by Zoey Parker
Stef pulled herself off of Bax's lap and climbed onto the bed next to him. He put his arm around her and she pressed herself against his side, savoring his scent. They stayed that way for about ten minutes before she raised herself up on one elbow, looking at Bax quizzically.
“So how do you see me helping you take down my father? I mean, my mother already suspects what you're doing, so that seems like it'd be a pretty impossible hurdle to clear.”
Bax smiled. “You're right. Which is why the next step needs to be something so convincing, even she can't believe it was staged.”
He told her his plan. She had to admit, it seemed flawless—she was sure both of her parents would fall for it.
“Okay, sounds good,” she said. “But meanwhile, we need to get you out of here.”
Bax pouted. “What, I don't get to stay the night?”
Stef rolled her eyes. “Ha ha. We need to wait until the guard is on the far side of the house again. Then I can sneak you downstairs, switch off the security system, and let you out the side door. Think you can get over the fence again?”
“I hurt my ankle on the way up, but I should be able to, yeah.”
She gave him a stern look. “You'd better. You don't want to know what happened to the last guy my father caught me trying to see behind his back.”
“Aw, he wouldn't do nothin' like that to me,” Bax said, affecting a thick New York Italian accent. “I'm a freakin' made guy, over here!”
“Shhh! If he finds you in here, you'll be a made eunuch.” But Stef couldn't stop herself from giggling.
She peered out of the window, waiting for the guard to finish crossing the lawn. Then she turned to Bax, saying, “It's time. Let's move.”
As Stef hustled Bax out of her room, she thought she saw something move in the corner of her eye. But when she looked down the hall, she didn't see anyone.
“What is it?” Bax asked.
“Nothing. Come on. And make sure you step on the same floorboards and steps that I do.”
Together, they snuck down to the side door. Stef punched the correct code into the key pad and opened the door. Bax stole a cruelly-short final kiss which left her lips tingling before he broke into a run across the yard, limping slightly. She watched as he shimmied up the fence and disappeared over the other side.
Then she reset the alarm and crept back up to bed with a big grin, knowing she wouldn't be getting any sleep that night.
Chapter 24
Bax
Bax swiped his key card through the lock on the hotel room door, trying to turn the handle without making any noise. He opened it a crack and listened for Mule's snoring. When he heard it, he nodded to himself and proceeded.
But as soon as he stepped in and closed the door behind him, a pair of meaty hands grabbed the front of his shirt and swung him around, slamming his back against the wall. Bax landed on his injured ankle and yowled in pain.
Mule's slack-jawed, slab-like face was inches away from his own.
“Okay, it looks bad,” Bax said. “I admit it. But really, this isn't what it looks like. I had a sudden craving for oysters, so I figured I'd head over to Felix's for a quick half-dozen—”
Mule punched Bax in the stomach so hard that all the breath left his body. For a moment, his vision tripled and he thought his soul might have left it, too. He sagged to the floor, wheezing and clutching his belly.
“Wh-What the...fuck...was that...for?” he panted.
Instead of answering, Mule shook his head sadly and kicked Bax in the side, just below his ribs. Agony jolted through his organs like forks of lightning and he fell forward, catching himself on his forearms before he could hit the carpet face first. He tried to form words, but for a few seconds, all that came out was a long, gurgling whine.
“Stop it, Mule!”
Another kick, this time high up on his thigh, near the hip. Bax yelped, crumpling to one side and clutching the spot where Mule's shoe had landed. The pain still burned in his stomach and side, and he felt like he was playing Whack-a-Mole.
“If you don't fucking stop it, I'm gonna call for help! I mean it!”
Mule tilted his head to one side, shrugged, and stomped down hard on Bax's left kidney. His entire body seemed to seize up in a single cramp, and for a moment, reality turned a faded gray and he thought he might lose consciousness.
“Why are you doing this?” Bax asked in a wet, broken whisper. “You're supposed to be here to protect me!”
Mule grabbed a handful of Bax's hair and snapped his head back, looking into his eyes. “I am. This is me protecting you. And myself. And everyone else. From you.”
A fist connected with Bax's crotch and suddenly everything from his waist down seemed far away—it was someplace where pain was eclipsed by a distant and tingling dread more gruesome by far.
Bax opened his mouth to speak, but all that came up from his throat was a series of whimpers. He'd taken his share of beatings before—a common professional hazard for a con man, even a great one—but Christ, this was the worst.
“Once you've gotten yourself together, we're going to the warehouse to see the others,” Mule said. “I already called them. They can't wait to talk to you.”
Chapter 25
Bax
Bax's knees were wobbling and his entire body felt like one big bruise as Mule rapped the secret knock on the warehouse door. It opened immediately and Skull's burly arm reached out, seizing Bax by the scruff of the neck and dragging him inside.
