All the same, my fingers were just barely able to reach the trigger. I pointed the gun shakily at McBride.
For a moment, I thought it was over. That he would stay where he was until the police arrived.
Then, I saw his face change from a grimace of pain to a malicious and angry glower.
He lunged towards me and without thinking I pulled twice on the trigger. I heard a thud as McBride slumped to the ground.
When I lowered my shaking hands, I moved forward towards his still body.
I saw two bullet holes in his chest. One just at his heart.
His eyes seemed to be wide with surprise though I knew that he could no longer see, could no longer breath.
He was dead.
*****
The police arrived at the scene only two minutes after I shot McBride. Of course, I along with Mike and his buddies had to go down to the police office and give a statement.
We sat there for nearly two hours. Me with a blanket around my shoulders and Mike sitting beside me on the bench while he waited for Zach, Tom and Greg’s interviews to finish.
We didn’t talk when we were at the police station. We didn’t talk when Mike walked me home to the apartment building either. Though, I noticed just as we reached the door, Mike held it open for me, then took my hand in his as we walked up the stairs.
I smiled. But still, not a word was spoken until we were safely inside with the door firmly locked.
“So, what did they say?” he asked me referring to the statement I’d had to give the police.
.
“They said it looks like a pretty clear-cut case of self-defense,” I answered, “still, I’m not supposed to leave the city for the next couple of days.”
“Mom and Fred won’t like that,” Mike said.
Mike had called them as soon as we’d arrived at the police station. When I went in for my interview. Dad, apparently, was trying to insist that I come home immediately. And, while I didn’t want to admit it to anyone, that didn’t sound like a bad idea to me either.
“Yeah,” I said, “well, I’ve still got finals.”
“I can’t believe you still want to go through with your school stuff after all this,” Mike said, “I’m sure if you just explained to them what happened, they’d let you postpone it or something.”
I shook my head.
“I’ve worked too hard to let some asshole take this away from me,” I answered. “I need to finish.”
“If you say so,” Mike answered.
I stood by my table and Mike remained just inside the front door. I looked down at the chair next to me every once in awhile, wondering if I should sit down in it. I didn’t in the end.
Instead, I stayed stupidly standing just as Mike did. Wondering if this was as good a time as any to talk about what I’d wanted to discuss with Mike all day.
Despite everything that had happened, I had a feeling that, if we didn’t get it all out now, we never would. So, steeling myself I moved from the table towards him.
“So,” I began hesitantly, “weren’t we going to have a chat about what happened last night?”
I didn’t get the chance to finish because, the next thing I knew Mike had crossed the room in two strides. I barely had time to register his hands firmly on my waist before he was kissing me.
His tongue insistently explored my mouth as he moved me across the room and finally. pushed me up against the wall just beside my bed. I reached around his neck and clung to his shoulders for dear life. I feared if I didn’t, I would lose my balance.
His mouth left my lips only to move to my neck, biting and sucking at it in a way that made me gasp. His hands slipped quickly all down and along my body.
It would have been easy, so very easy not to talk anymore. To give into this incredible pleasure, even without knowing what it meant.
But, I knew I couldn’t do that.
With a sigh I forced words out of my mouth.
“Mike, we...oh god…” his hand had moved between my legs and I had to try and close them to get out the next words, “we really need to talk”
Slowly, he pulled his hand out from the space between my thighs, moved his lips from my neck and looked me in the eyes.
There was something there I had never seen in Mike before. It was a sort of desperate vulnerability. Almost as if he was terrified of something. I told myself that was silly. After all, the terror had passed.
All the same, here he was, looking at me thoroughly fearful.
“I almost lost you,” he said finally, “I...I almost couldn’t protect you and I…”
“You didn’t lose me,” I said gently, moving my hands to cup the side of his face, “I’m right here.”
“Sabrina,” he began, that terrified look still present in his eyes, “Sabrina, I love you.”
My heart skipped a beat. I could almost feel my breathing slow. I blinked twice, unable to believe what I had just heard.
“I love you,” Mike said again more quickly, “I’ve known that for a while now. I tried not to. I told myself it wouldn’t work but now I...I don’t think I can help it. It’s not something I can-”
This time, it was me who interrupted him with a kiss. It was soft, gentle and quick.
“I love you too,” I said beaming at him as I pulled away.
I was rewarded with another desperate searing kiss. His hand returned to the place where it had stopped before.
Soon, he had pulled my underwear down to my knees and was touching me desperately. Touching me as if I was the only thing standing between him and a long, slow, painful death.
I leaned my head back and emitted another moan as he kneaded my breasts through my shirt.
It was not long before he had ripped that off of me as well. My skirt came next. As soon as that hit the floor, he grabbed me from behind and picked me fully so that I had to wrap my legs around his waist.
He threw me onto the bed. As my head hit the plush pillows, he quickly began to remove his own clothing. I moved up to help him.
“No,” he said quietly but firmly, “stay right where you are. I just want to look at you while I do this. I just want to remember how incredibly lucky I am to be in love with such a beautiful woman.”
I smiled and did exactly as he asked. I did exactly as he asked the rest of the night too.
