Kissing The Enemy (21 page)

“
N
o
,” I croaked. “No, no,
no!”
I ran to Yuri and fell to my knees beside him. I put my hand to his cheek and it was already clammy and gray. “
No!”

Blood was spreading out beneath him, oozing through the snow. Angelo and I looked at each other. “I didn’t—”—he shook his head—”it was an accident.”

All the bits of first aid I’d picked up over the years swam into my head but my brain was fogged and slow because this was
Yuri,
the protector who’d been there for my family as long as I could remember. Yuri wasn’t supposed to get hurt. Yuri was forever.

Rico knelt beside me. It was the first time we’d been this close and the glance he gave me said so much: anger and hate and distrust...and guilt. Then he focused on Yuri. “If we want to save him,” he told Angelo, “we’ve got to go
now. Right now.”

Angelo nodded and jumped to his feet. “Get his arms,” he said.

Yuri gave a long groan of pain as we lifted him but, with all three of us helping, we managed to get him up the slope to the big Chrysler Rico had driven there. Pulled up behind it, I could see one of Vasiliy’s black Mercedes with blacked-out windows—that must be how Yuri got there.

We slid Yuri into the back seat and Angelo got in with him. Rico got into the driver’s seat and they both looked up at me, waiting for me to get in.

“I can’t come,” I told them.

“
What?
” They both said it at the same time.

“Vasiliy will kill whoever did this. If I disappear, he’ll figure out it was you. I need to go home. We stick to the plan: I claim I tried to run away and then had second thoughts, nothing to do with you.”

Angelo just stared at me. His instinct was to stay with me, no matter the consequences. He shook his head.

“We don’t have time to argue!” I told him. “I’ll take the Mercedes. Find the keys!”

Angelo shook his head again but rooted in Yuri’s pocket and pulled out a key fob. He weighed it in his hand, looking at me beseechingly.

“We gotta go!” yelled Rico.

Angelo drew in a long, shuddering breath and tossed me the keys. “Be careful!”

I nodded and slammed the door before he could change his mind. The big car roared away, threading its way quickly through the highway traffic in the direction of the hospital.

Jesus. Yuri.
It was difficult to breathe.
Please don’t let him die!
Not Yuri. There’d been too many casualties of this war already.

I ran over to the Mercedes, got in and started it up.
How did this go so wrong, so fast?
Vasiliy would want vengeance against whoever had stabbed his beloved bodyguard. There was no question: he’d put a hit out on the attacker. The only saving grace was that no one knew it was Angelo.

“Hello, Irina,” said Mikhail from the back seat.

I
had
Yuri’s head resting on my lap, my hands slick with his blood as I tried to keep pressure on the knife wound. The knife itself was still in his chest, evidence of my crime. I wanted to throw up every time I looked at it, but I didn’t dare move it because it was stopping some of the bleeding.
Please don’t let him die.
Yuri’s face had gone the same color as the soot-stained snow back in Little Italy, his eyes narrowed in agony, his teeth gritted. From what Irina had told me, this guy was practically family. The guilt was like nothing I’d ever felt.

And yet, each time I felt Rico glance furiously back at me, that guilt was almost worse.

“What were you doing, Angelo?” he demanded.

“Just drive,” I said tightly.

“You’re dressed like you’re going on vacation.” Rico was almost panting, he was so angry. “You’re out here by the highway—what’s out this way, huh? The airport?!”

“Just drive! He needs the hospital!”

“I’m fucking driving!” He banged the steering wheel. “You were running out on us. You were fucking running out on us, weren’t you?”

I didn’t answer, just looked down at Yuri’s ashen face.

When he spoke again, Rico’s voice was so full of hurt it brought a lump to my throat. “Fuck you, Angelo.”

Moments later, we arrived. Rico pulled right up to the Emergency Room entrance and I ran in to get a doctor. We got Yuri onto a gurney and inside but, immediately, nurses were asking me questions: who was he, who was I, what happened?

