“Gia, I’m so fucking sorry you were screwed with growing up. I had parents and two sisters, and we were formidable with any pimply-faced teenage boy that looked their way. They knew I would fuck them up if they messed with either of my sisters. The girls hated me scaring away their boyfriends. They went out of their way to stay under my radar. But they knew if anything happened they could pick up the phone, day or night, and I’d be there for them, no questions asked.”
The Ferris wheel had been moving as we talked, and it finally got to the top. It stopped, and the gondola swung back and forth slowly. Gia looked out over the fair, her breath making a fluffy cloud of steam in the now-chilly air, both from the height and now that the sun had gone down. In profile, I could see her upturned nose and full lips, one caught between her teeth. Her stubborn chin was stuck out, and her messy hair was caught up in a bun. I reached out and tucked a few strands behind her ear. It felt as silky as it looked.
She turned to look me in the eye. Chin up, she stated, “I’m not denying you’re a good man, Sonny. I’m just pissed that the first time something bad happened between us, you went ballistic before you even asked me my version of events. That was Drake’s way of handling problems, and sometimes he took his frustrations out on my face. I won’t be put in that situation ever again, Sonny. Not for you or anyone.”
I was shocked. I reared back like she had actually hit me. “Do you honestly think I could raise a hand to you, Gia? When have I ever given you the impression that I could hit a woman?”
“I’m not saying you would, Sonny. I’m telling you my own perceptions, based on the things that I’ve been through in life. You’re going to have to give me time to get over your reaction. It looked like you were coming at me before Breech stepped between us.”
I was horrified. “Never, Gia. I’d cut off my own hand before I would hit you. Maybe it looked that way, but I swear by all that is holy I would never lay a hand on you in anger.”
The Ferris wheel had made its circuit and stopped at the bottom. The boy running the ride unlocked the gondola, and I helped Gia exit the ride. She was mulling over what I’d said. I took her hand, and she let me, so I laced our fingers together as we walked.
We met up with the other couples. Hannah’s hair looked messed up, and her lips were red and swollen. I’m thinking Murph was celebrating being on top of the world.
Gia spoke to the group. “I need to hit the ladies’ room; anyone want to go with me?” she asked.
Hannah replied, “Yeah, I do.”
“I could use a cup of coffee; we’ll wait for you ladies by the picnic tables next to the coffee stand.” I pointed out the location as I spoke. Gia went to walk away, and I held up a hand to stop her. “Thanks for listening, babe, I’ve got your back.”
She smiled at me, lifting a hand to brush it across my cheek and chin. “I never doubted it, Sonny, not for a second.” She linked arms with Hannah, and the two of them walked off.
Twelve
Hannah and I used the ladies’ room. I was washing my hands when she walked up to the sink next to me. She ran her hands through her unruly hair, trying to tame it. I pulled a hair tie off my wrist, offering it to her.
She smiled and gratefully accepted it. “Thanks so much,” she said.
While she was putting her hair up, I leaned against the sink. I thought we were alone in the room, but I heard some sniffles coming from the last stall. Cautiously I approached. The door was ajar, so I pushed it open slowly. There was a child crouched on the filthy floor, crying.
“Hello, sweetie,” I cooed. My name is Gia, what’s yours?” The child huddled into the corner, trying to get as small as it could. “I’m not going to hurt you, sweetheart. Are you lost?”
I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl by the clothes it was wearing, and a hood was covering its head and face. The bundle started shaking, and my heart broke. I reached forward, and it launched itself at me, wrapping its arms around my neck and holding on like a leech.
Hannah held the door open so I could carry the child outside. It clung to me like a burr.
“Can you open the other door too, Hannah? Let’s take this little person to find its family.” She obliged, walking in front of me to open the door to the ladies’ room.
When we walked outside, there were two girls, the older one about eight or nine, just walking in. One of them grabbed my arm. The other one just looked scared. “What are you doing to my brother? Put him down, lady.” She tried to pull the boy from my arms, but I shook her off and held the child tighter to my body.
“Who are you and why did you leave your brother alone?” I questioned her.
“Lady, you don’t know who you’re fucking with. Put my brother down now, or I will scream my head off that you’re trying to kidnap him.”
I was stunned; this little twerp was trying to intimidate me. “Listen up, sweetie. I don’t scare easy, so watch your mouth before I haul you into that restroom and wash it out with soap.”
The second girl burst into tears. “Momma’s gonna beat us, she said to watch out for Pietro and what did we do; lose him,” she shrieked.
The first one cocked a hip and stuck her bony little frame out like she had some curves. I would have laughed, but I saw she was just trying to act tough. Then her face crumbled, and she, too, looked like she was about to cry. “My momma would take the belt to us if she knew we’d lost Petey. Please, lady, just let me take him.”
Pietro—or Petey—had been laying quietly in my arms. He still had his arms locked around my neck, but he wasn’t crying anymore. “Do you know these girls, Petey?” I asked him.
