by Gina LaManna
“I wouldn’t have done that.”
“No?” Carlos raised his eyebrow. Then he spoke with an equal amount of finality. “If I didn’t retire voluntarily, you would’ve put a bullet in my head. With your kind, there’s no other way.”
“We’re the same kind.” The Fish’s hands shook for the first time as he swept up the kitty, his eyes scanning the shapes and colors and numbers on the cards. “We come into life by storm and go out with a bang. Anything else is disappointing.”
“Then I’m afraid I have disappointed you.”
The Fish shook his head. “Not yet.”
“We’re not the same kind.” Carlos laid his hand on the table, the cards face up and exposed. “I don’t want anything from you, except the girls’ freedom.”
I wiggled and wiggled, the handcuffs nearing my knuckles. A bit more chap-stick, and maybe I’d be able to slip through…
“If you don’t need money, power, respect, then what do you want?”
Carlos shook his finger. “Money, power, and respect are not synonymous.”
The Fish laughed. “You are going soft.”
“Maybe,” Carlos said. “But if one doesn’t go soft from time to time, they can’t feel warmth. I was like you once – cold, hard, and unforgiving. Back when I was too young to know any better.”
“Oh?”
“And then I met my wife.” Carlos crossed his arms above his chest. “And she saved me from becoming you.”
“I happen to like myself.”
“I don’t happen to like you.”
“This is your last chance.” The Fish’s face turned an unexpected shade of red. “If you agree to play the game and combine forces, we still have a chance to work out a deal that’s beneficial to both of us.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
“You’ve been trying to get rid of me via your granddaughter the last few years. Why?”
Carlos sighed. “I haven’t been going after you.”
“Then what have you been going after?”
“What do I want?” Carlos leaned back in his chair, narrowing his eyes. “I want a world that’s safe for my granddaughters to grow up in. I want a neighborhood where they can go to school and not worry about making it home at night.” Carlos’s eyes flicked ever-so-briefly in my direction. “And more than anything, I want my granddaughters, all of them, to know that they can become anything they want in this life, and I want them to dream big. That is what I want.”
The Fish stood up. “I can see we no longer have the same priorities.”
“No,” Carlos said. “I don’t believe we do.”
“Which leaves me only one option.” The Fish retrieved the gun he’d tucked somewhere on his body and pointed it at my grandfather.
As much as I’d wanted to savor the special moment when Carlos had given us the slightest glimpse into his motivations, the sweet second when Carlos had almost admitted he loved us, I hadn’t stopped working. Because that would’ve let my grandfather down, and I couldn’t let down a man who’d risked his life to give me everything.
Thankfully, my efforts were rewarded. As The Fish raised the gun, I slid the last few inches of my fingers from the handcuffs. The gun inched higher still, and I had no time to think, no time to breathe, no time to do anything except act.
With a bloodcurdling cry, I hurtled the chap-stick container at The Fish, hoping for anything, a whiff of a distraction or a slight hesitation in his step. It bounced harmlessly off the wall behind him, but the click drew his attention for the briefest of seconds, in which a lifetime of things happened.
I lunged across the room, my screams and sudden motion a whirlwind of activity. The Fish whipped around, the gun whirling to face me and, for a split second, I feared he’d pull the trigger.
But my grandfather spoke first, his voice as piercing as diamonds. “Try it.”
I held my hands in the air, my chest heaving and my breathing tight. Carlos had a gun pressed to The Fish’s temple and a dark glitter in his eye.
“Drop the gun or you’re dead,” Carlos said. “I intended to leave without using my bullets because I’m a reasonable man, and I thought we could strike a deal. It’d be a shame if I was wrong.”
The Fish closed his eyes. He breathed in and out, in and out, the rise and fall of his chest as mesmerizing as a stormy ocean. Until finally, he bent slowly towards the ground, setting the gun on the floor.
Carlos nodded at it.
I kicked it as far as I could towards the back of the room.
Carlos blinked. “You could’ve picked it up, and you chose to kick it?”
