Six Deadly Steps

by Sonya Jesus

His arm rests on the door handle, and the other is stretched over the spine of my seat. His angles his body toward me, widening his legs to occupy most of the space around him. “Maybe it’s not the vendor.”

  Pretending to be bored with the situation, I sigh and flick my hand toward the phone. “Why don’t you answer, Vinnie? Obviously, you guys aren’t done interrogating me.”

  Tony leans forward, snatches the phone from Vinnie’s hand, and places it between us. “Answer it. On speakerphone.”

  Thank fuck for no numbers. A fake social media account was enough for Luca to show up on my phone under a different name, but it may not be enough for him to pull off an Italian accent or even know Italian.

  I roll my eyes and shrug my shoulder, hitting the voice button. “Yes, Paolo?”

  “Isabella, como stai?” The accent is impressive because it’s not Luca.

  “Bene,” I answer politely, treading lightly. Tony’s looking at me a little bit too suspiciously. “Everything okay?”

  “I want to call ‘cause some painting stay here at the post.” The English comes out just broken enough to be perfect. “You—Merda. It okay?”

  Luca’s asking if I’m okay. “Yes, when will they arrive?” I glance between Tony and Vinnie; both of them are very calm. What if they followed Luca? Or… I cut my brain off. It’s just anxiety.

  “Wednesday.” He’s confirming Robert’s pickup. “I don’t know what time.”

  “So, you send them out Tuesday, and they get here Wednesday?” Tony asks.

  “Yes,” I answer for Paolo. “They can come with your grandmother on the private plane. Or it would take weeks.”

  “Right.” Tony doesn’t buy it and swipes the phone for the video call.

  “Tony, he’s probably driving or in his studio working.”

  “So?”

  Paulo comes on screen, most of his face occupying the camera. It’s dark around him. “In church,” the gentleman, who looks a lot like Luca’s limo driver says. “What time is flight?”

  Church? I make a mental note to ask later.

  At noting the older man with rosy cheeks and a white mustache, Tony loses interest. “She’ll call you in the morning, and you can work out the details.” He ends the call and hands me my phone back.

  “You sure you don’t want to keep it?” I cross my legs, using the ends of the robe to hide the skin the lace had covered. “You know… since your tracking me, like a dog.” I point to the back of my ear. “More efficient if you just slide the tracer under my skin.”

  “It’s a good idea.” He drops the phone in the cup holder in front of us. “Who is the mister who got you into the club?”

  I yank the blonde wig off and smooth out my hair, unleashing it from the small cap. The action of running my fingers through the loose tangles keeps my anger in check. “I’m sure you have ways of finding out.” I drop the wig onto my lap and glance up at him. “Or maybe you already know.”

  “Isabella…” My name turns into a scoff, and he scratches the side of his nose with his finger while looking out the window. “I don’t think you understand how things are going to work from now on.”

  I won’t give him the satisfaction of looking him in the face. “It’s going to go the same way it always goes.” I cross my arms over my chest and slide the curtain all the way back. While staring at the window, I add, “You dictate my life. Threaten my friends. And keep me prisoner in a house.” I slowly sway my head in his direction. “Am I right?”

  He glares at me with a smirk on his face. “I’m not your father, Isabella. You can leave the house as long as Vinnie’s with you, or I’m with you.”

  “And Unita?”

  “If you want to play, you play with me. Only when I say you can go.”

  “Fine… you can have Unita all to yourself.” I won’t be here anyway. “I want to know how you could afford the club?”

  “I’m a drug dealer, Isabella. How do you think I afforded the club?”

  Renovations. The back building. The inside. The Hex. The real estate alone would have cost a fortune, not counting the remodeling. My father’s been after buying Unita since before the massacre, so how did Tony do it, and in secret? “You don’t get paid that much. And three years ago, you weren’t making much.”

  “You’ve always been smart. I admire that about you.”

  “You stole the property from my father?”

  “Want something to drink?” He leans forward and rests his elbows on my thighs, gesturing for Vinnie to hand him something.

