Reasonable Doubts (21 page)
Authors: Evie Adams
CHAPTER 19 - MARCUS
My knuckles are white with rage, but this is when I have to be calm and cool, as the leader. Gianni was my bottled rage incarnate. When he saw Appy, if I hadn’t have stopped him, he would've rushed out to my uncle and killed him immediately.
It took four guys to hold him down while he calmed down. Anger and blind rage clouds thinking, Gianni was a bull in a china shop because he couldn't get past it. As the head of the family I couldn't allow the anger to cloud my judgment. I couldn't believe my Uncle would do this just days after coming to me and promising his loyalty. My men were in agreement that we needed to go after him, that if war was what he wanted, they would go to the mattresses against him.
“No. Not yet.” I told them. Looking around the room, these guys were the nastiest, ugliest killers I’d ever seen. “Where's Sal?”
He was in the back, but walked up to me, I wasn’t sure if there was guilt in his face, or if I imagined it. “What were you and Carmine discussing the other day?”
“Nothing boss, certainly nothing like this. He never said a word about going after you. I believed him.”
So did I
. Sal had plenty of reasons to be disloyal, but he was here, which meant he was either stupid or not a part of it.
Never assume malice when stupidity will suffice,
I told myself as I looked at him.
But don’t rule out malice either.
“We'll set up a meeting with my uncle first. If he denies it, or he doesn't have a good explanation, then we go to war, but not before.”
Gianni bucked again from the chair, but two men held him down. “The man who hit mama is dead, if you don't give me the man, or if your Uncle Carmine doesn't, I won't care what you do to me.”
The men looked at me, wanting to know what I'd say to that sort of challenge. I told him and everyone in the room. “If my uncle doesn't give him to you, I'll kill him myself. You'll come with me as long as you can control yourself. If you can't control your emotions in a crisis none of us can trust you, and you're no good to any of us.” I walked over to him and bent down to look him in the face, to show him I meant my threat. “Capisce?”
He snarled and looked away. I motioned the men to let him go from the chair. “Stand up and look me in the eye and tell me.”
He stood up, simmering with rage, and looked me in the eye. I stared and did not blink. He looked away when he saw the chained up rage in my face, and heard the trembling words that came out of my mouth, “They took my woman. Kidnapped her. But I can control myself. Can you control yourself? Tell me.”
“A capisco,” her muttered and left the room. He was a powder keg. It would be too much for me to worry about him blowing up, and keeping myself under control. But if I blew up, I knew I could count on one man at least following me to my death and inflicting as much pain as possible before it happened.
“Set up a meeting. Today, tonight, immediately. Leave me for now.”
I drove into the desert in the afternoon alone, the red sun setting on the horizon made the sand shimmer like blood-stained glass. If I didn't come back, the only person happy would be Sal. There would be bloodshed and a war for sure. But all I thought about was Anna. My only thought was for her safety, her safe return.
I couldn't believe my uncle would be this disloyal and betray family. Worse, he kidnapped Anna, a civilian. That was a sacred rule, people who chose this life were fair game, but the people around us, they did not choose, they were untouchable. Only an animal would break that sacred trust and go after a wife or a girlfriend or a child.
But then there was the story from when Carmine was young. He joined the priesthood, something about a woman and his best friend, and a murder-suicide. It was only talked about in whispers and gossip. But whatever had happened he had broken his vows of loyalty with God, and his friend before this. Maybe it wasn’t so inconceivable.
My safety was being guaranteed by Carmine’s son. The 19 year old college kid. He didn’t know it, but he was the guarantee. My men grabbed him from the college and took him to a strip club. As long as I was safe, he would be drinking and spending my money, having a grand old time. But if I didn’t return safe and sound, with Anna by the next day, then he’d be taken to the back room, not the champagne room, but the other back room and the fun would stop for him.
The meeting was in the desert, on the outskirts of Vegas, at a quiet restaurant. A family place where people kept their mouths shut, and knew enough not to eavesdrop.
As I walked up to the table, my Uncle was not there. Only Giacomo, “Jackie”, and two thugs with him. He wore a dark suit and pink shirt with white cuffs and collar. The sort of thing only a douchebag wears. He had a habit of playing with the cufflinks, as if they were toys, as if he had never worn them before.
“Where's my Uncle?” I asked.
“I speak for him, he couldn't be here.”
“Bullshit, he's in charge, not you, he calls the shots, not you.”
“Maybe,” he grinned a toothless grin. I wished I had Gianni behind me. It was stupid to come alone.
I sat. Before that smarmy asshole could say another word I said, “Two things. One, who is the man who hit Gianni's mother, because he's going to kill him. Two, who laid a hand on Anna, because I'm going to kill him.”
“That's no way to start a negotiation. With demands.”
“I'm the head of the family, I don't negotiate.”
“There is no head yet, that's to be decided. But neither you or your Uncle will be around to decide.”
Now I knew what this was. A betrayal, but not by Carmine, by Jackie.
“You will return Anna safe and sound.”
“I will? Who is Anna?”
“The woman, my Anna.”
“Oh yes. She’ll be fine. You, not so much.”
