Darwin realized that the dark wasn’t affecting him as much.
Maybe spending all this time in the dark is fixing the phobia.
He walked around the wrecked Crown Vic. As far as Darwin could tell, the driver wasn’t breathing.
“What happened?” Darwin asked the men gathered around.
“He wouldn’t talk. We asked him where they had your father. We asked him where that Fucconi guy was. He wouldn’t talk. We took it a little too far. Sorry.”
“Fuccini.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Have an eye. The Fuccini people will be here as soon as their boy doesn’t show. I’m going to call them, so I’m sure they’ll be along soon.”
“Got it.”
Darwin pulled out the cell phone and dialed the Fuccini number he’d committed to memory.
“Yeah?”
“You made a mistake.”
“Darwin. How nice.”
“You took my wife again. That was a mistake. You were supposed to trade me for my father. Because you didn’t show and you sent that FBI man as your messenger, he’s dead.”
“I had to make sure it was safe. You could’ve had the place crawling with FBI.”
“And that driver would’ve known if that were the case? He works for them.”
“Not if they were onto him. They would’ve kept it from him.”
“Enough chit chat. I’m at the hangar. I’m alone. I’ve got Rosina in a safe place. It’s all over. There’s just you and me.”
“I’ll be there shortly.”
Darwin hung up and dialed Rosina’s mother. She answered on the third ring again.
No doubt, the FBI are taping this call.
“Isabella, I need to talk to the FBI guy in charge.”
“Darwin there’s no …”
He knew she was told to deny that they were there. He waited.
“I’ll put him on.”
After a murmur, a man got on the phone.
“Darwin, where are you?”
“About to meet Fuccini himself. He’s got my father. We’re doing a trade.”
“What kind of trade? You can’t handle this alone.”
“Sure I can. Look, I’m at the abandoned hangar where it all started. Come as soon as you want. Oh, and that guy you had taking care of my wife is dead.”
“Alfred is dead? What are you talking about? Where’s Rosina?”
“She’s here now. Alfred brought her here to kidnap me too. I took Rosina back and now Alfred is dead. Come and collect the asshole’s body.”
“Okay, wait there for us.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Okay, bye.”
“Wait!” Darwin screamed into the phone. “Bring a couple coroners. You’re going to need them.”
He hung up and tossed the phone into the bush.
Chapter 18
Darwin flicked on a switch to the lights in the hangar, but the building remained dark. He remembered lights were on during the night of the accident.
Must’ve been floodlights they had set up for the meeting
.
The only lights that worked were the red ones behind the exit signs. Otherwise, the interior was black, and that was too dark for Darwin.
But he needed to be inside, so he steeled himself and turned on his flashlight. He walked to the back and stood behind a metal partition. No one would be able to readily see his flashlight, and if they came in shooting, he’d have some form of protection.
A car pulled up out front.
That’s fast.
Thinking about cars, he wasn’t sure when he’d want to be in one again anytime soon. In Rome, he was in the van that flipped on the highway. Then Greg’s car on the 401 last night. The FBI car fifteen minutes ago. They come in threes. Maybe that was his last car accident for a while.
A man in a long trench coat stepped into the front door of the hangar and moved a flashlight around.
“You in here?”
“Yeah,” Darwin called out. The flashlight moved to find him, but where he stood was too far back.
“I can’t see you.”
“Show me my father. Make sure it’s Fuccini who does it.”
“No way. He ain’t coming in here in the dark. You crazy? How do we know you don’t have a gun?”
“Okay, at least get my father out of the car and I will come out of the hangar.”
The man stepped away. A car door opened and closed. Then another.
Good. Richard’s men were told to make their move whenever they wanted. As soon as my father was seen, take everyone out with surgical precision. Beat them. Hurt them. But wait for my father to be seen.
Nothing happened.
Darwin waited. Still nothing.
“You coming?” he heard the man shout. “We aren’t waiting all night.”
Darwin stepped out from behind the metal partition. He walked along the inner wall of the hangar, ready to bolt at the sign of a weapon coming through the door.
The trunk opened and closed. He paused, then after a moment, continued on in the darkness.
This is fucking crazy. Something tells me there’s a problem.
He got to the open door of the hangar and peeked around.
In that one vision, Darwin knew the game was up.
It was over. There was no way to come back from this.
Fuccini stood in front of his car, the headlights basking him in an eerie glow. He had his arms crossed and he was smiling.
Four of his men stood with large weapons that looked like machine guns on steroids strapped over their shoulders. They too were smiling.
At their feet were seven members of the biker gang. Four were dead for sure. Darwin could see parts of their anatomy missing. One had half his face dangling off his jaw. The other three were bound and gagged, on their knees. Darwin held his stomach, hoping he’d be able to hold its contents.
“We thought we’d wait to execute these other three until you joined the party. So glad you could make it, Darwin. Oh, and your father. He’s over there,” Fuccini said, and pointed.
Adrian Kostas, Darwin’s father, crawled on the ground, blood coming from his midsection.
“What did you do to him?” Darwin asked.
“I assumed you wanted him back alive. He’s alive. It’s only one stab wound to the stomach. If you staunch the bleeding, he could live out here in the bushes for a couple of days. The only way to completely
walk away
, get it,
walk away
, from an injury like that is to go to the hospital. They could fix him up good. But that won’t happen because no one knows we’re out here and all of your faggotty heroes in leather and chaps are dead, or will be shortly.”