“Hey, take it easy,” Bax groaned. “Can't you see the big guy already worked me over?”
“Enough of your fucking wisecracks, Baxter.”
Bax hadn't heard Skull use his real name since they were kids. Before he could process that, Skull dragged him across the dusty concrete floor of the warehouse and threw him into the corner roughly, where he collapsed in a heap. When he managed to drag himself to his feet and look around, he saw that everyone—Harry, Millie, David, Tommy, and all the Voodoo Devils—were standing around him in a loose semicircle.
Their eyes were cold and pitiless. They reminded Bax of the black water of a frozen pond he'd almost drowned in when he fell through the ice as a small child.
This must be what it feels like when a guy faces a firing squad, Bax thought. Or when he's about to be stoned to death.
“Look me in the eyes,” Skull commanded.
“Fuck that,” Tommy spat. “We all know what he did.”
“No, I want to hear it from him. I want him to stand there and look me in the eye and tell me with a straight face that he didn't fuck that girl again.” Skull crossed his arms. “Well, Bax? Go on.”
Bax sighed, knowing he might as well get it over with. “Fine. Okay. I fucked her. But it's not like that—”
“Really? What's it like, then, huh?” Harry stepped forward and got right in Bax's face, yelling. “What fairy tale horseshit are you going to try to feed us now? That it was about more than dipping your dick? That even a con man can find true love in the most unlikely places?”
Bax shrugged with a half-smile. “Heh, well, now that you mention it...”
David stared at Bax in disbelief. “Holy shit. I knew you had problems, but I had no idea it was this bad. This is all my fault. If I'd known, I'd never have let you put this con together.”
“I'm going to go make myself a nice mug of cyanide,” Millie sighed, her head sinking into her hands. “Anyone else want some?”
“You promised me.” Skull shook his head slowly in disbelief. “After all these years, after everything we've been through together, you stood there and you promised—”
“Oh, give me a motherfucking break!” Tommy stomped over to Skull, flecks of spittle spraying from his mouth as he screamed. “You stood there and believed him! I tried to warn you that this mook's word was no good, but he gives you some useless pinkie-swear of a promise and you let him off the hook! Well, I told you so, you fucking pinhead grease monkey! You hear me? I told you so, I told you so, I told you so
!”
Skull spun around and punched Tommy in the face. Tommy's glasses skidded across the floor and he sat down hard, blood pouring from his nose.
“Tommy, a goddamn two-year-old could have told you that now was not the time to say that to me,” Skull growled.
Tommy stood up, wiping his nose on his sleeve and staring at everyone else in disbelief. “I don't fucking believe you people. He sends the whole plan to hell just so he can give some girl the high hard one, and I'm the one who gets punched?” He stalked over to his glasses, picking them up and wiping them off as he headed for the door. “You're crazy. All of you. I'm out of here. I should never have agreed to this scheme.”
“But you did agree to it, Tommy,” Bax called after him. “So where are you gonna go now? Back to Dallas? What do you think Old Man Parrino's gonna do once Altamura gets his shit together and tells him you were in on this? Sure, he might keep you around for a while...as a rug in front of his fireplace.”
“Then I'll just have to go on the fucking lam, won't I?” Tommy snapped. “And with barely enough money to get by on thanks to you, you horny, selfish prick. I'll probably end up pumping gas somewhere in Montana.”
“Or you could stick around, see this through, and come out of it with enough millions of dollars to buy yourself whatever life you want,” Bax countered. He tried to sound calm and in control, but his stomach felt like someone was twisting a corkscrew into it. He'd lost their trust completely, and even Skull wasn't on his side anymore.
The next few words to come out of his mouth could be the most important ones he'd ever uttered.
“Here we go.” Tommy looked at the ceiling imploringly and flapped his arms in frustration. “Here comes the next sales pitch. He's gonna try to convince us we've still got a shot at pulling this off. Lord, I'm begging you, reach down from heaven and lift me up out of this flaming lake of nonsense.”
“Actually, we've got a better shot at it than ever now,” said Bax.
Harry raised his eyebrows. “You cannot be serious.”
“May as well let him talk,” Millie mumbled. “I don't know about the rest of you, but I could use a good laugh before I die.”
Skull clenched his teeth, the muscles in his jaw twitching. “This had better be good.”
“All right, look,” Bax began. “I'm not going to feed you all a bunch of rainbows-and-unicorns crap about why I needed to see her again, because you don't care and you wouldn't believe me anyway. But trust me when I tell you that if we just hang in there a little longer, we can double our money and take Altamura out of the picture permanently...now that we've got someone on the inside.”
“Oh my fucking God,” Harry blurted out, his hand going to his mouth. “Do you hear what this lunatic is saying? He's telling us that he told the daughter all about this.”
“You didn't,” Skull breathed, his eyes widening. “Fuck, Bax, no, please, you didn't do that.”
