Lady and the Champ (42 page)

“I want everybody here,” I tell him. “Do it.”

Not that I want De Luca anywhere near me. But he needs to be here if he’s going to continue to be part of this organization. If he can’t toe the line and accept the change in leadership then I need to know. Because I’m going to have to deal with him.

Leo heads into the hallway to make his phone calls while I sit behind Spada’s desk. I start to call one of the two or three of my own guys who aren’t here but stop halfway through the first number. I call Sarah instead.

“Hey,” she answers. “Everything okay?”

“Not really. Look…I don’t want to go into it right now, but I need to deal with some shit. Family business. I might not be home for a few hours.”

“Okay…” I can tell she wants to ask again what’s going on, but she doesn’t. Good girl. Still…

“Sarah… Set all the alarms, okay? Just in case.”

“Sure, Nick.”

Reluctantly I hang up the phone. Maybe I should have told her more. Maybe she’d be safer if she knew what was going on. But right now I think it’s best to keep everything limited to this room, at least as much as possible. She’ll find out soon enough.

* * *

I
make my phone calls
, and within a half hour, almost everyone in the organization has made it in. Except, of course, for Sal, and about half of Sal’s men. The others are here, apparently ready to accept whatever orders come out of this meeting. As long as they’re here, and as long as they’re willing to accept the new leadership, I won’t have a problem with them. It’s the others—the ones who haven’t shown up—who I expect to have to do something about.

Especially Sal. I know what it’s going to come down to with him, and I can’t say I’m looking forward to it.

I’m going through Spada’s desk drawers, thinking about how to start taking over the organization, when there’s a knock at my door. I look up. One of Sal’s men is standing there, face white. He looks like he wants to turn tail and run as fast as he can away from me. I don’t blame him.

“Sir?” he says. “May I have a minute?”

“Of course.”

I try not to seem edgy as I watch him cross the room, but I’m not sure what to expect. He hesitantly takes a seat in the chair in front of the desk. I dig for a second for his name. It’s Victor.

“Look,” he starts, “I’ve got nothing but respect for you and this organization. That’s why I’m here. Because Sal’s lost his mind, and you need to know about it.”

“What’s going on?” This is exactly what I need to know. The more I can find out about where Sal’s head is and what he’s likely to do, the better off I’ll be. The safer Sarah will be.

But Victor seems hesitant. “Look, I had nothing to do with any of this. You got to believe me on that.”

“I get that, Vic. Now tell me what Sal’s up to. I need to know.”

“He’s got hits out on you, man. You and your wife.”

“How many?” The hair on the back of my neck is creeping up.

“Maybe three? Four? He wants you dead.”

My teeth clench. I’m not surprised at this news, but it makes me angry. And angry isn’t going to help anything right now. I need to stay calm. “What else?”

“He told us all he was head of the family now. You don’t have any claim. You—I don’t know—manipulated Spada or something, and that’s why you won the vote. Anybody who doesn’t fall in line, he’s going to rub out. He doesn’t care who it is.”

“So you decided to rat him out?” I’m glad he did, but I need to know why.

Vic looks at me with pleading in his eyes. “He’s crazy. I swear he’s lost his mind. I don’t think he cares who he needs to kill—he could wipe out the whole family and not blink.”

“He kills everybody, he’s not going to have any family left to lead.” I can’t get my head around Sal’s mindset right now. As far as I can tell, he’s hit some kind of psychotic break. Which makes him more dangerous than ever. Because the worst thing about crazy is that you can’t predict what it’ll do next.

“Where is he right now?”

“I don’t know. He dragged us all into a meeting really early this morning and he was ranting and raving… He told us he was going to take care of you and then he was going to put us in power. All of us. He told us to wait, and we’d know when he made his move. Then when I got back home I heard about Spada.”

“It was him? He did Spada?”

“Pretty sure, yeah.” He’s scrubbing his hands together, getting more and more agitated. “I don’t know where he went. But he’s after you, man. You and your wife. I’ve never seen him like this. Never.”

His agitation is starting to rub off on me. I’m suddenly worried about Sarah. But she’s safe. She’s at home behind my state-of-the-art alarm system. Nobody can get to her.

