vaughn was out of the car and jogging towards the restaurant before the ignition had even been turned off. Finn followed a moment later.
As they rounded the corner, they came upon four silhouettes standing around what appeared to be a person on his knees. Vaughn’s eyes were adjusting to the poorly lit alleyway. Narrowing his gaze on the slumped figure in the middle, he saw that it was his brother—bloodied and barely conscious.
One of the men swung a foot at Antonio, connecting with his side.
‘Hey!’ Vaughn shouted, proceeding forwards.
Startled, the men looked in his direction, sizing up the new arrivals. This gave Vaughn and Finn the precious seconds they needed to act. The pair charged forwards, hands balled into fists. Vaughn went straight for the largest one, knuckles connecting with his jaw before the man could even get his hands up. The blow sent the man reeling backwards, but the victory was short-lived. Vaughn was tackled to the ground a beat later, just managing to keep his head from smashing into the concrete. Then another came at him, the toe of his shoe striking Vaughn’s ribs—hard. As he gasped for air, the mafioso used the man atop him as a shield to block the next kick, then shoved him off. While getting to his feet, he copped an uppercut that had him seeing stars. He managed to stay upright. Finn knocked one of the men flat on his back, but he didn’t stay down for long.
With Antonio in no condition to fight, Vaughn struggled to see how they were going to exit the altercation. But he didn’t let that thought stop him from trying.
‘Vaughn,’ Antonio groaned from a few feet away.
‘A little busy here,’ Vaughn said through gritted teeth. He ducked to avoid a second punch to the face.
The first man he’d hit pulled a knife as he stepped up to Vaughn. That changed the game considerably. Vaughn leapt backwards as the blade passed a few centimetres from his face, never taking his eyes off the weapon. ‘Four against two, and you bring a knife to the party?’
The man spat blood onto the pavement before lunging at him again. Finn tried to come to his aid but was yanked backwards by his shirt. Buttons flew in all directions.
A deafening bang brought the chaos to a standstill.
The knife fell to the ground with a clatter, and that was when Vaughn noticed a dark stain spreading on his attacker’s side. The man dropped to his knees, hands going over the wound in a vain attempt to stop the bleeding. It seeped between his fingers.
Vaughn looked at Finn, whose hands were empty, then at his brother. Antonio was propped up on one elbow, a gun in his right hand. His aim drifted between the remaining three men. They stood with shock frozen on their faces, watching their companion bleed out on the concrete.
‘You need to get out of here,’ Antonio said to Vaughn. ‘ Now .’ When one of his attackers went to move, Antonio swung the gun in his direction and shouted, ‘Back up!’
The man stilled and raised his hands.
Vaughn crouched to check for a pulse. Nothing. Straightening, he looked down at his blood-splattered shirt, mind racing. All of the possible consequences and retaliations swirled chaotically in his head. The distant sound of a siren signalled that it was time to go.
‘We need to leave,’ Finn announced.
Vaughn went over to Antonio.
‘Just go!’ Antonio shouted.
Vaughn snatched the gun from his hand and flicked the safety before tossing it to Finn, who tucked it into his trousers.
‘You fellas hanging about to chat with the police?’ Finn asked the other men.
They exchanged conflicted looks, then began backing away. Once they were a safe distance from the mafiosos, they turned and jogged off down the alleyway.
Vaughn checked the shot man’s pulse a final time while Finn went over to help get Antonio on his feet. Unfortunately, there was no miraculous change from his previous dead status. Vaughn went to take hold of Antonio’s other arm. They needed to get him to the car—quickly. They practically carried him along the alleyway.
When the car came into view, Finn ran ahead to open the back door before jumping into the driver’s seat and starting the engine. Vaughn pushed Antonio into the back seat, blood smearing the upholstery as he did so.
‘Where to?’ Finn asked as Vaughn climbed in after his brother. The car began reversing up the alleyway before his door was closed.
‘My apartment.’ Vaughn checked Antonio for stab wounds or broken bones. He had a gash on his head and possibly a broken rib or two judging by the bruising that was already flowering.
‘I’m fine,’ Antonio said, sounding more humiliated than hurt.
Vaughn sat back in his seat, the weight of what had just transpired settling on him. He retrieved his phone from his pocket, getting blood all over the screen as he dialled his father.
‘Pronto,’ came Salvatore’s voice through the line.
Vaughn wiped his free hand on his trousers. ‘Tony took a beating. He’s all right, but I need help.’
There was a string of curses on the other end of the line before his father said, ‘What do you need?’
‘A clean-up. I’ll send you the address. I don’t know what the security situation is. I didn’t have the luxury of hanging around to find out.’
His father was silent a moment. ‘What happened?’
‘Gambling dispute.’ Vaughn lowered his voice. ‘One dead. Three witnesses.’
Salvatore swore so loud into the phone that even Antonio flinched. ‘I’ll take care of it. Get him somewhere safe and wait for my call.’
The line went dead.
Finn’s hands worked the steering wheel as he glanced at the rear-view mirror.
‘He’s taking care of it,’ Vaughn assured him while sending the address to his father.
Antonio winced as he tried to sit up. ‘I’m sorry?—’
‘Not now.’ Vaughn grabbed a bottle of water from the car fridge and handed it to his brother.
‘I can get the money?—’
‘It’s really not about the fucking money anymore.’ Vaughn gave him a hard stare. ‘Is it?’
Finn reached into the glove box and pulled out a gym towel, tossing it back to him. Vaughn wiped his hands and face, then dropped it onto the floor.
‘I’ll fix this,’ Antonio said.
‘Oh, you’ve done plenty.’ He was exhausting. ‘Now I need you to shut your mouth and let me handle this.’
His brother leaned his head on the headrest, eyes closing.
Vaughn stared out the window, his thoughts racing. If Antonio had called him thirty minutes earlier, he would have been forced to call Willow an Uber and leave her on the side of the road somewhere. The alternative was that his brother would have likely been beaten to death before he got there. It was an inconvenient time to be thinking about Willow, but she had a way of pushing into his thoughts at the most random of moments. The events of that evening were further confirmation that segmenting his life could never work. It was family first, and everything and everyone else after that.
Willow Hayes deserved to be someone’s first priority—100 percent of the time.
Unlocking his phone, Vaughn dialled the family’s doctor, Andrew. He understood their definition of doctor–patient confidentiality and was paid well for the additional privacy.
‘Hello?’ Andrew said, picking up on the first ring—something else he was compensated for.
‘It’s Vaughn. I need you to come to the apartment and treat Tony.’
Antonio rolled his head in Vaughn’s direction. ‘I don’t need a doctor.’
Vaughn silenced him with a heated glare.
‘I’ll be there in thirty minutes,’ Andrew said, knowing better than to ask questions over the phone.
Ending the call, Vaughn ran his thumb over the dried blood covering his phone screen, catching his reflection through the mess. Turning it over, he looked out the window once again.