“I don’t like guns.” I gave a sheepish expression. Then my eyes focused on the timer blinking down on the table, and I picked up the phone. I added fifty minutes to the clock and kept my fingers wrapped tight against the mobile device.
The Fish gave a shake of his head. “You’re leaving the family business in her hands?”
“You’re leaving The Family to me?” My jaw dropped. “Carlos, no. I’m not capable of doing your job.”
“I’m not leaving the family to anyone,” Carlos said. “I’m still alive, if you haven’t noticed. Handcuff him before he gets any ideas.”
I found the cuff key in The Fish’s pockets, withdrew it, and then unlocked both Marissa and Clarissa. I brought both pairs back over and, just to be safe, locked him up using both of them.
“Good,” Carlos said. “Now, call Anthony.”
I started to nod, but before I could finish, I realized that wouldn’t be necessary. Behind Carlos’s shoulder, I caught a flash of movement. Upon closer inspection, that movement was none other than Anthony and my father, both of them peeking through the windows behind the gelato counter. Their guns were drawn and pointed inside, so I quickly waved my hands that things were under control, and gestured for them to come inside.
Then, I turned to The Fish. “I have one more question for you, and I expect an answer. There’s a rumor you killed an FBI agent. Is it true?”
“Who told you that?” He looked up, but surprise wasn’t one of the emotions registering on his face.
“Oleg. You framed him.”
“Oleg was already in trouble. It only made sense to pin one more thing on him.”
The front door creaked open, and I cleared my throat. “It was you who killed the agent. You admit it?”
“I didn’t have a choice,” The Fish said. “He knew too much about me. If he’d gotten any closer, I would’ve gone to jail for life. I’m not the type to give up that easily.”
My stomach roiled at his confession, and I didn’t hear the footsteps as Anthony came over to me, pulling me into an embrace. My father followed shortly after, whispering a soft thank you in my ear.
I cleared my throat, unable to meet his eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
Jackson Cole’s face was hard. “It’s nothing I didn’t already know. But I needed closure.”
We stood there for a long moment, all of us. The girls watched from the corner as my grandfather, my father, and Anthony all stood around me and waited.
Eventually, I spoke softly to my grandfather. “Your gun is loaded?”
Carlos nodded.
I reached out, relieving my grandfather of the gun as Anthony took watch over The Fish. Then I took that gun and I handed it over to my father, our looks meeting with a knowing stare.
“This is unmarked,” I told him.
My father took the gun and gave one, single nod.
Carlos stepped forward and extended his arms to Marissa and Clarissa. “It’s time we leave.”
The girls ran towards my grandfather, clasping him around the waist. One of them cried softly while the other held on so tight I feared for Carlos’s safety.
Meanwhile, my father sat down with a hard thump on the seat, his hand trembling, scattering the deck of cards and sending them flying all over the floor.
I let him be, guiding the girls and my grandfather to the door. Anthony followed close behi
nd, but not before whispering something to my father. What specifically, I couldn’t guess.
When everyone was outside, I turned back to shut the door.
But The Fish wasn’t done with me. As I looked at him one last time, he met my eyes with a glimmer of evil. “I hate to admit it, Lacey, but I lied again. The timer in your hand is nothing more than a burner phone. It’s not connected to anything.”
“What do you mean?” I looked down, my heart pumping cold blood through my system where the digital display blinked. “What are you talking about?”
“The bomb was wired internally to go off in thirty minutes.” The Fish smiled. “The van exploded over half an hour ago. They’re gone, Lacey, they’re gone.”
CHAPTER 47
Anthony tells me I yelled. He tells me I screamed and fought and clawed my way back to The Fish, but I have no recollection of any of it. He tells me I begged my father for the gun back, threatening to put the one bullet left right where it belonged – straight into the skull of the man who’d set a bomb off on my friend and cousin.
I don’t remember any of it.