My little apartment was soon filled with moans and gasps from me and gently but commanding orders from him.
Phrases like “say my name,” “touch yourself” and “come for me, Sabrina” were what pushed me over the edge more than anything else he did.
Finally, with a last shout, we both fell back onto my too cold mattress. Utterly spent.
We were quiet for several moments before he spoke up.
“Does this mean you’ll wait for me while I’m off with my unit?” he asked.
“What do you think?” I asked with a sly smile.
“Okay then,” he answered, “that only leaves one question.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
He lifted his arm and put it around my shoulders, I moved close to him on the bench and snuggled into his side.
“What are we going to tell our parents?” he asked.
“I’m sure we’ll think of something,” I answered.
And that was that. That was how I managed, somehow, to fall in love with my stepbrother. And, no matter what anyone else says, no matter how weird anyone thinks it is, I couldn’t be happier.
The End
Bonus Story 18 of 40
Her Mafia Landlord
Darlene awoke in her 95 Honda Civic for the fourth morning in a row with one of the homeless people of Los Angeles tapping at her window. Today it was a woman who looked old enough to be Darlene’s mother. Although Darlene hadn’t seen this woman before, her dusty face, gray-blue eyes, and curly blonde hair blended with the face of Darlene’s mother seamlessly as she tore awake from a dream about home.
“Spare some money for breakfast?” the woman asked.
The fact that Darlene had just been dreaming about her deceased mother made her see the woman’s request in a different light. The homeless in Detroit weren’t as ruthless as the ones she’d been waking up to in L.A., but back home they seemed to be more dangerous.
Darlene reached into her Seychelles shoe where she kept her cash hidden while she slept. Taking a few wrinkled singles from the wad, Darlene considered how she’d been rationing all of her money until she found a place to live. I can live without a couple bucks, she thought. Darlene unrolled the passenger side window and reached out for the woman to take the money.
“It’s not much, but I hope it helps,” Darlene said.
The woman curled her lips upon seeing that there were only two measly singles. “I’d rather take these bills and shove them up your ass with my teeth,” the woman said hoarsely before spitting with laughter. As the woman walked away without the money, Darlene felt the like the receiving end of some sadistic joke.
Darlene wondered what the point of that was.
There was no reason for the woman to be so malicious, and Darlene decided, against her better judgment, that she would never be a person who gives hand outs in Los Angeles ever again. If she were going to make it in this metropolis she would have to grow tough skin and worry about nobody but herself.
Darlene had done well for herself as an interior designer back home. After getting her degree from the University of Michigan, Darlene couldn’t afford to stay in Ann Arbor. She moved back to Detroit to live in her father’s apartment with him, above the Italian restaurant he owned. Although Darlene had made some connections in Detroit through her father, the Italian Mafiosos who hired her limited her creativity as an interior designer.
Since everyone knew and respected her father, they’d always pay her extra as a courtesy to the running her father used to do for the mob. Darlene didn’t love designing the same type of décor for Italian restaurants, bars, delis, and pizza places. A couple of her aunts opened up flower shops as fronts for money trafficking. These were the only projects that even mildly inspired Darlene. However, she didn’t like knowing that the hard work she put into orchestrating the perfect combination of furniture, colors, art, and spatial relation was spent on such mundane things. For Darlene, there was an art to interior design. It pained her to see her talent wasted.
The only conclusion Darlene could come to was that she would be forever stuck in the same cycle unless she left the Midwest. She would have rather waited tables at her father’s restaurant than put any more useless energy into something she loved when it only made her life feel empty at the end of the day.
Before her grandfather passed, Darlene would visit him every Sunday. He’d make them runny pancakes and strong coffee while they’d watch old black and white monster movies.
“These movies,” her grandfather used to say, “these will make you the big money. These movies are the perfect front.”
“The perfect front for what, grandpa?” Darlene would ask.
“For the Hollywood Heist,” he’d laugh, spilling his coffee onto the card table where they ate breakfast. “I’ve been planning this job for years, Darlene. Just you wait.”
For years she thought it was an inside joke between them. Darlene learned, however, that her grandfather had been utterly serious. Before his death he left Darlene a detailed plan regarding the Hollywood Heist as a part of his will.
It wasn’t a joke after all, she thought. She didn’t tell the rest of her family about the heist plans, but they were part of the inspiration for her moving to Los Angeles. Darlene even brought the handwritten plans in case some crazy opportunity ever presented itself, or she became desperate to con someone into doing the dirty work for her.
All the work she got through her father’s friends helped Darlene save enough to rent an apartment in Los Angeles. At least she hoped that five thousand dollars would be enough to cover the deposit, first month’s rent, and any other bills, utilities, or expenses she would need to get herself set up in the city. She’d been hoping to find a friend or meet someone networking at a Meetup group, but so far those had all proven fruitless.
Well, she thought, I’m just going to have to resort to Craigslist. Going online to find some cheap apartment was the absolute last thing that Darlene wanted to do, but it was either that or continue to wake up being harassed by the homeless outside her car. She started to wonder if even they were more secure in the City of Angels than she was.
