by Callie Hart
She’s quiet for a little while. She watches me with this somber look on her face that has nothing to do with what’s happened to her, or the drugs that are shuttling around her body. “You look really happy,” she says at last.
“I am really happy.”
“I’m sorry, y’know. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you to know what was best for you. I should have…minded my own business.”
I shake my head. “We don’t need to talk about that now. Let’s just worry about getting you patched up and out of here.”
“No, really.” She swallows thickly. “I need to say it. I was a bitch. I didn’t mean to be. I was convinced I was just doing it to protect you, but I suppose… I suppose I was a little jealous, too.”
“Jealous? Of what?”
“Of Zeth, of course. He just showed up one day and swept you away in this tide of chaos and madness, and I could see it in your eyes. No matter what, you were going to stand by his side until the end of fucking time. It was…shit. I was jealous that he was getting all of your time and energy. I should have been thinking a little more rationally, but at the time it felt like he’d…stolen you away.”
I can see how much it costs her to say this to me. She’s a stoic, proud person who doesn’t share her emotions easily. It’s a rare day that she will even admit that she has emotions. So an apology of this depth and magnitude? It’s difficult for her, I know it is.
“I forgive you,” I whisper. “I promise, it’s all okay. I’ve missed the hell out of you, Pip. We’ll never spend so long without each other again, okay? Now rest. Dr. Gaffin and Dr. Friedman will both be down here soon to check you out. In the meantime, your body’s been through hell and back. You need to get some sleep, okay?”
She nods. She’s been fighting her exhaustion, but it’s catching up with her, clearly. “You’ll be here, won’t you? You’ll be here when they come?”
“Of course I will.” I get to my feet, then bend and kiss her on the top of the head. “I’ll come back, I promise.”
******
Zeth’s text message is still sitting on my phone’s screen, waiting for my response. Truthfully, I don’t know what to say to him. He hasn’t brought up the warehouse fire since it happened, but he’s not a man who forgets easily. I know this about him. It should come as no shock to me that he’d up and leave in the middle of the day, while I’m at work, to go and ‘take care’ of the matter, without breathing a word of his plans to me prior. He knows a lot about me, too. He knows I’d try and talk him out of something like that, so his actions have fallen into the old, “ask forgiveness, not permission,” grey area. Jerk. If I weren’t pregnant and suffering from extreme morning sickness, I’d get on a plane as soon as my shift ended and go find him, to be with him, because that’s how it’s meant to be. Me and him. Together. Bad things happen when we’re apart. Every single time. Admittedly, bad things happen when we’re together too, but at least we have each other to lean on during those situations.
Michael’s going to be sleeping at the house. I’ll be safe enough with him around, he’d die protecting me without a doubt, but it’s not the same. I need Zeth at home with me, to lay his hand on my belly while I’m sleeping. To stroke my hair and whisper softly to me as I wrestle with my dreams.
“Looking a little peaky there, Romera. Need a script?” Oliver Massey uses the clipboard in his hand to tap me on the shoulder. I haven’t even noticed him arrive. I quickly type three words into my phone and hit send.
Just be safe.
My phone makes a shooping noise as I slip into the pocket of my lab coat. “Not quite at the medication stage yet,” I say to Oliver.
He returns my tired smile with one of his own, sympathy written all over his face. He’s taking the fact that I’m pregnant very well. I was worried about telling him; he’s hardly Zeth’s number one fan. “You tried antihistamines?” he asks.
I groan, letting my head rock back. “They make me so tired. I can’t. I need a clear head while I’m here. They make everything so foggy.”
“You could always take early maternity leave.” I shoot daggers at him, and he laughs. “Don’t murder me for merely pointing out your options, Romera. You’re a tough chick. You can handle this. How many weeks are you now, anyway?”
“Nearly fourteen.”
“Great. If you’re lucky the puking part’s nearly over anyway. How did your first ultrasound go?”
I shrug. “I haven’t done it yet.”
Oliver’s eyes double in size, surprise transforming his features. “You’re kidding, right? You haven’t done it yet? Why not?”