For thirty minutes, my mind went blank. I don’t remember Anthony running back into the restaurant, and I don’t remember his arms grasping my wrists, holding my shoulders, pulling me to his chest. I don’t remember Carlos taking Marissa and Clarissa away, back to the estate where Dr. Gambino would ensure they were as safe and healthy as possible. I don’t remember my father promising to take care of The Fish, whatever that meant.
Somehow, someone must have loaded me into Anthony’s car. Because when I next looked at the clock, hours had passed, or so it felt. Had it been hours? Maybe it was a minute. Time, at the moment, was a black hole, one I sunk into so deeply, so surely, I feared I’d never get out. I didn’t have enough energy to stand on my own two feet, let alone focus on reality.
“Maybe he lied,” Anthony said. “He’s lied to you twice already.”
I stared out the window of the Audi, the glitter of city lights a blur. I didn’t cry. I didn’t weep or sob. I didn’t feel much of anything at all. “No,” I said. “He didn’t lie to me twice. He lied to me once.”
Anthony paused a moment. “Well, he lied to you about one thing; either the bomb in the van was set to a timer, or it wasn’t. Are you sure I can’t go alone?”
“I need to know.” Somehow, though, I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe Anthony was right. If The Fish had really left the bomb, I wasn’t sure I could handle seeing the results. But at the same time, I couldn’t bear not to know.
Anthony reached across the car to rest a hand in my lap. I’d caught him staring at my face, his own eyes dark and calculating as if watching for signs of a breakdown that hadn’t come. At first, there’d been rage. Once I’d burned that up, I had nothing left.
He held my hand, squeezing it tightly until we crossed a bridge that’d spit us out right near where the van had been parked. “Are you sure? Why don’t you wait here? I’ll get out, I’ll go look, and I’ll…I can tell you if…”
“No.” I gave his hand one squeeze, but it was mostly to prove my determination. “Pull around the corner and park. I’m coming.”
Anthony didn’t argue. He parked and stepped outside the car, coming swiftly around to my side and wrapping me in his arms before I could rush away.
“No matter what,” he said. “I love you.” He held my hand, his elbow looped through mine. “Let’s go together.”
Entwined with one another, I leaned my weight on Anthony. As we neared the corner that would give us news one way or another, I urged our pace faster. By the time we reached the final turn in the road, I was jogging. When we whipped closer to the corner, I pulled my arm from Anthony’s and sprinted ahead of him.
And when I rounded the final curve, I stopped dead.
And I fell to my knees.
The van, Clay’s baby, no longer existed.
Metal panels, car seats and random debris were the only remainders of Clay’s pride and joy. His ultimate invention had been demolished to little more than ash floating in the breeze.
“Lacey—” Anthony shouted after me, but it was too late.
I’d broken away from him and pitched myself at the van. A wail like that of a dying soul leapt from my throat, and it was a sound I had never heard before. Two pieces of my heart had been inside that van, and if they’d perished with it, there was no way I would ever be whole again.
I sank to my knees. My fingers, when they hit the ground, found the steering wheel. It must have flown from the van, and it now lay five feet away from the still-smoldering wreckage.
Anthony made it to my side in seconds, his fingers digging into my skin hard enough to leave marks. He pressed my head against his chest with such intensity I nearly suffocated. He rocked me on the ground then, soothing words flowing from his lips, one after another, the flow never stopping.
He never stopped holding me, not when I screamed, not when I hit his chest, not when I folded in half and dry-heaved for minutes at a time. Not when I swore and not when he cried – never once did he let go. And when my guttural sobs exhausted and all that I had left was a pair of glassy eyes and a shattered heart, he held me still.
CHAPTER 48
“Lacey, we have to call the police,” Anthony murmured.
The moon glowed overhead, and again, time was something that didn’t seem real. It seemed dark, menacing – how could time go on when two of my family members ceased to exist in this world?
I couldn’t respond. Cops didn’t matter. The Fish didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
“We can’t stay here all night.” He gently stroked my hair, and I knew he was right. I just didn’t care. “Lacey, please. Let me take you home. You’re in shock, and we need to get you to the estate. Please.”
