Dirty Pool

by Bethany-Kris

  Gabbie’s heart picked up speed again, just enough to make her feel like she couldn’t breathe. Maybe this wasn’t going to go the way she hoped for it to. She didn’t know how else to help Michel, though.

  “Da, please,” Gabbie whispered. “He helped me. Can’t you give him one more chance for that?”

  Charles scowled as he turned back on her, and something she didn’t recognize flashed in his eyes before he nodded once. “Take the young man to the Italians, and drop him off where they will see him, and can tend to him. Drop him off alive, lads. We’ll see if he can keep his word on the rest.”

  Then, her father waved a hand and arched a brow. “Fair, or no?”

  “Thank you,” she was quick to say.

  Charles pointed at the stairs. “Now go.”

  She did.

  And she didn’t look back, either.

  Just in case …

  Gabbie did all she could.

  SEVEN

  “Boss said he needed to be alive!”

  “Aye, but he’s still a piece of Italian shite, Kevin.”

  That was the last thing Michel remembered hearing before something hit the back of his head, and everything went black. He didn’t even get the chance to cover his head—not that he would have done that when his hands were important tools to becoming a surgeon.

  The next thing he knew, he was staring up at darkness. It took Michel entirely too long to realize what was happening, or where he even was. It was the muffled sound of an engine revving, and the slight swaying in the tight, cramped space that told him exactly what was going on, and where he found himself.

  In the trunk of a vehicle.

  Perfetto.

  Michel was seriously starting to regret taking on the agreement to hustle for Sal over the summer, but he knew he was fucked now. He gave the man his word, and he would be expected to follow it through regardless if he wanted to or not.

  That’s just how it worked.

  Michel blinked back into consciousness slowly, his stomach threatening to revolt. Bad sign number one, he thought. There was a good chance he was concussed, and the last thing he needed for that was to be passed out, for fuck’s sake.

  He remembered being dragged from the basement of Charles Casey’s home, because apparently they didn’t even trust him to walk on his own two legs. Before that, he could vividly see Gabbie in his mind—God, she was kind of like an angel in the darkness. His saving grace, in a way. Had she not come down into that basement, he seriously doubted that he would have made it out of there alive.

  Did she even know that?

  Jesus.

  He was never going to forget how her voice sounded when she spoke up, and asked her father to spare him. Soft, sweet, and oh, so clear. Her words were smooth, but scared. A lot like the way she stood there, her hands shaking at her sides although he didn’t think that she knew it. She was just doing what she thought was right. Asking for him to be let go was right to her, even if she was terrified to ask for it.

  The rest didn’t matter.

  Except it mattered to Michel.

  He owed that woman his life.

  Cazzo.

  He was brought back to the present when the vehicle jumped a bit—a speed bump, maybe? Michel’s hands came out fast to steady his body so that he wasn’t tossed around like a ragdoll in the damn trunk.

  Fucking Irish.

  They didn’t screw around. The Irish were known for their violence—savagery, really. They didn’t give a single fuck about anything, and their actions often showed it. He knew better, because he’d been told more than once growing up, that they didn’t mess with the Irish. No one wanted to start problems with an Irish family unless they wanted to suffer for it.

  And here he was.

  Doing exactly that, idiot.

  Michel hated the uncertainty of his current state. That he didn’t know where in the hell he was, or where they were taking him. Sure, he remembered what Charles had told his men to do, but that didn’t mean they would listen.

  Killing an Italian would be nothing to them. He wasn’t even a made man.

  Fuck.

  He missed New York.

  Why didn’t he just pick a medical school there again?

  Michel fought his hazy mind as his eyes grew heavy again. If he was concussed, there was no damn way he was going to let himself fall asleep. He wasn’t sure how much longer he was in that trunk while the vehicle swayed and jumped as he was driven to … who knew?

  Finally, though, the car did stop. Michel perked up, his fists balling at his sides just in case he might need to fight when, or if, they opened the trunk again. He could taste the remnants of dried blood in his mouth, and his face ached like nothing else.

  As did the back of his head.

  There was a ringing in his ears, too. Not to mention, his body felt taut and tense. Like his back was sore, and his legs were far too cramped. He was sure he’d taken a few kicks to his ribs given how each breath he took in hurt like nothing else.

  They hadn’t held back.

  Once the idiots at the warehouse figured out he couldn’t save their friend—who died on that bloodstained blanket before they could even leave—it was all downhill from there. First, they argued about what they were going to do with him.

  Kill him, or not?

  Two settled on beating the shit out of him while the third man called someone to ask for an opinion on what to do. Apparently, they could take him without permission, but they didn’t think killing him without an explicit okay would be the proper thing to do.

  Right.

  Goddamn fools.

  Then, the trunk opened all at once. Bright light spilled in from the outside, making Michel momentarily blind. He blinked, his hands coming up to cover his face to shield from the light so that he might be able to see what was happening.

  A street light.

  That’s what caused the flood of brightness.

  “Out you go, you feck.”

