End Game (31 page)

“The man you met, Jamie Tucci, is involved in the New Jersey mafia.”

“The mafia?” she repeats incredulously.

“Yes, dammit. We don’t have time for you to second-guess me. They will
kill
you once they find out you ratted them out. They already kidnapped me from work. He promised what would happen if I didn’t do what he said.”

She shakes her head as tears streak down her cheeks. The sound of her sobbing fills the room. “Marisa, I didn’t mean to cause all this trouble! I swear! I just couldn’t stand w—what Nathan did.”

“Which was?” His low voice erupts from the center of the room.

“You know what you did!”

“
Jessica!
It’s not worth fighting over, understand? Get your shit together and drive out of here. Now.”

Jessica stumbles out of the chair and the sound of her feet running up the stairs as her crying echoes throughout the apartment makes me close my eyes. A shiver of pain runs up my spine as a ghost image of Jessica’s pink feet stomp up the stairs, wailing. Nathan stood at the foot of the stairs, holding the remains of her favorite doll.

The same man stands at the foot of the stairs, twenty years older. Instead of a doll, he holds the banister, twisting and twisting his hands around it as if it was a neck. He rounds on me, his face tightening with rage.

“When they come after me, I’ll tell them it was you.”

A knife twists in my chest, puncturing my lungs of air. Malice brightens his eyes as he stares at my throat, and then I remember George. My pet frog that he taped to a stick and beat to death. Tears spring into my eyes. I found him in the backyard, what was left of him anyway. I used to hold him in my hands, loving the damp feeling of his skin as he hopped down my arm. His pink innards were squashed out of his sides as if Nathan had stretched him on concrete and stamped hard. All because I used his Smash Mouth CD without his permission. He made me swear never to tell Mom and Dad, though I suspected Dad saw the body, because afterward Nathan was sent to a therapist.

“Why do you hate me?” Angry tears slip down my face as he watches me impassively.

“You took everything away from me.”

“I didn’t even
want
it.”

“It doesn’t matter. In fact, that makes it worse.” His high, cold voice echoes in the high ceilings.

“I—I never told them what you did to George.”

“Still with that fucking frog?” He gives an angry sigh, stepping around me. “You know people
eat
frogs, don’t you?”

“You killed him.” My voice trembles. “I loved him and you killed him anyway for no reason.”

The backyard rang with my screams when I found the body. I’ll never forget the pain. It was just a stupid frog, but right now I feel more anguish for that damned thing than I do for my own dead father.

“You got your fucking revenge. I spent weeks in therapy, trying to convince Mom and Dad I wasn’t insane,” he says in a bored voice. “Because I killed your stupid pet. Grow up.”

Grow up.

Rage boils under the anguish and all the injustice bursts from my throat in a scream. I launch myself at Nathan’s taller, much stronger body and smash him into the window. I rain fists on his head, reaching for the bandage over his nose. I want him screaming in pain. I want him to feel the horror inside me, but it’s clear that the only kind of pain he can feel is the physical kind.

“I HATE YOU!”

“Fucking BITCH!”

Jessica’s hurried footsteps make my nerves blaze with fear. “
Stop
, Nathan!”

A sharp blow connects with my temple and I stumble, stars bursting in front of my vision. Another dull blow sends me crashing down. My face explodes in pain as it crunches on the wooden floor. I’m dazed in a fog of pain. He opens the front door and grabs my shirt, so that my head is pushed between the door. Oh, God. He grabs the edge of the door. I know what he’s going to do—

SLAM.

Someone’s screams pierce my ears as a throbbing, deep pain cracks my skull. I am dazed. Hands grapple with the door, and I somehow flop over. From my position on the floor, I see Jessica’s arm twist behind her back as Nathan yanks it, tears streaming down her face. I somehow stumble to my feet and charge at him blindly. His back slams into the banister.

I scream at her. “Go! Take your keys and go now!”

Then I grab his nose and twist it. Sobbing, she grabs her keys and runs out the door, and I’m knocked to the floor, air crushed from my lungs. My hands seek the doorknob, ready to die to stop him from hurting her. I won’t let him chase her.