All my men are here, though. I don’t have anybody I can send to watch over her. And I can’t go—there’s still too much for me to take care of here.

She’ll be fine. You know she’ll be fine. You told her to stay put.
And she
will
stay put, because she’s got the baby to think of.

Still, I can’t help thinking that I’m going to get her to an actual safe house as soon as I can. Because as long as De Luca is out there, Sarah’s in danger, and that’s not acceptable.

“Get Leo,” I tell Vic. “We need to get this sorted out so I can get home.”

H
onest to God
, by now I should be used to having Nick be gone, off doing mysterious “work” things that I don’t—or can’t—know anything about. But something about his phone call put me on edge. Maybe it was his voice. I don’t know. What I do know is that something is very, very wrong.

I try to put it out of my mind. I’ve been trying to teach myself how to knit so I can make some clothes for the baby, so I grab my knitting bag and settle into my favorite armchair.

I’m having a hard time making sense out of the instructions—they seem needlessly complicated—and I’m not having much luck keeping all the yarn loops on the needles. But, dammit, I’m going to figure this out and my baby’s going to have some hand-knitted booties.

Then the phone rings, and I jump, and half the stitches come off the needle. “Fuck,” I say, and pick up the phone.

“Is this Sarah Angelino?” The voice on the other end is a woman’s, and she sounds frightened, or upset at the very least. It takes me a second to register that, yes, I
am
Sarah Angelino, not Sarah Corelli.

“This is she.”

“It’s…your husband…”

Instantly I’m on high alert, adrenaline sending a coppery taste into the back of my mouth. “What’s happened? Is he all right?”

“He… Somebody shot him. Mrs. Angelino, you need to come right now.”

“Somebody shot him?” My heart’s going like crazy now, beating so hard I can feel it in my temples. “What happened?”

“I don’t know, ma’am. Some kind of gang-related incident, or at least that’s what the cops are saying.”

“Where is he? Who is this?”

“He’s at the bakery. You need to be here…”

“Who is this?” I ask again, but the connection breaks.

I stare at the phone for a few long seconds. I don’t know what to do. I look at the call log, but I don’t recognize the number, and there’s no name in the Caller ID.

What are the chances it’s a prank call? Nick told me to stay here, behind the alarm system. But if Nick’s really hurt, I can’t just ignore it.

I try to call Nick, but he doesn’t answer. I try again. Nothing. I try Chris’s number—still nothing. Panic’s crawling up my throat, choking me more thoroughly with each unanswered call.

I can’t just stay here. I have to know what’s happened. The only choice, then, is to go find him, no matter what he ordered. If he’s been hurt, if he’s headed for the hospital, if he’s—God forbid, if he’s dead—then I need to be there.

Decision made, I grab my keys and head for the door.

I don’t even make it to the car. A hand grabs me, hard, and jerks me off the sidewalk. I almost fall, and in the process of trying to regain my balance, I land face first on a hard, wide chest. A familiar chest.

It’s Sal.

Of course it’s Sal. My already frayed nerves start to scream, adrenaline roaring through my system until I can barely breathe. God, what is he going to do to me? Why did I decide to leave the house instead of trying again to call?

“That was too easy,” Sal hisses into my ear. “I knew you’d fall for that one.”

“Let me go!” There’s no point demanding it, because I know he won’t do it, but I jerk at his grip on my arm anyway, fruitlessly trying to dislodge it. He yanks harder, dragging me down the sidewalk, and I see a dark car parked across the street. “What are you doing? Where do you think you’re taking me?”

Truth is, he’s taking me wherever the hell he wants. I can’t get free of him, and Nick’s nowhere nearby to swoop in and rescue me. I’m suddenly swamped with terror—this could be the day that I die. My free hand goes automatically to my abdomen, as if I can protect the life growing inside me. Sal notices, and his face twists into the ugliest expression I’ve ever seen. There’s something seriously wrong with him. It’s not just the anger and hatred I’m used to from him. He’s gone over the edge.

“I’m taking you to your favorite place,” he snarls. Using his grip on my arm, he half swings, half shoves me toward the car. “I figured if that fucking bakery means so much to you that you’d sell yourself for it then it’ll probably be a good place for you to die.”