  Michel barely heard the statement before one too many pairs of hands were on him. They grabbed hold of his legs, arms, and clothes before yanking him out of the trunk. He was dumped to the ground unceremoniously, followed by a bout of raucous laughter. He was so glad that his predicament was a source of humor for them.

  Yeah.

  “Ring the feckin’ doorbell, and leave him. They don’t need a message—he’ll tell ‘em.”

  What?

  Michel was still trying to not throw up. Now that he was out of the darkness, the world had stopped swaying around him, and he was on solid ground with a little bit of light to see, his head wouldn’t stop spinning. His gaze was fuzzy, and that ringing in his ears had picked up so much that he couldn’t really hear anything without it sounding funny. And why did the back of his head now feel like it was literally pulsing?

  He couldn’t remember a time when he had gotten the shit beaten out of him so thoroughly. He had to give the Irish that, if nothing else. In the end, they might have let him go, but he heard their message to him loud and fucking clear.

  Stay away.

  That was not the hell he wanted.

  Even as he thought that, Gabbie’s image filtered into his mind. Her sly little smile, those spattering of freckles, and the green of her eyes glittering as she looked his way over her shoulder. All memories of her that he didn’t realize his mind had grabbed onto until that moment, and he was struck silent from the weight of it.

  Yeah, he should stay away.

  This was a good reason why.

  Who knew if he would, though?

  A car revved somewhere near his head.

  Too close.

  Less than five seconds after tires squealed against the pavement, Michel heard another voice. A familiar one.

  “Michel? Fuck, Michel!”

  Footsteps pounded against cement.

  He was rolled to his back.

  Above him, he found Sal’s worried eyes looking down at him. A new pair of hands were touching him, now, checking hi
m over. This time, though, the hands were a hell of a lot kinder than the ones that had beaten the hell out of him.

  “Who did it, huh?” Sal asked.

  His eyes had to be swelled badly.

  He could only see a slit of Sal in front of him.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Michel managed to say.

  Sal scowled. “It does. I know who it was—the only ones that had any reason. The Irish, yeah?”

  “I made a deal. We don’t answer.”

  “Michel—”

  “Don’t answer them for it.”

  That was important.

  He needed to get it out before he couldn’t. And also, he thought to add as his tongue felt too thick in his mouth, “And don’t tell my father shit, Sal.”

  He didn’t want Dante to worry. Didn’t he have to learn to handle himself? He couldn’t have his father coming down here to cause issues just because Michel got in a little bit of trouble. That’s not how this was supposed to work.

  “You’re a shit, you know that?” Sal asked.

  Michel would have laughed.

  Except he couldn’t.

  The whole world went black again.

  • • •

  “No work tonight, huh?” Sal crossed the VIP floor, leaned across the booth as he took his seat, and clapped Michel on the cheek. He grinned as the music in the club turned up a notch. “After last week, I think you earned some time off.”

  Michel chuckled, and shoved his friend’s hand away. “At least I don’t look as bad as I did.”

  “But do you look any better?”

  He gave Sal the finger from across the booth.

  Fucker.

  “I wondered why you called me in if not to work,” Michel said, relaxing a bit in his seat. That wasn’t particularly easy to do lately. Despite the fact that the Irish hadn’t bothered him in a week, and he heard nothing from that side of things, he still found himself constantly looking over his shoulder. “Are we just drinking?”

  Sal nodded, and waved two fingers at the server who was designated to the VIP section of the club. “And celebrating, Michel … four shots, tequila for all of them.”

  Michel’s brow lifted.

  What were they celebrating exactly?

  “Tequila—do you want me to be alive in the morning?”

  Sal laughed. “It’s good for the soul. Teaches you the meaning of life, cafone.”

  Michel doubted that.

  Tequila reminded him of death in the mornings.

  Except he knew better than to refuse a made man when one offered him a drink—that was considered a great offense to their hospitality, whether you were also made or not. So, Michel said nothing else and took the two shots of tequila when the server brought them around. He wasn’t even legal to be sitting in this bar still being only twenty, but that never seemed to matter to anyone in these mob-owned joints.

  Story of his life.

  He tossed back those two shots for himself, doing his best not to immediately throw it right back up because holy fuck, tequila was awful. That was the only thing his mind could scream as the liquor burned the whole fucking way down his throat.

  “Another—”

  Michel stopped Sal before he could really get going. There was no way he was going through another round of shots with that garbage. He’d watched Sal drop back a quarter of a bottle of tequila on a good night, and Michel was simply not that brave.

  “So what are we celebrating, anyway?”

  His question did the trick to distract the man, anyway.

  Sal grinned his way again. “I had to wait, you see.”

  “Wait for what?”

  The man shot him a look.

  Michel stared right back.

  Clearly, he was missing something here, but he didn’t have the first clue what it was. For the most part, he spent the last week with his head down, and hidden within the safe walls of his small house. Not that a locked door would stop anybody from getting in if they really wanted to grab him and pull him out, but what else could he do?

  So, he stayed in.

  Made no trouble.

  Said nothing.

  He took the time to heal because clearly he fucking needed it. Most of the bruising was now a faded yellow and brown. All of the swelling in his face was gone. He didn’t wake up sore, and still tasting blood in his mouth from the Irish beating.