He nodded his head yes but wouldn’t let go. He sighed then loosened his grip, so he could slide down my body, but kept a hold of the leg of my jeans. The mouthy girl was there to take his hand, and she peeled his other hand off me. She dragged him away, yelling at him. “You shoulda just told me or Sarah you had to pee, Petey. We would have taken you to the bathroom. Now Momma’s gonna be pissed that we took so long.” She jerked him along behind her. “She’s gonna take the strap to us, and it’s your fault.”
He stumbled trying to keep up, and I started forward to help him when his hood slipped—and I found myself looking into a face I knew. Stunned, I stopped, doubting what I saw, but that one look was burned in my brain. I was looking into a younger face of a person I knew well. Those eyes big as saucers, the way his stubborn chin quivered, and the dimple in his cheek; it was all Sonny…
I ran forward, following them, but they had a head start, and they were moving fast. I reached for my phone, but it wasn’t in my pocket. Shit.
I searched all my pockets, but my phone and my wallet were gone. I saw the girl up ahead; she turned and gave me the finger before pulling the boy forward and melting into the crowd. “Fuck!” I shouted. Hannah was right beside me. “Hannah, I need your phone.” She reached into her pocket and came up empty. “Shit, they got your phone too.”
“What the hell?” Hannah asked.
“They ran a scam on us, and we fell for it hook, line, and sinker.” I was running full-out towards where we were supposed to meet the group.
Hannah followed, yelling, “Are you ok?”
I nodded my head but kept on running. Sonny saw me coming and got up from the table. He reached me in a couple strides.
“Gia, what the fuck?” he asked.
Hannah pulled up beside me, bending over and breathing hard. “Hannah, go tell the others what happened. We have to split up and find them.”
She nodded, but still couldn’t speak, trying to catch her breath from our sprint. She kept on moving towards the group seated at the table.
“Sonny, long story short,” I said on an exhale. “We found a kid hiding in the restroom. He was crying, and we thought he was lost.” I stopped, gulping in air. “Two preteen girls claimed him as their b
aby brother and ran a scam, picking our pockets before taking off with the boy.” I stopped again for more air. “They got my phone and wallet.”
“You’re fucking kidding me, right? Come on, we have to go find them.” He turned to leave, and I grabbed his arm.
“Sonny, look at me.”
He stopped and looked back. “What, Gia, we’re wasting time. We have to report this and see if we can locate these kids. They are probably fleecing lots of people at this fair.”
“Sonny, that kid, the little boy. I only got a glimpse, but I swear I was looking at you twenty years ago.”
All the blood drained from his face. He put his hand out to steady himself against my shoulder. “Enzo,” he whispered. “Are you sure, Gia?”
“Pietro, Petey for short, she called him.” He recoiled like I’d dealt him a low blow.
“Pietro was her father’s name. She wanted it in his name, so we compromised and made it his middle name.”
He shook his head as if to clear away the fog. “Come on, we have to find the sheriff’s station.” He grabbed my hand, and we ran over to the group at the table. Dukes was still listening to Hannah when Sonny spoke up. “We have to report this. Lani, do you have that map still?”
She reached into her backpack and came up with a wrinkled flyer. It had a map of the grounds on the back. Sonny scanned it and found the sheriff’s booth.
“Gia and I will hit the sheriff; the rest of you spread out and see if you can spot them. Two teens and a little boy. Hannah will fill you in on what they were wearing. Maybe we’ll get lucky. We will meet back at the Ferris wheel in two hours. It’s right in the middle of the fair.”
Murph spoke up, “I have a set of field glasses on my bike. I’ll go grab them, and Hannah and I will get up on the wheel and see if we can spot them from the air.” Breech slapped Murph on the back.
“Good man!” he said.
Dukes gave Sonny an appraising look. “There is more to this than just a lost phone and wallet, isn’t there Santino?” he questioned.
“Yeah, man, but I can’t go into it now, Dukes. Let’s just say it couldn’t hit any closer to home.” He looked directly at Dukes without flinching. “I will fill you all in later, I promise.”
Dukes nodded his head. “Good enough, let’s get a move on, folks.” He fist-bumped Sonny and headed out with Lani.
Sonny took my hand, and we hurried towards the sheriff’s station. When we got there, the station was surrounded by people complaining about getting ripped off. Sonny pushed through the mass of people trying to reach the counter. He kept my hand securely in his, towing me along with him through the throng.
The officer at the desk looked harried. Sonny spoke first. “My girl had her phone and wallet stolen by a trio of grifter kids.”
The officer snorted. “Yeah, we know. Looks like they’re working the fair.” He shoved a clipboard at Sonny. “Have her fill out the forms, and if we find anything, we’ll contact her.”
“What happens to the children if you catch them?” Sonny asked.
The officer stopped working and looked at Sonny. “You’re the first person to ask that question tonight. All the others are more concerned with getting back their possessions than what happens to those kids. Child protective services will have jurisdiction over them. If they are under fourteen, they can’t be prosecuted.” He turned to me. “Notify your credit card companies that your cards need to be changed. Bring the police report with you to the DMV and they will waive the replacement fee. Also, New York law says you will be covered in the case of identity theft with the police report.”
I filled out the form and returned the clipboard to the officer. “Thank you for all the information, Officer…”
At my hesitation, he replied, “Deputy Weathers.”