I had Vasiliy’s number in my phone from when I’d set up the peace talk. I scrawled it on a form and handed it to a nurse. “Call this man. He’ll take care of everything.” Then I was running back to Rico. I didn’t want to leave Yuri, but there was nothing more I could do and getting myself arrested wasn’t going to help.

Rico pulled away as soon as I got in the car but we didn’t head towards the city. He turned and headed out of town. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“The Saints just called,” Rico said. “They want to see you.” He twisted in his seat and looked at me, his face drawn with worry. “Angelo...they know.”

M
y hands were still
on the Mercedes’s steering wheel. I sat there clutching it, willing it not to be true. But when I looked up into the rear view mirror, I could see the lower half of Mikhail’s face, his unmistakable wide smirk almost splitting his pink, doughy face in two. With shaking hands, I adjusted the mirror and those beady, lust-filled eyes gleamed back at me.

We hadn’t even considered it, when we carried Yuri to Rico and Angelo’s car. The Mercedes had been sitting there with the doors closed, the blacked-out windows concealing Mikhail. We’d just assumed Yuri had come alone.

Mikhail leaned forward. “I saw everything. I took a peek over the top of the hill, just in time to see your boyfriend murder Yuri.”

I wanted to throw up. When he found out, Vasiliy wouldn’t rest until Angelo was dead.

“Since you’re already in the driver’s seat, I think you should drive,” said Mikhail. He sat back in his seat. “Let’s go home.”

My heart pounding, I put the car into gear and drove off to Vasiliy’s house to seal Angelo’s fate.

I
t wasn’t
like the last time I’d seen The Saints. Last time had been like being summoned to the Principal’s office. This was like the walk to the gallows.

The big, dark room was lit this time by a huge fire roaring in the fireplace, the flames turning one side of Nicky’s scowling face to flickering gold. He stood, hands braced on the table, but insisted I sit down. The other Saints stood beside him, looking equally pissed. Even kindly old Vincenzo was giving me a
you’re fucked, kid
look.

I sat. I figured that if they were going to kill me, it wouldn’t make much difference. Rico stood in the doorway behind me. I figured that that would be my warning: if they asked him to leave, I was dead.

Nicky opened a brown envelope and tossed a sheaf of photos onto the table. They spun and spread as they landed, covering the table in a glossy fan of eyes and lips, breasts and thighs. Moments that were meant to be private.

Mikhail, you bastard….

“You arrogant, self-centered little
fuck!”
snapped Nicky. “How dare you? How dare you endanger
everything,
just to dip your dick into that little whore?”

I felt the anger start, then. It was red-hot and clean, burning upward through the cold black layers of tradition and respect as if they were so much filthy coal. “Don’t talk about her like that,” I grated.

Nicky groaned. “You’re fucking sweet on her?” he asked incredulously. “Oh, Jesus….” All of The Saints were shaking their heads in despair, now. “We knew you’d been dumb but we thought you were smarter than
that!”

I stared at him in confusion.

“It’s a
trick,
you dumb fuck!” yelled Nicky, slamming his fist down on the table. The photos of Irina and me jumped and drifted further apart, revealing more and more of us. “Vasiliy
sent her
to get into your pants, so you’d go soft on the Russians!”

“No,” I said angrily. “She’s his
niece!”

“So? He’s a Russian. Russians don’t have any fucking qualms about sacrificing their own. Don’t they teach you history in school? World War II?” He leaned across the table at me. “That’s why he brought her over here, to fucking seduce you!” He glanced down at the photos, his eyes stopping on one of Irina, her leotard rolled down to mid-thigh. “She’s got a nice pussy, I’ll give you that. She was probably turning tricks for Vasiliy when she was fifteen.”

If I’d been standing, I would have been able to hit him. But I had to shove my chair back first and stand and, when my fist was an inch from Nicky’s jaw, it slapped into Rico’s hand. I twisted around and glared at Rico but he simply shook his head. He forced my fist back with me resisting every inch of the way.

“It’s not like that,” I told Nicky. I had to pant through my anger. I barely recognized my own voice—God, what had happened to me?

“Yeah, it’s true fucking love,” spat Taavetti. He coughed and adjusted the valve on his oxygen cylinder. “We got no confidence in you anymore, Angelo.” He indicated the room. “That’s what this is.”