“Because. We just haven’t. Things have been crazy here at the hospital, and…” And I pushed the ultrasound back. I’m just not ready to do it yet. Honestly, I’m afraid. I work in a place where pregnant woman get told their unborn children have heart defects, genetic disorders, tumors, and other malformations every single day of the week. This knowledge is bearable normally. If we catch things during the early stages of pregnancy, occasionally problems can be fixed. But sometimes that’s not the case. I’ve been panicking for weeks about the moment the technician lays the ultrasound wand against my belly and that small, barely-there frown potentially forms between her eyebrows. The one that signals there’s a problem. I’m not ready to face that yet.
“You’re crazy!” Oliver shakes his head, as if trying to clear it. He takes hold of me by the hand. “Come on. No more of that bullshit. Let’s go do it now. I’m patient-free for the next hour or so, and—” He’s already pulling me down the corridor toward the elevators.
“Oliver?”
“Sloane. You’re being fucking weird. I know you. I know what this is about, and I can promise you now—”
I jerk my hand free from his, anchoring on the brakes. “No. No, you can’t promise me now,” I say, my voice flat. “You can’t make promises. That’s not in our job description. And besides…” I sigh, looking the other way, back down the corridor, not wanting to look him in the eye. “Zeth’s going to be with me the first time we see the baby, Oliver. Imagine how you’d feel if your girlfriend went and had an ultrasound and saw your baby for the first time without you.”
Silence prevails for a second. Oliver’s sneakers squeak as he shifts his stance, then he clears his throat. “Well, damn. You’re right. I wasn’t even thinking. I’m sorry.”
It takes me a moment to face him again. I’m a coward. I hate conflict, and more than that, I hate hurting people. I can see by the look on his face that Oliver is hurt by what I’ve said, and it makes me feel sick in a whole new, even more uncomfortable way. “I’m not trying to be a jerk,” I whisper. “ It’s just…”
My friend closes his eyes, flaring his nostrils. “Sloane, I get it. Of course you’d want to share that with Zeth. I clearly just haven’t had enough coffee yet today. My synapses aren’t firing.” His lips pull into a tight white line. “Just don’t put it off forever, okay. Everything will be fine. You’re missing all the fun developmental stuff.”
“Thanks, Olly.”
He raps his knuckles against his clipboard, nodding. “All right. Well, I’ve just remembered I have some paperwork to catch up on. So…I’ll see you later, okay?”
“Sure.”
He walks away, head bowed, his shoulders tensed. He hurries off, and I get the feeling he’d actually break into a run if he thought I wouldn’t notice.
FIVE
ZETH
The Italians aren’t like normal crime bosses. Their loyalties and family connections are complicated, confusing, and as changeable as the wind. One second a player will be sided with one family, willing to steal, kill, fight and die for them. One perceived, ridiculous slight later and they’re defecting to pledge their allegiance to another family—a family that, until only days before, they would have burned down half the city to avoid or outright attack.
In the same vein, their bosses can sometimes sleep with their wives, kill their children, raze their businesses to the ground, and still nothing can cau
se them to deviate from their paths. They’re a strange, incestuous bunch. You’d need a series of fucking venn diagrams to even begin to understand Italian politics. I don’t hold for charts and hearsay, though. I have Michael. Over the past few weeks, he’s been watching… waiting…
I’ve been preoccupied with Sloane and the baby, so I haven’t been riding him for information every five seconds like I might have done otherwise. But still… I haven’t forgotten. You don’t come into my city and attack me without consequence. You don’t burn down my home without there being a price to pay. I have no idea who the Barbieri family sent to Seattle to do their dirty work, but I aim on finding out exactly who lit that match. I’m just hoping it was one of the sons. Both Theo and Sal are bad news. Worse than bad news; they’re ill omens. Harbingers of chaos and ruin. It would suit me down to the fucking ground if I got to take both of them out on this trip. I’d sleep better at night knowing they weren’t out there, even on the other side of the country, plotting and planning, generally causing trouble.