  I shake my head as he stretches for the glass of whiskey. “I didn’t steal anything from your father. I made an offer. The owner sold it to me.”

  Not even my father knows the owner.

  “Why do you think I fucked you in the bar at the perfect position of the camera?”

  My eyes dart to his, narrowing at the nuance of the information. He bobs his head and points at me. “Look at that, surprise.”

  Fuck him. “I’m not surprised. You and my father use me all the time.”

  “Don’t compare me to that bastard. We use each other, or am I wrong?”

  My eyebrows jump at his tone. “Okay… I’ll bite. How did you get Unita?”

  “Your father held the owner at gunpoint, not the guard. He was so stupid, he didn’t even realize it. The owner was happy to piss him off.”

  “That’s why you’ve been keeping it a secret from Beppe?”

  He takes a sip of his drink and watches me. Vinnie’s eyes are on me too, and I’m suddenly aware of the number of guns in the car. At least four, maybe a few hidden beneath the seats, and another one on Vinnie. “How did you get the money to pay for it?”

  “I’ll tell you my secret, if you tell me yours.”

  “What secret?”

  “Who was the guy, Isabella?” He takes another sip of his drink and places it in the cup holder before nodding at Vinnie.

  Vinnie snatches my phone up.

  “Call Charlotte.”

  “No!”

  “There it is!” Tony reaches over to me and grabs my wrist, forcing me closer to him. “That time, you could hear the fear.”

  The phone rings, and a groggy Charlotte picks up the phone. “Bells?”

  Tony juts his chin forward and whispers, “Answer your best friend.”

  I swallow hard. “Hey, Pix.”

  “It’s late. Are you okay?” The icon for the video call chimes in.

  Vinnie answers it and points the phone at me. Tony waves and releases my hand.

  She knows better than to comment on my sad face or the tightness of my lips, or the state of her design. “That the lingerie I sent you?”

  “Yeah.” I smile weakly. “And the friendship necklace.”

  Her lips flatten for a second before she picks up on my clue. “I have mine too. How is wedding week going. Stressed out yet?”

  “No, I was just taking advantage of your outfit.”

  “Looks like it had it rough.” She forces out a chuckle. “Keep those details to yourself.”

  I look over at Tony, and he rolls his finger in the air, mouthing for me to put it on hold.

  “Give me a second, Pix.” I mute the conversation and put the screen face down between us.

  “Are you going to tell me?” He breathes down my neck, playing with the necklace.

  Something is off. Why call Charlotte now? “You have someone in New York?”

  He grabs my hair that’s tightly tied at the back and frees it from the bun. He twirls a long strand around his finger while answering, “I may know someone who works at The Farm.”

  Luca had told me about the brutal and raw horrors of the Beneventi world, and I’d do anything to keep Charlotte from their grasp, even give up Luca if I had to. “It was nobody, Tony. Some random guy. I was drunk.”

  He sighs softly and nods his head in disapproval, releasing my hair. “Finish your conversation, so we can finish ours.”

  I take the call off mute and stare into her pretty face, ho
ping to spare her and her unborn child the horrors of the Mafia underworld. I got her into all of this. “Sorry, Pix.”

  “It’s okay,” she says because she has no idea what really goes on in New York. All the horrible things and missing girls no one ever realizes are missing. If she disappears, people will notice, but that doesn’t mean she won’t be forgotten. Once Pix and Bells is taken over by the board of directors, and the fame dies down, her face will be forgotten in the swarm of horrendous things that happen in the real world. It breaks my heart, but it’s the truth. No one is ever safe from the monsters on the street.

  Not here. Not there. Not anywhere. Subconsciously, I touch the locket around my neck and feel the power of blackmail beneath my fingers. This will not only save me but protect all of us. “You still flying on Saturday?”

  “Yes, at 8 a.m.”

  “Too bad we can’t throw you a bachelorette party. I’d love to take you dancing and have some hunky strangers rub their stuff all over your face. Or my face. God, one year of the same guy…”

  Tony shakes his head, nixing the idea with a roll of his eyes. “Make sure there are no strippers anywhere in the itinerary.”

