Chapter 13 #2
Neil ignores me. “What did you say that made him so mad?” he asks curiously as he slides behind the bar like he owns the place. “Liam Kavanaugh has always been known to be pretty levelheaded, and he looked like he was about two seconds away from a nuclear explosion.”
“I asked about my mother.”
“And?” Neil pushes as he takes down two of the pint glasses and begins to fill them with beer.
“I may have insinuated that his wife had something to do with my mother’s disappearance.” Saying it out loud makes me cringe.
“That’ll do it.” Neil chuckles as he comes back around the side of the bar, beers in hand. “Here. Let’s sit down, and you can tell me why you think your stepmother is evil, little Cinderella.”
I snort at the reference. “If anything, I’d be Rapunzel,” I point out, taking the beer from him but making no attempt to move. “And second, I’m not telling you jack shit until you tell me the hell you were doing straddling both sides of the fence.”
“Look, Ava…” Neil starts, but I’m not here any of it. Not anymore. I want answers.
“No, Neil,” I bite out. “You suddenly want to bond and talk about what you did to me? After what you let Christian do to me? To Maleah?”
His face darkens at the mention of my best friend’s name.
“You don’t get to pretend like everything is alright,” I fume, holding the beer glass tightly in my hand to steady my raging emotions.
“You were one of the few people I thought I could count on. The one who always made things better after they got worse. The one who let me cry on his shoulder, who helped nurse me back to health, and then suddenly you became this emotionless cunt. You want to bond? Start with how the fuck you started spying for Matthias.”
“We’re going to need more beer,” he sighs as he gets up to pour himself another pint.
I wait as he does and then follow him to the back of the bar where we won’t be overheard.
Not that there is anyone in the bar besides the opening staff, but I can tell Neil is already on edge and I don’t want to push him.
Otherwise, I might not get the answers I am looking for.
“Elias went mental when you disappeared. He had every available man out searching for you day and night, and after a week, when nothing came of it, things turned for the worse.”
Neil takes a shaky breath.
“I’m not sure what he had over Uncle Dante, but whatever it was must have been big and damaging enough to get him to drag in every family member who’d refused to be inducted.” Neil takes a gulp of his beer. “Anyone who refused or tried to run and hide was beaten down. Made an example of.”
“What? Dante would never do that.”
It is one of the things I admired about the man I’ve called uncle for so long. He and Matthias have similar ways of running their organization, especially when it comes to forced induction.
“If you force a man to do your bidding, he will never truly be loyal,” he told me once. “The first chance he gets, he will stab you in the back for his freedom. True loyalty and respect are earned. Loyalty and respect caused by fear of death are false.”
Neil shakes his head. “Not Dante.” He grits his teeth. “Elias, forcing his hand.”
That makes more sense.
The man had been a sociopath.
His son is a psychopath.
Soon one will be joining the other.
“One night, Elias took all the younger new recruits up to the stables.” Neil’s jaw clenched, his grip on his glass tightening.
My stomach clenches painfully at the thought of what is coming next.
Elias thought boys should be men. Even if they were too young to be.
“He stood us in a corridor and told us to pick a door.”
Tears gather at the corner of his dark eyes, his gaze dropping to the table as he tries to put distance between himself and the memory.
“They made us…” Neil lets out a small sob, a few tears dripping onto the wood of the table. “They watched, Ava. They fucking watched and laughed, and I couldn’t let that go.”
He lets out a choked sigh as he rubs at his eyes to clear away the tears. The weakness. The vulnerability. Everything he’s learned to bury has rushed to the surface, and now he is forcing it deep beneath the ground to rot and fester.
“What happened after?” I ask after he’s downed the rest of his second beer and goes to grab a third.
Neil huffs out a breath. “I betrayed them. The Famiglia. I waited a few days before going down to the 85th Precinct. One that neither Elias nor Dante had control over. I thought if I could find a detective not associated with either of them, I’d get lucky.
Give my testimony in exchange for witness protection or some bullshit.
Instead, I got Detective Moreno.” Neil scoffs.
“A fucking dirty cop working for Dashkov. He told me we were going someplace without so many ears, and like a goddamn idiot, I believed him.”
“He took you to Matthias.” It isn’t a question. I know that was what had to have happened. I am just a fan of stating the obvious, apparently.
“Yep.” Neil pops the p gratingly. It’s where I learned it, and I can’t help the small smile that graces my lips at the memory. His answering smile tells me he is thinking of the same memory.
“He didn’t threaten me or beta me. He and his men simply offered me an opportunity. If I spied for them and helped them take Elias down, I could leave scot-free and never look back. He said he’d give me money, a new identity, everything I needed to start over.”
“That was a risky deal,” I tell him. “What would have happened if you got caught? You would have just been dead.”
Neil shrugs. “I died the moment they made me pick a door,” he admits. “And each time I was forced to look the other way just killed me a bit more. A small pick chiseling away at me inch by inch, and then when he took…”
“Maleah,” I breathe. Neil’s face darkens at my best friend’s name.
“Yeah.” He took another gulp of his beer.
“Are you out now?” I ask. “Did you get what you were promised?”
“He offered it to me,” Neil admits with a shrug. “But I’m waiting.”
My brows snaps together as I tried to analyze what he is telling me. What is he waiting for?
“On what?”
Neil’s lips twisted into a cruel smile. “To fucking kill Christian for what he did to Maleah. Then, and only then, will I leave this city behind. I don’t care if I have to burn everything to the ground. I’m going to find her, and I’m going to rip him limb from limb until there is nothing left.”