I lose my balance and fall into the side of the car. The metal is hot from the sun, almost hot enough to burn. The realization that Sal has actually lost his mind terrifies me. It was hard enough sidestepping his hatred and his penchant for violence, but now he’s completely unpredictable. I have no idea what he might do next, what he’ll do to me, what he might try to do to Nick. My mind’s racing, trying to figure out how I might be able to get away, but I’m too panicky to pin anything down.

He unlocks the car and opens the back door. “Get in,” he snaps.

“No.” Maybe I can buy some time, if nothing else. But he’s having none of it. He grabs me again and shoves me into the car. My head hits the door frame and for a second I see stars. I blink hard.
Don’t black out, don’t black out.
If I lose consciousness now, I’ll probably never wake up again.

“Don’t tell me no,” Sal growls at me from the front seat. “Don’t ever tell me no. I’ll put a bullet between your eyes so fast…” He stops. I look up and see him staring at me over the seat. “Sit up, bitch. Buckle your goddamn seatbelt.”

I manage to drag myself into a sitting position and pull the seatbelt around myself. Ironic that he seems to be so concerned for my safety, but he’s probably trying to make sure I don’t die before he gets to actively kill me. Although forcing him to wreck the car might not be a bad start to getting away, provided I survived it.

I toss that idea aside as too risky. He starts the car and pulls out. My head still hurts from hitting the door frame, but I hold still, just staring at what I can see of his face in the rearview mirror.

“What are you doing?” I ask him. “Nick’s going to find me. He’ll kill you for hurting me.”

Sal’s laugh is almost inhuman. “No, he won’t. He’ll sacrifice himself for you. He’s that kind of idiot. Shit, I think he might actually love you. You believe that?” His gaze meets mine briefly in the mirror. “Worthless cunt like you.”

I’m not so sure he’s right. All Nick really wants from me is the baby. His heir. And, sure, maybe he’d put himself on the line to save the baby, but that doesn’t mean he cares about me. “Why does it even matter to you?”

He gapes at me in the mirror, holding my gaze so long I’m afraid he’s going to wreck the car. “Are you
kidding
me?” he finally says, turning his attention back to the road. “Are you fucking
kidding
me? He
stole
from me. I own you. I own you and that fucking bakery and I own that brat inside you. And I’m going to take care of all of you, because that’s my goddamn right. And then,” he looks at me in the mirror again, nearly missing his turn, “then I’m going to kill your
husband
. Or maybe I’ll make you watch, and kill you after. I’ll hack his balls off and make him eat them. You’d like to watch that, right?”

I try not to shiver at his feral grin. We’re only a block or two from the bakery now, so I don’t have much time. If I’m going to figure out how to get away from him, I should do it before he stops. Once he gets me inside the bakery—I just have a feeling it’ll be all over.

“Or maybe I can do better than that,” he adds as he heads for a parking spot along the street. “You know, in the Middle Ages, they really knew how to kill a guy. Hung, drawn, and quartered—you ever hear of that?”

Of course I have, but I don’t answer him. The very thought of it—the thought of him killing Nick at all, in fact—has nausea crawling up my throat. As if I wasn’t already sick enough. I’m afraid if I even open my mouth, I’ll vomit all over the inside of Sal’s car, and he already has enough reasons to want to kill me.

He doesn’t seem to want an answer, though. “All kinds of ways you can kill a man. Lots of them I haven’t tried. Might be fun to give them a whirl.”

God. I have to get away from this man. I can’t believe I spent so much time with him—living with him, sleeping with him. How could I have been so stupid?

Suck it up. At least you got out.

Sort of. But that didn’t keep me out of danger. He parks the car and shuts off the ignition then pulls out his phone and dials. It’s a chance, I think, for me to make a move while he’s got his attention focused elsewhere. But when I unfasten my seatbelt, he reaches over the seat back with his other hand. He’s holding a gun, and he points it right at me.

“You hold still, little girl,” he mutters, then, “Angelino! So good to hear your voice.”

I freeze, my blood going cold. At the same time, I wonder why the hell Nick answered Sal’s call and not mine. It’s an irrational thought, of course, but I’m not exactly in a rational place right now. I can hear Nick’s voice over the phone, and even though I can tell he’s shouting, I can’t make out the words. Sal just smiles.