The squeal of tires from outside sends relief through my head, even as Nathan places a palm on my chest and shoves hard. I fly through the door. My legs trip, and hard, unyielding cement stabs my back, my head.

The blond demon stands at the doorway. “Goodbye, sister.”

Then a pair of hands grab my arms, and a black bag shoves over my head. There’s nothing but darkness.

* * *

My whole body hurts like a bitch and the floor rumbles. There’s a sharp pain in my skull, like a nail trying to pound into my brain.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
My back hurts badly and the position I’m in makes it throb even worse.

“…do her in Pine Barrens. The brother swears it was her, and she’s already threatened to go to the cops. All right. Yeah, I know. We should be back before seven. Bye.”

A thick Jersey accent. The sound of a phone dropped back into a cup holder.

Pine Barrens. I know that place.

Slowly, I make sense of my surroundings. I’m in a car and they’re driving me to South Jersey for some reason I’m not yet aware. My cheek rests on something hard. A shoe, which is connected to a leg. I sit up and a pair of hands help me onto the seat, but I immediately pitch forward.

“Where am I? Who are you?” There’s no hood on my head anymore.

Three unfriendly faces turn back to me. The driver who made the phone call speaks. “We’re taking you to the hospital. Then you need to talk with Jamie.”

The way he says it almost sounds plausible. I want to believe him. My heart pounds against my chest and it’s going to break my ribs. If that were true, we wouldn’t be driving to a heavily forested area of New Jersey. I wouldn’t be surrounded on both sides by two men.

They’re driving me there to kill me.

I’ve heard about how people react when they know they’re going to die. There are those who calmly accept it, who are afraid but swallow it down anyway, and there are those who freak the fuck out.

I freak the fuck out.

I launch forward and manage to grab the steering wheel, wrenching hard to the right. Someone grabs my hair and yanks me back, but not before the car swerves violently.

“Fuck!”

The car trembles and there’s a scream of rubber. Then suddenly a shriek of metal as we smash into the guardrail. I’m thrown to the side.

“Crazy cunt! Kevin, let’s just do her here.”

“Are you fuckin’ nuts? There are too many witnesses.”

“HELP!” My screams tear through the car as I launch at the handle of the door. “HELP!”

“Shut that bitch up!”

A vicious slap to my mouth momentarily breaks my screams, and finally they decide to get out of the car. Suddenly I’m shoved onto the cement and told to walk into the forest line. Into the tall pines, which will be my graveyard.

Oh, God. I’m going to die.

I think of the man who’s probably waiting patiently at my sister’s house for me to arrive. Joe—his handsome, beautiful face and his lips sweetly caressing mine. My chest fills with warmth even though I’m trudging through this cold, damp forest. I love him! I love him and he doesn’t even know. I never got to tell him—

“On your knees, you fuckin’ whore.”

He kicks the back of my leg and I fall on my hands and knees, sprawling on a bed of leaves. I crawl furiously, sobbing. Their laughter rings in the forest. Still no gunshot. Faster. Faster. I’ll feel it in a second, a painful stab in my back. My hands scrabble through the dark earth, smearing all over my jeans and hands like bloodstains. Then I hear it.

Crack.

I wait for paralyzing pain, for the punch to my back.

A male scream lifts in the air, and then another.

Crack. Crack.

I’m not being shot.
They
are.

Suddenly, a bunch of earth flies into the air next to me and I stare at it.

“Marisa!”

I turn around on my side to search for the voice. Two bodies struggle on the earth, their sides heaving. The last man hides behind a tree, and then I see a familiar silhouette step out from the tree to aim it straight at him. The
pop
of more gunfire cracks the air, and then chunks of bark fly from the tree. He steps out and pulls the trigger. The empty chamber spins.

“HE’S OUT!”

At the sound of my voice, Joe steps out again and
crack
. The driver’s body stumbles backward as a bullet slams into his chest. He clutches his white sweater, which bursts with dark, arterial blood. Like a broken puppet, he falls on the floor. Joe walks to the two other men who are still breathing and fires more bullets into their chests. Their bodies shake as death seizes them instantly, and then Joe turns to the last one to fire more into his body, even though he’s already dead. A terrible darkness seizes Joe’s face. I’ve never seen that kind of hatred on his face before. Only on that man, Vincent. Only when the empty chamber spins for several times does he stop pulling the trigger, and then he pulls a fresh magazine from his jacket and reloads.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

Right into his face.