He could do whatever he wanted with me; my body was limp, and I was as useless as a rag doll. If he picked me up and carried me like a sack of potatoes, I wouldn’t even flinch.
Anthony helped me to my feet, and I leaned on him, hard. My knees were spaghetti noodles, my arms dead weight. The imbalance was hard to control, and I continuously tipped one way or another. With halting steps, Anthony led me two steps away from the van.
Until I saw something. Something shiny. I turned around, and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Meg’s cell phone at the far side of the van. Somehow, it’d escaped from the fiery aftermath of the bomb, unscathed. I broke away from Anthony the second time and ignored him as he called my name twice, three times even, before I reached it.
Bending over, I cradled the phone in my arms like a child, looking down at the screen Meg cherished so dearly, until…
“Anthony, did you hear that?” I pushed through some of the debris, ignoring the flames that licked up the sides of my pants. The fires were small, and I moved fast enough so that none of them lingered on my clothes. “Anthony, come here!”
“Lacey, get out of there,” Anthony said. “It’s not safe. There may be more explosives, or—”
“I hear something.” I’d made my way to the center of the wreckage where, to my surprise, the metal box that’d been a work-in-progress time machine stood untouched. “Do you think…?”
Anthony joined me. “What is that?”
“I think…” I pounded against the metal box with all my weight. Three pounds with one fist. I pulled my hand back, my heart sinking. “Never mind. I thought that maybe they were inside this thing.”
Pound, pound, pound.
Anthony and I looked at each other. His eyebrows shot up faster than I’d ever seen them move before, and wordlessly, we both launched ourselves at the metal box. Where I’d been useless one second before, I now felt like Wonder Woman. I pried, clawed, and yanked my heart out, and between my terror and Anthony’s brute strength, we managed to wrench part of the front wall away from the rest of the steel cube.
“Quick,” I said. “We need to keep moving—”
Before I could finish my sentence, Anthony grasped me arou
nd the waist, his arms whisking me out of harm’s way as the front door of the box shot off its hinges, flying through the air before it bounced once, did a cartwheel, and then landed like a beetle on its back about three feet away.
“How about them kung-fu moves, huh?” Meg grinned, stepping from the box with a huge smile on her face. Judging by her karate stance, she’d just finished relieving the door of its hinges with one giant donkey kick. “Dang, it’s hot out here. I never wanted bangs, but it looks like I’m stuck with them after that explosion. Lacey! There you are.” Meg turned her blackened, soot-stained face towards me, her bangs sticking out at all angles. “I knew you’d come back to rescue us.”
Dumbfounded. Shocked. Surprised. Happy. Confused. There wasn’t enough room on my face for all these emotions, but all of them tried to find a front row seat, and I’m sure the result was a mess. “Meg. You’re…you’re alive?”
“What do you mean, of course I am! Clay, too. He’s right behind me.” Meg brushed off her sleeves, where a few ashes had landed after she’d stepped out of the box. “You think a teensy little explosion was gonna keep me down?” She shook her head. “Never, girlfriend. ’Cause I’m the bomb-dot-com. Say it with me. Bomb-dot-com.”
I looked at Anthony, then back to Meg, then finally over to Clay, who was hauling himself out of the dumpster-time-machine, a look of pride on his face.
“It worked,” he said. “The whole thing worked, I can’t believe it. Except the lock malfunctioned…which is a good thing, otherwise we’d still be stuck in there. Maybe I should make a safety feature on it after all.”
“What worked?” It was Anthony’s turn to step forward. “What is all of this?”
“Well this…this was my baby.” Clay gestured towards the wreckage, a mournful expression seeping onto his face. “My poor baby.”
“But this,” Meg rapped her knuckles on the door to the metal box. “This is your birthday present, Anthony. Happy birthday.”
“I thought people jumped out of cake,” he deadpanned. “Not metal boxes and bombs.”