“You're goddamn right I did, and you're all going to thank me for it.”
The entire warehouse reacted with a chorus of groans and curses. Several crumpled beer cans were hurled in Bax's direction, making him duck and flinch.
Skull scowled at him. “If you honestly think a girl's gonna be more loyal to some dude she barely knows than to her own father, then I gotta hand it to you, 'cause you fooled me into thinking you weren't a moron for one hell of a long time.”
“You only think that because you don't know what I know. I've spent time with this girl. I've heard her whole story. You think you've got a beef with Altamura? A couple of knuckle sandwiches and a lousy quarter mil? Man, this guy has completely fucked up Stef's life from the moment she was born. He controls what she eats, what she wears, where she goes, even who she talks to. He's willing to marry her off to someone she doesn't even like, for Christ's sake! She wants to see him eat shit even more than we do, and she'll do anything to help us make it happen. And can you think of a more effective weapon for us to use against him? Can you think of a better way to completely erase him as a threat than by stealing every penny he's got and his daughter too? Forget coming after any of us—Benny won't have time. He'll be too busy running from everyone who ever had a grudge against him, and that's if he doesn't just give up and hang himself with his shoelaces.”
Bax looked around, trying to gauge the reaction from his audience. He realized he was breathing heavily. It made sense—he felt like he'd just done the world's longest, most desperate tap-dancing routine.
But it looked like they were buying it.
Slowly, grudgingly, certainly against their better judgment...but still.
“Okay,” Skull said. “Maybe you're right. Maybe we can still pull this off. But if you want us to go forward with it, I've got two conditions, and they ain't negotiable.”
Bax nodded. Whatever the conditions were, he was sure they wouldn't be a problem.
“First, you want this girl to be part of the prize? Fine. You can consider her your cut of the loot. Your share of the money gets split up among the rest of us, as reparations for all the bullshit and hassle you've put us through.”
“Understood. Of course. That's completely fair.” Bax didn't love the idea of walking away from this score without any cash, especially since he'd have Stef with him. But he'd been broke before, and he'd always made enough moves to stay afloat. He was sure he'd manage this time, too.
And besides, maybe having a woman with him would open doors to newer, more lucrative scams. Why not?
“Second, when this is over, so are we.”
Bax blinked, surprised. “Hey, come on. I know things are tense right now and I've made some bad choices. I'm sorry, okay? But you don't mean that. I know you don't.”
Skull shook his head. “I made a mistake, calling you in on this. I thought I knew you, even though we hadn't seen each other for so long. I was wrong. And now that I do know you, I know you ain't my friend and you never will be. The only friend you've got is yourself, and I fucking pity you. And when this score's finished, I never want to see you or hear from you again.”
Bax couldn't believe it. Sure, he'd pulled some boneheaded stunts, and maybe he hadn't considered Skull's feelings the way he should have—but that was only because it was Skull, and they'd been so close as kids that he was sure Skull would always find some way to forgive him.
But looking into Skull's wounded eyes now, Bax realized he'd been wrong.
“Yeah. Okay. If that's what you want.”
“It is,” Skull rumbled. “Now tell us what the girl's part is gonna be in this plan of yours. I'm sure you've already got it all figured out.”
Bax laid out all of the steps for them.
When he was finished, they all nodded and got to work on their individual tasks without another word.
To Bax, their silence was deafening.
Chapter 26
Stef
Stef sat in bed reading, as she often did for much of the day.
Since she usually had nowhere to go, no one to see or talk to, no internet to surf, and no real desire to be around her parents, she generally confined herself to her room. There was a TV, but since it was the middle of the day, she knew that nothing would be on except trashy talk shows and soap operas. Her walls were lined with books—she'd read most of them dozens of times since childhood, and now she was flipping the dog-eared pages in her copy of Alexandre Dumas' “The Man in the Iron Mask.”
But even though it was one of her favorite stories, she found that this time, she could barely focus. She was too nervous and excited about her part in Bax's plan.
It seemed like it would work, and based on Bax's confident tone when he outlined it for her, she had no problem believing that he'd executed similar schemes on countless occasions and they'd all gone smoothly. He'd assured her that if it were truly dangerous, he wouldn't dream of involving her. And she trusted him, mostly because of the trust he'd shown in her by confiding that he wasn't who he'd pretended to be.
Still, she'd never done anything lik
e this before, and the thought of getting caught gave her a scary thrill so intense that it rendered her light-headed and nauseous. There were times when seriously considering the risks—and the rewards—made her feel like she might actually faint. If they pulled it off, her father would be utterly ruined, and she'd never have to see him or her mother ever again.
But if they failed...
The photos of Arthur floated to the surface of her mind, no matter how much she tried to push them back down. Bax's fate would surely be something like that. Would her punishment be the same? Lighter, since she was a member of the family?