*****
It was Pete’s turn to host poker night because last time Tony Rollonio’s blood and teeth stained Mario’s new carpet. Pete didn’t mind that the boys wanted to go to his new place for poker night—hell, it was actually a compliment to his character. If Victor Lumino was willing to play poker at your house, that meant you were practically made for life.
Victor had recently promoted Pete “The Piper” Zanelli from soldier to caporegime. Being one of Vic’s Capos was an honor Pete had desired for most of his adult life. He’d started as a runner for Vic when Vic was only an underboss. That was way back when his uncle, Micky Lumino, still ran the Los Angeles crime family. Pete was one of the few people who knew that Vic had killed his uncle in order to move up. In fact, Vic asked Pete personally to help him in the murder. It was a guaranteed promotion, and Vic promised Pete that if he stuck with him then he’d be taken care of.
And so far Pete had been taken care of pretty good. As one of Vic’s new Capos, Vic made sure to stock Pete’s wardrobe with new name brand suits, bought him a BMW, and even let him manage his restaurant, Lumino’s. Of course the management position was a front for what he really did for Vic. The restaurant itself only served as a way for Vic to claim and launder money from “alternative” sources.
Poker night, however, was not something Vic usually entrusted to the soldiers, but as a Capo his name was in the running to host. The previous month Tony Rollonio drank a few too many glasses of vino and ended up spilling his guts about money he owed all over town for gambling.
“If you owe money for gambling, playing cards with us is the last thing you want be doing, Tony,” Mario said. Pete kept his mouth shut. He didn’t have anything but a pair of fours anyway.
“But if I win with you guys then I can pay the other guys back,” Tony said.
“If you lose tonight, Tony, then Mario is knocking your teeth out,” Vic said.
“That ain’t very funny, Vic,” Tony said.
“It ain’t meant to be funny,” Vic said, swigging his McAllan 12. When he set his glass back down on the card table all the guys knew to roar with laughter, even Tony.
“I can’t argue with the boss,” Mario said.
They played the rest of the hand as they would any other, except Pete could see from behind his cards that Tony was sweating. If Pete was right about which cards had already been played from the deck, which he usually was, Tony couldn’t have had more than three of a kind. Pete might not have been able to win the hand, but he was also sure that the odds were not in Tony’s favor.
Pete had folded quickly into the hand, but Tony kept upping the ante. Pete knew that Tony was trying to bluff a good hand, but the sweat on his brow gave the poor guy away. Pete scratched his left eyebrow, signaling to Vic that Tony couldn’t possibly have squat. Vic lifted his glass and took another sip of scotch. This was his signal to Pete that his hand couldn’t be beat.
“Well, boys,” Pete said, standing up and finishing off his Stella Artois, “I’m going to go out for more booze.” Tony looked up from his cards, familiar with the lingo coming out of Pete’s mouth. Tony knew not to stand up as Pete went to the doorway, blocking its entire frame with his body. The doorframe in the kitchen was the only way to exit the house, and unless Tony was prepared to break through Pete then he was stuck to finish the hand.
“Alright, let’s see what we got,” Vic said. His glass of scotch had been empty for a whole minute. Vic laid his cards out on the table, revealing a royal flush. Everybody else at the table felt stup
id laying their own hands down because they would obviously be incomparable to Vic’s undefeatable hand.
Mario laid down a straight. Pete and Sammy had both folded. Dom revealed a flush, which was an admirable attempt. Pete watched as Tony tried to stand up. His failure to stay in his seat made Pete think that he had something worse than a losing hand, something Pete’s card counting skills couldn’t have predicted.
“What you got, Tony?” Vic asked. The boss picked up the bottle of McAllan and poured the remainder of the amber liquid into his glass.
“I’d rather not say,” Tony whispered. Pete could tell that the poor guy just wanted to get out of there. With sweat pouring down his fat face, Tony kept his cards literally to his chest.
“Show us what you got,” Mario repeated after Vic. Pete didn’t want to watch what would happen next.
Tony laid down a five of a kind, four aces and a wild joker. The hand is very rare, and Pete had considered it but never thought such a rare hand would fall into Tony’s mitts.
“You cheating piece of shit,” Vic laughed. He had no more McAcllan in his bottle, so his anger waned on the brink of rage. Pete kept his post in the doorway, watching Vic’s veins popping from his forehead and neck. The last thing Pete ever wanted to do was be on Vic’s bad side. Pete had known Tony for years. They were Soldiers together, although Tony’s methods had always been too unorthodox for Pete, even considering the fact that they were in the mafia.
Mario stood up from his seat, his fist already balled into the palm of his other hand. “This isn’t going to be fun, Tony,” Mario said, “But it is going to teaching you a fucking lesson.”
Tony’s eyelids sucked back into his face. Pete couldn’t remember seeing anyone so scared to take a beating. Vic stood up from his chair to give Mario enough space. Before too long Tony couldn’t help but getting up from his own chair, foolishly holding a bottle of liquor as if he could use it as a weapon. Deep down they all knew that none of them could mess with Victor Lumino, especially during a poker game with his closest comrades.
Endless Abduction Page 61