“Guess where I’m at right now, Angelino. I’m sitting in my car with a gun held to your wife’s head. Isn’t that nice?” A pause. This time I can hear a few of Nick’s words, including
motherfucker
and
I’ll fucking kill you.
“Well, if you want to do anything about it, you’re going to have to hurry. Otherwise I’m putting your woman and your spawn inside that fucking bakery and I’m burning it to the ground with her inside it. Is that what you want?” Nick is screaming now, and I’m starting to cry because I can hear the desperation in his voice even over the phone. How can he possibly get here in time? And what can I do to keep myself safe? I’m not sure there’s anything at all. “Well, get going, my friend, or there’s going to be nothing left here but smoke.”

He ends the call and looks at me, a feral grin on his mouth. “Your husband’s a little agitated.”

“You bastard. He’s going to kill you.”

“He has to get here first. And even if he does, I seriously doubt it’ll be in time.” He gestures with the muzzle of the gun. “Get out of the car.”

I slide across the seat toward the door. He follows suit, keeping the gun trained on me the whole time. I’m pretty sure there’s no way I’m going to get a chance to run, but I watch him anyway, looking for any waver to the muzzle of the gun, any lapse in Sal’s attention. There’s nothing. Not even a half second I could take advantage of.

As soon as we’re both free of the car he grabs my arm again, steering me toward the bakery. His fingers hold me hard, digging in deep. He slides the gun under his jacket, but it’s still pointed at me, just hidden so anyone watching won’t be able to see it. I can still almost feel it, a burning spot against my rib cage.

The bakery looks different, and it takes me a second to realize why; the lockbox is off the door and the FOR SALE sign in the window has a SOLD sign over it now. It’s not even mine anymore. Not that it ever was. That fact has finally hit home with me.

“You’re going to burn the place down after you sold it?” I ask him. “Don’t you think the new owners will take exception?” I doubt he cares, but maybe the question will distract him for a second or two.

“Like I give a flying fuck. They’ll get insurance money.” I almost trip as he drags me up over the curb in front of the storefront. So much for distracting him. It seems like a futile effort at this point. I might as well accept it; there’s nothing I can do. Not one damn thing.

The thought gives me a strange sense of calm. I keep watching, keeping an eye out for anything I can take advantage of, and even though there’s nothing, I know now that this isn’t my fault. Unlike other messes I’ve gotten myself into, this time I really did everything I could. Maybe I’ve learned something. Too bad it’s far too late.

Sal opens the door and pushes me inside. I scan the room, again looking for any advantage I might be able to grab. With the gun pointed at me, I’m not sure I can move fast enough to press an advantage anyway. But maybe it’d be better to go down fast, from a bullet, than to let him burn me.

“Go to the back,” Sal orders sharply, and I go. The place is darker and dingier than it was when I was last there, but I can still smell the hint of baking bread, of flour and yeast. I swallow hard, a lump of tears backlogging in my throat. This is the last of my dream. It’ll be all over after this, whether I make it through it or not. All the years, time, emotion I tied up in this bakery—gone. Everything I’ve been through—pointless.

Suddenly I realize how wrong I’ve been this whole time. I sacrificed myself for this dream, and I never should have. I shouldn’t have trusted Sal. Probably shouldn’t have trusted Nick. And I should have trusted myself, but I didn’t. The building doesn’t matter—I could have put my business together another way and never gotten tangled up with Sal in the first place. The clarity is sobering, but so is the realization that it’s come to me far, far too late.

I sense that Sal’s attention has wavered, and I turn to see him scanning the room, looking for something. I follow his lead, trying to find a weapon, and see that there’s a cast-iron skillet still sitting on the stove.

I move without thinking. The split second seems to drag out to minutes, hours. My hand closes around the handle of the skillet and I pick it up, swing it toward the gun that’s still trained on me. It goes off with a roar, but the muzzle is pointed at the ceiling now, and the bullet flies harmlessly into the tiles.

“You bitch!” Sal says, and closes on me. I draw the skillet back for another swing, this time at his head, but his hand closes on my wrist. His other hand, still holding the gun, flies at my head. The butt of the gun strikes my temple, and everything goes black.