  It’s meant for everyone present in the conversation, but a warning for the females.

  “Don’t worry, Tony.” Charlotte smirks at me. “Bells is so busy we don’t have time for any of that.”

  I smile… Planning a revolution does take up a lot of time. “I have help with the wedding stuff.”

  Vinnie harrumphs while looking away from me and playing with his ear monitor.

  “You love it...” I long to maintain the glow she has on her cheeks and the happiness she feels. I’d give everything up to save her, even Luca.

  “Not when I’m puking at all fucking hours of the day. Tell me again why I didn’t think about surrogacy?”

  “You did,” I remind her of the conversation we had last year at her wedding in New York. “You were very adamant about not ruining your figure and getting stretch marks.”

  She pops her shoulder and tucks her short hair behind her air. “We can remove those, right? A little laser action?” The phone is on a tripod that she uses for filming, so her hands are free to aim laser guns at me and shoot invisible beams like a pro.

  “You’re a dork.”

  “A dork who misses you, though.” She smiles warmly. “See you Saturday, Bells. And try not to do something stupid.”

  “Too late,” Tony says, but he’s not kidding.

  I flick my gaze in his direction, but he’s not paying attention to me. I do notice the curtain for his window is closed though. “I’ll see you Saturday. Lucky, you get to miss all the action.”

  “You better call me…”

  “Of course,” I say, absentmindedly looking out the window. “Where are we?” I ask Tony.

  Charlotte takes the opportunity to end the call. “Okay, I’ll let you go. Bye”

  Tony snatches the phone from me before she can hang up. “Charlotte, would you mind bringing your wedding videos and photos?”

  “Sure,” she answers without questioning him.

  He hangs up and tucks the phone between the cushion and armrest of his seat. “Happy?”

  I ignore him. “We should be home already.”

  “Who said we were going home?”

  The heat subtly rises to my cheeks—a feeling I haven’t felt in a while. “Where are we going?”

  He puts his phone in his pocket. “Wherever the hell I want to take my lying fiancée. Maybe your father had it right. What do you think, Vinnie?” He sits back, smoothing his shirt down the center. “A little tough love?”

  “Whatever you think is best, Boss.”

  I tuck my toes under my thigh and fold my hands in my lap to keep the silk from folding up and showing Vinnie my underwear. “Did you get that out of your system? Threatening me?”

  “No… I’m still working through the bomb you dropped this morning.”

  This can’t be good. I bend both knees and tuck them under my butt, leaning away from him and nearly gluing myself to the window. Remain calm, I whisper internally. Emotion is what he wants.

  “Vinnie, do we have the location?”

  “Yes.” The GPS on his phone is clear from where I’m sitting, meaning he wants me to see it. Vinnie hits the divider button, lowering the partition.

  “Stop the car.”

  The driver swerves to the side of an empty road; my body swerves a long with it, and I have to put my hand on the arm handle to hold steady.

  “Get out!” Tony gives the order.

  Vinnie, the driver, and a third man descend, closing the doors behind them.

  “What are you doing?” I ask when two men block my window with their backs.

  “Teaching you.”

  Fear. It’s underneath the careful strategic breaths, but I can’t show it. “Do whatever you want.”

  “You’re afraid,” he says almost in a hum. “I know you are.”

  “Do you want me to be afraid?”

  “You should respect me, and if that means you fearing me like your father. Then maybe it’s time I try a new method.”

  Six days.

  Six days before I unleash all the wrath I’ve had to bite back and take. “If you kill Charlotte, there’s no way to control me. Because I don’t really care if you hurt me.”

  The widest smile crosses his lips as he raps on the window with his knuckle.

  Vinnie opens the door; light from the neon sign streams in through the door frame. “Do you know what this place is?”

  “Another place I’m going to hate?”

  “No, Isabella… This place is where I make you a real girl again.”

  “Tony what are you talking about?”