  All good things.

  Michel was seriously hoping that was the end of it, too. He wasn’t willing, in any way, to go another round with the Irish. He knew better than to hound on the issue, or spread the story around about what happened.

  He didn’t even complain about it just in case someone took it the wrong way, and thought that he wanted them to answer the Irish back with something to make it clear where he stood. He didn’t want to make anything clear except to say what was done was fucking done.

  His mother and father called earlier in the week, and he didn’t even say a damn thing to them about the attack. It wouldn’t do anything good for him, the Italians here, or the Irish, for that matter. There was no point in making a fuss, not unless he wanted a bigger issue to be caused over it all.

  Let it be done, he figured. They made their point, and he heard it loud and clear.

  That wasn’t cowardly.

  That was smart.

  Michel was all about being smart.

  Or … trying.

  Sal clearly had other plans if his next statement was to be trusted. “See, the Irish have been toeing the lines we made for a while now. We made peace to keep the streets clean. Too many innocents were getting caught up in the mess, but … we can’t let this go. If we were to let this go, Michel, then what might they try next? That doesn’t make for good business.”

  All of the sudden, that tequila Michel had just swallowed threatened to make itself known again. It was about to spill right back out of his mouth, and currently burned his tongue like the bile twisting in his stomach and climbing up his throat.

  “Sal, I said not to answer them back,” Michel snapped.

  The man waved a hand. “Least we could do, Michel.”

  “No, it’s not. I said I made a deal.”

  “It’ll be fine. Tonight, they’ll know the Vannozzos aren’t fucking around with their shit anymore. We’re just as strong in this city as they are now—or we’re damn close to it. They can’t be fucking with us like they did with you. The boss gave his okay. It’s done.”

  No, it wasn’t fucking done.

  Michel didn’t understand how Sal could be so flippant about this. Maybe it was his raising under a man who made it his first priority to never get into a street war with another family, but Michel’s first instinct was to fix an issue.

  And not with violence.

  His father didn’t work that way.

  A war between criminal organizations was nothing to scoff at, honestly. And it could happen fast. A few words tossed, and a punch thrown in the middle, and there they would be. Fucked. The entire city would be caught up in a chaotic, violent mess. No one would be safe—not innocents, made men, or anyone in between.

  Someone like Michel?

  Or Gabbie, even?

  They were just fodder to this kind of shit.

  So, no, he couldn’t be flippant.

  Not like Sal was.

  “I made a deal,” Michel repeated to a man he thought was his friend. He was seriously reconsidering that now. This never would have happened between his cousins and him back home. That was a fucking guarantee. “Sal, I gave my goddamn word to them.”

  Sal passed him a look, his gaze cold as the man arched a brow. “That’s the thing, Michel … you don’t have a word to give. Your word? It doesn’t count here. You should keep that in mind the next time you want to speak for one of us. Now, be grateful we even give enough of a shit to answer them back for you.”

  Jesus Christ.

  Was it even for him, though?

  Because he didn’t think so.

  Michel’s jaw ached
from how hard he was clenching his teeth. “You know, it’s getting tiring, Sal.”

  “What is?”

  “The way you talk down to me.”

  Sal tipped his head in Michel’s direction, saying, “You’re not a made man, Michel. Something I was told you chose because you wanted to be a doctor. I guess being made wasn’t good enough for you, huh? Oh, and you’re not in New York anymore, in case you also forgot about that. You don’t want me to talk down to you? Then, I suggest you remember your place. Let’s be fucking honest, you’re lucky to even be in the conversation.”

  Good to know.

  Michel would remember that.

  Absolutely.

  • • •

  What did Michel do when he needed to relax?

  Billiards.

  Pool.

  The first time he ever played a game of pool, he’d been thirteen and his cousin John whooped his ass horribly. So much so that Michel almost didn’t want to pick up a pool cue, and try again. Anything that didn’t come easily to him was far too easy for him to give up. Except he did play again, and with each game, he got a little better.

  Now, he could shark someone out of a thousand dollars like it was fucking nothing. Although, he tried not to do that often unless someone needed a lesson about not underestimating him. Funny how that worked … he felt like there were a lot of people in Detroit lately that needed a reminder about Michel.

  Despite the fact he wasn’t a made man, and he didn’t get a seat at their table, he still came from the biggest North American crime family. An organization his father had headed for decades. Did they think he knew nothing? That he wasn’t capable of doing serious damage to them if he had enough inspiration?

  Because he could.

  Michel wasn’t like them.

  He wasn’t obvious.

  A silent sort of vicious.

  That was a better description of him, but not one he wanted to focus on right now. As much as he wanted to show Sal and the rest of the Capo’s men exactly what Michel was capable of doing, he knew it wasn’t the smart thing.

  And he tried to be smart.

  Usually.

  Instead, he resigned to keeping to himself for the past week. He didn’t purposely seek Sal out after the conversation the weekend before at the club. There were lots of other things for him to use to keep himself entertained, and he did give the man his word, too. For the summer, he was working for the Capo, and he planned on seeing that through as much as he could.