“Well, Deputy Weathers, I appreciate it very much.” He tore off one of the copies and handed it to me, along with a card.
“You can call this number, and they will give you information about your case if you give them the number from that copy I just gave you. Sorry your possessions were stolen.” He turned away to deal with the next unhappy person who got ripped off.
Sonny took my hand as we started walking the grounds, looking for any sign of the children. Every time I saw a flash of pink I thought it might be the sassy girl. Each time, it wasn’t.
Sonny’s watch pinged as the two-hour timer went off. We turned towards the Ferris wheel to meet the others.
There was no good news. No one had seen hide or hair of the kids. The good mood of the day was broken and, by mutual consent, we headed towards the bikes and mounted up to ride home.
Thirteen
The ride home was somber. The high I usually felt from riding was absent. It wasn’t long before I pulled up in front of the 3rd Street house. Gia dismounted, handing me her helmet.
“I’ll see you at the clubhouse,” she said. “We have to pack up all the stuff for Murph’s party and bring it over in the car.”
I took her hand, holding it for a minute silently. “Thanks for everything you did today. I want you to know I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome, Sonny. I hope they find those kids and they’re ok, even if that one girl was a smartass. She’s still a kid, you know. See you at the party.” Leaning forward, she kissed me quickly then, turning, she walked into the house, closing the door behind her.
I got back on my bike and headed over to the clubhouse. I walked into my office, closing the door behind me. Sitting down at my desk, I unlocked the drawer and pulled out the file that started the whole fucking argument with Gia. My hand shook looking at the photo of my son. I still remember how scared I felt when the nurse put that little bundle in my arms. Wrapped in a blue blanket, those tiny hands waving, his unblinking blue eyes stared up at me. He had peach fuzz on his head, and he smelled like clean skin and baby powder. He cuddled up to my chest, wrapping those perfectly formed fingers in my beard and around my heart.
I placed him in his mother’s arms, and that’s the last time I saw him. Gia swore the kid she saw today was him, my boy, my son. Could it really be him? Five years I’d lost not being able to watch the little man grow up.
The private detectives I’d hired hadn’t been able to find him. They followed leads from New York to California, but none of them had panned out. Could it be that he was here all along, hiding in plain sight?
The door to my office opened, and Dukes walked in. He made himself comfortable on the couch, throwing his feet up on the coffee table. He had two beer bottles with him, both beaded with sweat. He put one down on the table and took a long swallow from the other.
“I’ve known you’ve had secrets for a long time, Sonny. As long as they didn’t affect the club, I was satisfied to let you keep them. A man’s private business is his own. If you choose to share those details with us or need our help, we’d have your back, end of story.” He stopped speaking and drank more beer.
I picked up the file I had laid on my desk and took the chair next to him. I handed him the file and grabbed the other bottle of beer, draining half of it in one pull. Laying my head back against the chair, I closed my eyes, linking my hands together as I held the beer between them.
There were the soft sounds of pages turning as Dukes read the file. He didn’t say anything, and I didn’t open my eyes even after I heard him close the file and set it on the table.
The silence was deafening. Dukes’s boots hit the floor with a loud bang. My eyes popped open; Dukes’s hand was heavy on my knee. “Talk to me, Santino, what does today have to do with this file? Why now?”
“I wish I could tell you why now, Dukes. I don’t fucking know. Today, at the fair, those grifters—that little boy—she swears it was him, Dukes. My son. Could she have been hiding him in plain sight for the last five years? I chased my fucking tail following leads that led
to nothing, people that didn’t exist, places they were sighted. I got nowhere. I hired the best PIs money could buy and got nothing. But we go to see a fucking painting pig in a county fair in the middle of fucking nowheresville, and it could be him. Finally, it could be him, and I’m so fuckin’ sick to my stomach, Dukes.”
“Tell me about this girl, Sonny. You never talked about her much, didn’t bring her around the club too often. You were drinking and getting high as fuck back then, and often. I know for the last five years you’ve been off the drugs, I’ve seen the five-year chip you carry. I need to understand what happened between you.”
I sighed. Leaning forward in my chair, I put my head in my hands, scrubbing my eyes before I looked up and into Dukes’s face. “She was the sister of a friend I grew up with. He died in an accident, and she came to see me after the funeral with a letter and an envelope. It hit me hard, losing him after all the others I lost in the service. She was beautiful, short and stacked, with long hair and soft skin. I got falling-down-drunk one night, and she was there. For three weeks we fucked and cried and fucked some more. I thought I was in love with her, that God had finally given me something good to go with all the shit I’d waded through. She was an addict, but I didn’t see it. Or maybe I didn’t want to see it; she didn’t want me, she wanted the money her brother left me.”
A bitter laugh escaped me. “If she would have asked me, I would have given it to her. I never wanted the money, and I’d planned on donating it anyway. When I woke up from the stupor I’d been in, she was gone, took the money and left me a note that said it was fun but she had other things to do. She hit the road and didn’t look back.” Dukes’s hand settled on my shoulder, he squeezed but didn’t interrupt me.
Sonny's Surrender: Devil's Wind - Book Three Page 7