I lashed out at him, the rage boiled over and I lunged across the table, to wring his neck, but the two big uglies grabbed me before I got far enough.
“My men took Carmine’s son, if you return me he won’t be harmed.”
“Why would I care?” His men started beating me, but I didn’t cry out, I didn’t beg, I took it all. Before everything went black I managed to ask the only question worth asking. “Why?”
“Ask your brother.”
The last thing I saw was him twirling his pink cuff links.
CHAPTER 20 - MARCUS
The sun was nearly up as I was almost finished digging the hole. Finally it occurred to me that I was only digging one big hole. “Can I ask one more thing?”
“What?” Paulo asked.
“Let me dig another hole. I can't bear thinking I'll be buried with him,” I said, pointing to Carlo, the dead man. He didn’t shut up in the car ride, chattering away the whole time. “It was me who smacked that old lady.” And “it was me slapped your girl too.” Laughing and chattering.
When he handed me a shovel and told me to dig, I slammed him with the shovel before he even thought about firing his gun. When his face was caved in, I started digging a hole.
Paulo looked at me and laughed, “That's what you're concerned about right before you die? The balls on you.”
“I die, and pretty soon it looks like, but I still don’t want to be near that piece of shit. If I could kill him again I would.”
“Keep digging, pretty soon you won't care, neither will he.”
I kept digging, I knew there was no way out. Maybe I would use the shovel and take a swing at him, die with some dignity at least. But he had pistol on me the whole time, he never let down his guard, never came within the circumference of where I could swing the shovel. He just stood there. A good man that I wouldn’t mind working for me if he wasn’t about to kill me. I couldn't get to him, but I could rush at him, maybe mark him for the rest of his life, remind him of me whenever he looked in the mirror.
“That's enough.” he told me. I took a deep breath, the cool air filled my lungs, and my only regret was Anna, not telling her I loved. Not knowing I loved her. But she would be fine. Safe.
I knelt down, but still held the shovel, Paulo started walking towards me, I gripped the shovel, ready to swing it as my last act, the shot rang out and splintered my shovel.
“You don’t need that anymore.” Paulo told me. And went over to Carlo and tried to kick him in the hole. “You push him in, I’ll cover him.”
“What?”
“Throw him in the hole and get out of it yourself, unless you want to stay there.”
I jumped out of the hole, he turned his back to me even though I still had the splintered shovel handle, but he just passed up his shot at me. “Why?”
“Because you were going to hit me with the shovel. I saw your knuckles white, I saw the look in your eyes. I never felt good about this one. I'm a soldier, so I follow orders but killing the Don don't sit right with me. They told me you weren't fit to lead, a pampered rich boy, but killing Carlo, and taking this like a man. I've seen better men than me beg and cry, but you didn't do any of that. I'm loyal to the family, and you're the family now. I know I might have just signed my death certificate, but it just didn't feel right.”
I absorbed what he said and had nothing to say to him. I moved over and rolled Carlo in with my foot. I must have jumped three feet when the gun went off again, but it was in Carlo again, not me.
“As for him, I never like the bastard.”
“Where's Anna?” I asked him, remembering for the first time.
“She's in the trunk of the car. That's why you dug a big hole. Carlo wasn't supposed to die here, but you were and so was she. They gave her something to knock her out, but she should be fine in there. I had a guy in that trunk two days and he was angry as hell at me when I let him out. It's a good trunk.”
I ran over and opened the trunk to see her, bound and gagged but breathing and sleeping or passed out, nestled between two big bags of lime.
I carried her out and she stretched and yawned and opened her eyes for a second, then went back to sleep. I kissed her forehead and held her.
I placed her in the backseat and Paulo was still near the hole. With the gun. I thought of driving off, I had everything I wanted, but went back in the brush slowly. He was shoveling dirt onto the hole with what was left of the shovel, and the gun was on the ground.
“If you kill me here, you'll have to dig another hole, with this,” he held up the half- shovel.
I grabbed the gun, and answered, “A really big one too.”
Anna slept in the backseat of the car while I drove us out of the electric red desert dawn.
Paulo sat next to me, “I don’t think your Uncle was involved in this at all, I think it was all Jackie.”
I had my thoughts on that too, but I couldn't be sure. Whoever was responsible was going to pay. My instincts said I could trust Paulo, but it was hard to trust anyone now, I had just missed dying that morning, and whoever was responsible was going to suffer for that, and make sure it didn't happen again.
“Why do you say that?”
“He's loyal. If nothing else loyalty is important to him.”
“So how's he going to take what you did?”
“I don't know, he won't like it, but at the same time, it was the right thing to do.”
I didn’t know if Paulo was telling the truth or not. I didn’t care. My men would find out once I got him back. He saved my life, but he couldn’t be trusted yet.
The only thing I did know was I was thankful I didn’t lose Anna. Even in the hole, I could face my own death knowing she was safe, believing that made me at peace with death.
But while I was here, I was vulnerable because of her. She was in danger because of me. Something had to be done so that I could focus on getting my house in order.
And making Jackie pay.
And my brother.
And my uncle.