  “You pretend to shut off, but you forget, I know you better than your father does. Better than anyone.”

  Not better than Luca.

  He flaps his fingers against his palm, summoning me. “Come on. Don’t make me drag you out.”

  I slide my heels on and crouch down to cross the large interior, stepping on the forgotten wig in the process.

  The road is dark, except for the pink and yellow lights of the rotating sign of the hotel. He drags me out the door and wraps his arms around me, holding me tight against his chest. Both of our eyes are plastered on the neon sign and the way the light reflects on the darkened trees, giving them an abnormal glow. The double road, with the dashed white lines, separate us from the vacant lot. The three men flank us. Two on one side; Vinnie on the other.

  He points to the second floor. “Anthony Shard,” he whispers into my ear.

  “Who?” I ask, confused as to why he’s whispering another man’s name in my ear. My stomach hooks my heart and drags it into my entrails as I think about Beppe’s punishment—of what the men in the Tree House did to me. Despite knowing hope has little effect in this world, with these men, I hope it’s nothing like that.

  I hope Tony continues to be better than Beppe.

  Tony’s calmness frightens me. There’s not a bulging vein in his arms as he holds me because he knows I won’t run. I can’t. “You forgot the guy you fucked?”

  Silence is my answer. My heart speeds faster as his hand slides under the silk at my upper thigh, raising the material. He flattens his palm against my stomach. “Vinnie?”

  The three guys cross the vacant street and climb up the stairs to the third floor. Tony drops his chin to my shoulder, giddy with excitement. “You should close your eyes.”

  “I don’t know an Anthony Shard, Tony. What are you doing?”

  He flips me around and pins me against the car, blocking my view. The metal of the door handle digs into my back when he presses his chest against me. In my ear, he whispers, “My secret … I stole the money from Beppe. He’s fucking broke.”

  “Are you insane?” I whisper back. Telling me just made me an accomplice. “Wait… What does this have to do with Anthony Shard?”

  “You killed him.”

  Be
fore a word escapes my lips, a loud noise jolts me.

  Tony moans and nips at my earlobe. “There goes Anthony Shard. All because you took him to the bathroom in New York, right?”

  “Tony.” Flinching at his words, I breathe out, guilt for the loss of an innocent life eating at me. “His name wasn’t Anthony.”

  “So, you do know his name?”

  “It wasn’t Anthony Shard.”

  “Well … that guy let you into my club.”

  “The bouncer?”

  “Your mister.”

  My knees buckle, and Tony holds me up with his knee. No way. Tears fill the corners of my eyes as the realization of Luca’s fake identity weighs on me.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t know who made the call to my club? Strange numbers are always traced, Isabella.”

  Tony just killed Luca Cabrali. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”

  “Why? What have I done?”

  I don’t dignify his cocky-ass with an answer.

  He opens the car door and brushes his fingers over my tears. “Aww, doll face, are you sad?”

  I bite down on my lower lip and glance at the three men, making their way out of the motel, as if they aren’t afraid of getting caught. They must have bought the silence of the owners, or hell, it was so shitty, maybe no one lived here.

  “I told you I’d make you feel.”

  He swats at the tears on my eyes while I glare at him, imagining his death alongside Beppe’s.

  The killers get in the car with me while I plot their murder. I stare out the window with tears welling my eyes. No one speaks, because there’s not much left to say. Their actions spoke louder than words.

  It’s not until I recognized the road to Old Ridge that I chance a look at my fiancé. I trace the circular locket of my necklace, and realize I just got these men on camera, confessing to murder.

  Just in case, I bring it up again. “You didn’t have to kill him, Tony.”

  “Oh, she speaks?” Tony chuckles and rests his ankle on his thigh, propping his glass up on his knee. “You killed him, Isabella.”

  “I don’t even know who Anthony Shard is.”

  With a quick nod toward Vinnie, Tony tells me to look at the bodyguard.

  Vinnie shows me a picture of Anthony Shard’s driver’s license. “You don’t recognize this man?”