I turn my head away as blood splatters everywhere. I don’t want to see it.

“Joe, please.”

The sound of his heavy breathing and his footsteps crunching on dead leaves grows louder and then he stoops down. I fly into his chest, suddenly cold and shaking. I’m aware that I should be crying, but I just can’t feel it. The pressure of his arms is there, and my heart throbs at a rapid pace. I see Joe hugging me as though I’m floating above him, and then I wonder if I’m dead.

“Baby, are you all right?”

My head still rings with the shots.

“I don’t—I don’t know.”

He kisses my temple as his arms tighten around me, squeezing me painfully. “You’re okay. You’re safe,” he says in a tight voice. “Thank God you’re okay.”

Slowly, several sensations come back. The leaves under my hands, his breath steaming over my skin, the sharp curves of his body, the stubble on his cheek, the beating I took, and the fear, which slowly purges from my body like alcohol during a hangover. Profound relief floods my body and I choke into his chest. He’s always been there for me, from the beginning. Even though he wasn’t family. Even though he barely knew me.

“I was going to die and I didn’t get to tell you that I love you, too.”

He inhales sharply and his fingers dig into my clothes. His lips touch my head. “I’ll never let you go.”

* * *

“Four dead men. Four dead
made
men who she witnessed.”

Jack’s blue eyes kind of remind me of my brother’s, and I quickly look away. We’re in the back of a deli store, of all places. I sit on a chair around a wooden table across from the rest of New York City’s most dangerous men. Vince, the one I loathe, doesn’t glare at me with the same suspicion as the boss. His hand rests in his palm thoughtfully as he looks at us.

I feel out of place here, even with Joe’s protective arm curled around my shoulder.

“I wish he killed more.” The nasty comment makes a few men seated around the table laugh, but my insides squirm. Since when did I become so bloodthirsty?

Since they ruined my reputation and tried to kill me.

It’s true, though. I don’t feel a shred of remorse for the three fallen bodies. Or Frank. There’s nothing wrong with killing someone who was going to kill you.

What about your brother?

My eyes slowly fill with tears. There’s a scrape of a chair as Vincent rises from the chair and walks to the refrigerator, digging something out. He approaches me with a white bag hanging in his palm and gives it to me.

“Here. Put this on your face.”

Pity wrinkles his face as I take the bag from him.

Somehow, I’ve gained this bastard’s sympathy. Hurrah.

I press it against my swollen face. My tears feel like ice.

“What I don’t understand is how they knew you were there.”

I could blame the whole thing on him. Tell them that my brother was the one who talked to the FBI and save my sister. Offer his head to them like a sacrificial lamb.

The idea jumps at me and suddenly I find myself talking before I’ve really considered whether I really want to sentence my own brother to death.

“It was my brother,” I choke out.

You
’
re a terrible person. You
’
re worse than them. At least they didn
’
t lie to you.

My insides rot.

“He talked to the feds. I heard it straight from them, and he knew the men who abducted me were outside Jessica’s apartment, waiting for me. I just hope my sister is somewhere safe.”

Joe’s hand tightens on my shoulder. “He was there?” he says in a tight voice.

“Well, it’s really fucking lucky that you were there to tail them, otherwise your little girlfriend would be dead.” Jack digs the cigarette he’s smoking in an ashtray balanced precariously on the table. His old, wrinkled eyes stare at Joe. “Four made guys, Joey.”

Vincent lifts his head angrily. “We’re at war with them. What the fuck does it matter?”

A few murmured agreements join Vincent’s voice.

“Even so, there are other factions who might side with Carmine now. They might think we’ve gone too far. They’ll be gunning for you. Both of you.”

His warning slides down my spine like cold water.

“So we’ll leave town.”

Jack nods. “Don’t go to Montreal. I don’t want to involve friends of ours in this shit.”

“All right,” Joe says in a harsh voice.

I look at him. His jaw is clenched shut as he stands up. He looks nervous.