He nodded at Rico and my shoulders tensed. This was it. Rico would leave the room, some hired killer would come in to take me off into the woods and it would all be over.

But Rico didn’t leave. He walked around to stand beside me.

Aw, shit. Shit, no.

“Did you know about him and Irina?” Nicky asked.

I willed Rico to be smart. No use both of us dying over this. Thankfully, he was. “No,” he said.

“You got a problem taking over?” asked Nicky. “Make no mistake, you’re inheriting a war and a fucking nasty one. We’ll want you to eliminate every one of those Russian bastards. No mercy. No matter how many of ours it takes. Got it?”

Rico slowly nodded. “Got it.”

“Good,” said Nicky. He pushed himself off from the table and waved his hand at me. “Get rid of this piece of shit.” He led the other Saints out of the room and closed the door behind him. Rico and I were left there in silence, the only noise the crackling of the fire.

I couldn’t believe it. I’d been ready to give it all up...but for Irina. Not like
this.
Not to be chewed up and spat out by The Saints and replaced by my best friend.

“I had to,” muttered Rico, as if he was trying to convince himself. He leaned against the fireplace, its light silhouetting his big body, and gripped the mantelpiece so hard I thought it would snap. “If I’d have said no, they’d have got someone else to do it.”

I shook my head. “Don’t do this. They’re using you, Rico. You heard them, they’ll carry on this war until we’re all wiped out. They don’t give a shit about us.” I held out my hands. “You want my job? You got it. I don’t care anymore. But you gotta make peace with Vasiliy.”

“
Peace?”
Rico spun to glare at me. “Listen to yourself. Ever since I’ve known you, all you ever talked about was power: holding onto power, getting more power. The Saints are right, she’s fucking corrupted you!”

“
No!
She’s got me thinking straight!
We gotta stop this!
You and me!”

Rico suddenly hauled me out of my chair and pushed me away, sending me staggering across the room. “Since when did some woman tell you what to do?” He slammed his hands into my chest, sending me staggering again. I could feel the heat of the fire behind me. “
Think,
Angelo! Snap out of this, because I can’t protect you anymore!”

I took a deep breath and went to straighten my lapels, trying to hold in my rage. But my suit jacket wasn’t there, just my leather jacket and t-shirt, mocking me for dreaming of a different path. “Irina—”

“
Fuck Irina!”
Rico yelled. And he gave me another shove. My foot clattered awkwardly on the hearth and then my heels kicked against the logs in the fire, raising a cloud of sparks. Burning pain shot up my ankle as the flames licked at me. I staggered sideways, slapping at my singed jeans, just as Rico’s fist caught me under the chin.

I spun and crashed down onto the table, sending pictures of Irina and me spilling onto the floor. Then Rico was hauling me up by the throat and slamming me against the wall with the fireplace again. The back of my head mashed against the big mirror that hung above the hearth. The backs of my legs prickled with heat from the roaring fire.

Rico stepped back, drew his gun and pointed it at my head. “Ever since you met her,” he muttered. “Ever since the day you met her, you’ve been—” He was talking almost to himself, trying to justify what he was about to do. He shook his head and cocked the gun. “I never thought a woman would come between us,” he said.

And I suddenly saw the jealousy in his eyes.
Shit!
How could I have done this to him? “Rico—”

He pulled the trigger.

Pain exploded in my head. The whole room seemed to shake as the gunshot reverberated. I waited for everything to go dark. But Rico just stood there, anger and hurt twisting his face, the smoke still rising from his gun.

Blood was trickling down the back of my neck. I slowly turned around and looked at the mirror. There was a bullet hole a few inches to the left of where my head had been, cracks fanning out around it. A few slivers of mirror were missing—the ones that had erupted out and slashed at my neck. I could see Rico staring at me in the mirror, just as he must have been able to see himself.

“Get out,” he said coldly. “Get out of the city. Get out of the country. I’ll tell The Saints I killed you, but I can’t ever see you again.”

There was nothing more I could say. I turned and walked out of the door without looking back.