“You bastard.”
“I know. I’ve been told. But it is only fair as you took out my Harvester of Sorrow and my Big John, not to mention many other men. You’ve hurt my organization and cost me a lot of money. The only way to hurt someone like you is take out their family. And I mean everyone.” He turned to his men and pointed at two of them. “Go find that bitch wife of his and kill her. I don’t even want to see her face again. Don’t bring her back to me. No mistakes. Shoot on sight. I don’t have time to play Darwin’s games anymore.”
Two men ran off, one behind the hangar and the other entered a door on the side.
“That wasn’t the deal.”
“No!” Fuccini shouted as he raised a finger high in the air. “A trade. You, for your father. There’s your father. He’s alive. I get you. I
already
had your wife in my possession, but you took her back. By the way, how did you handle that little feat? The driver told me personally that he had you with him.”
Darwin didn’t answer. His mind raced, but with each scenario he came up with, he couldn’t figure a way out of this.
“Wait, don’t tell me. You had help from these goofs.” Fuccini looked down at the three bikers on the dirt. “That’s what they call you in prison, right? The name that’s disrespectful? A goof? Well, if you aren’t goofs, then you’re fucking stupid to get mixed up with the likes of Darwin Kostas. Deal with him, and a lot of people die.”
Fuccini turned to his man closest to the bikers and said something Darwin couldn’t hear.
The man lowered his weapon, chambered a round, and fired.
The head of the first biker came clean off, the sound of the weapon coming across the fifteen-foot distance like an explosion.
The biker’s headless body stayed upright for a moment, and then slowly teetered forward, finally falling on its chest.
The last two bikers screamed behind their gags. It sounded like a barrage of threats.
Darwin broke out in a sweat. His body shook all over. He’d seen a lot of shit in the past few days, but watching a man’s head disappear in a vapor of blood and brain made him want to throw up.
He leaned forward and held his stomach with both hands. He couldn’t have anyone else die because of this mess. Too many had. His conscience couldn’t handle it. He thought it would be simple. He thought he’d walk away the victor. But all along, he had been lucky while he underestimated the man who did this for a living. A man who made this a way of life. He could never be better at out-thinking someone like Fuccini. That was why he was the boss.
Another shot rang out. But this time it came from the back of the building.
“Good. There goes Rosina. Oh, I’m sorry Darwin. Is the loss of someone you love hurting you? How about the loss of my only son? Do you know what I do to people who even raise their hands to me? Do you even know the kind of man I am?”
He walked over to Darwin and patted him on the back. “Darwin, my worthy opponent. I’ll give you that. Not many men
get
me. You got me. You hurt my organization. Actually, you’re either really good or really lucky. You even gave me pause. I said to myself, maybe this is a trap. It couldn’t be that easy. I’ll force your hand. I’ll get you to come with Rosina. But you didn’t. You had bikers help you. How the hell you orchestrated that, I’ll never know.”
“A book.”
Fuccini leaned closer and patted him down, feeling for a wire or a weapon.
“A book? Oh, that’s fantastic. That is amazing. You’re going to write a book for them. I saw your profile. Smart thinking on your part. Tell them to rough us up and you’ll do some sort of glamorous part for them in your next best-selling thriller. Smart, I like that.”
They stood and faced each other.
“You know, Darwin, you had me so worried that you’d walk away tonight, that I sent out the order to kill you on sight in the event that I died here. Do you know what that means? Even if I’m killed, you still die. I have hundreds of hit men. I have staff on fourteen different police forces, including the FBI. I have friends in Italy. Until you die, this will never end. That’s how serious I am.”
Darwin nodded. He suspected as much.
“You became, all on your own, Fuccini family enemy number one.”
“That sounds like an honor.” Darwin looked around at the dark night, but it wasn’t working like it used to. He couldn’t locate the violent anger triggers inside. “Pull a knife on me.” That’ll work. It has to.
“Pull a knife? No, I don’t think so. You’re going to be shot in each foot with that gun so there’ll be no more running. Then I’ll toss you in the trunk until we get back to my place where I will treat you to days upon days of a certain kind of painful pleasure—”
The sound of another boom came from behind the hangar.
Fuccini looked over at the corner where his two men had disappeared minutes ago.
“Why would there be two shots if there’s only one girl? Johnny, go find out what’s happening.”
One of the two men covering the bikers ran off.
“Now, where were we?” Fuccini asked.
He walked over to Darwin’s dad, leaned down and checked his pulse.
“Yes, still breathing and bleeding. Not long now though. Another day of this agony and he’ll be dead.”
He whispered to Adrian, loud enough for Darwin to hear, “We’ll be leaving in five minutes. So sorry you can’t join us.”
Darwin ducked as another crack from the huge weapon resounded. The remaining guard raised his and aimed it at the corner of the building where his colleague had just gone.
“Do you know something I should know, Darwin?” Fuccini asked, and then turned to his guard. “Let’s get ready to clear out. Kill these two fucking bikers and then we’re gone. Bring Darwin to the car. Put him in the trunk.”
Fuccini stepped away and then ducked so hard he almost fell over when someone shuffled up close to him.
Darwin’s dad had gotten to his feet and had hobbled to Fuccini with a large stone in his hand.
“Dad, no!”
The guard turned toward him. A shot rang out.