I stand in the arrivals lounge of JFK airport, questioning my own sanity. Is it madness to go and collect this bag from Sandra? She was on the flight—handed me scotch on the rocks at regular intervals with a benign smile on her face, until I told her to leave me the fuck alone—so I know she’s around here somewhere. I can picture it now, though: Sandra approaching from the other end of baggage claim, inappropriately high heels making obnoxious, loud clicking sounds on the polished flooring as she bee-lines straight for me, airport security flanking her like the motherfucking Gestapo. And my response? I couldn’t turn and run from the bastards. I’d rather fucking die. I don’t even know if I’m lying to myself at the moment. Things have changed so much for me in the past few months. There was a time when I would have grabbed Sandra, sliced her neck open from ear to ear for fucking with me. Just to make a point. But now… Sloane’s changed everything. I used to wake up, covered in sweat, panicking, my heart pounding out of my chest from fighting off the demons in my sleep. These days I wake up, my heart barely beating at all, paralyzed, pinned to the mattress. Fear used to be something I embraced. I knew it intimately. I could use it to my advantage. The adrenalin fear brought would sharpen my senses. I could see better, hear better, think faster, react so quickly I wouldn’t even realize I’d made a decision to move until the action was complete. Now I second-guess everything, because there are consequences I have to live with. If I slit Sandra’s throat, it won’t be as simple as me heading directly back to Chino, or whatever hell on earth equivalent they have here on the east coast. It won’t just be the loss of my freedom I’ll have to endure.
There are two other people I have to consider.
Sloane on her own…
My child, without my protection…
The prospect of either of those eventualities is enough to fuck up my sleep pattern altogether.
“Mr. Mayfair?”
I jump, my nerve endings alight, my fists ready to swing. Sandra Wilder is standing next to me with a bottle of Bruichladdich scotch in a clear plastic duty free bag swinging from her index finger. She grins at me, baring her teeth in the weirdest way. I still maintain that there’s something fucked up about this woman. She’s not quite right. She’s…unhinged. The photos of her kids that were taped to her computer monitor were a little odd, too, though. Three bland looking children wearing horrible Christmas sweaters, all with the same buck teeth and vacant, glassy eyes. They were carbon copies of their mother, robotic-looking and bizarre. Maybe it’s in their genes. How unfortunate.
I don’t know how she snuck up on me, but I’m not fucking happy about. I growl under my breath, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. “Someone needs to put a fucking bell on you, woman.”
She laughs. She laughs like I’ve just told a joke, and the sad part is that I’m deadly serious. “Come on. Your bag’s being kept to one side in oversized luggage. If I go with you, they’ll hand it over without a fuss.”
“Let’s just get this over with.” I’m beginning to regret not just buying a new gun here in New York. The inconvenience would have added an extra day, but there would have been none of this bullshit creeping around the airport, holding my breath. I love that goddamn Desert Eagle, though. I feel like I’m administering righteous justice every time I pull the motherfucking trigger.
I follow Sandra across the airport. A short, olive-skinned guy grunts unhappily as he hands over my bag. Like the baggage he handles, he is oversized and oddly shaped, wide-hipped and narrow shouldered, squeezed from the top like a tube of toothpaste. His hair is abnormally thick and perfect—definitely a hairpiece. I mean, why bother with vanity when the rest of you looks like that?
I sling the duffel bag’s strap over my head, resisting the urge to check inside and make sure everything is where it ought to me.
“Michael has taken care of everything,” Sandra tells me. “This here ends our time together, I suppose you could say. I wish you the very best of luck with your business here in New York, Zeth. If you need anything in the future…” She reaches up onto her tiptoes, places a hand on my shoulder, then does something very confusing: she leans in and plants a kiss on my cheek.
What the fuck is this woman’s deal?
Outside, the sky is overcast and looks leaden. Heavy. Weighted down, lower than it should be. There’s electricity in the air. A storm. Shakespeare coined a term back in the seventeenth century. Charlie used to talk about it all the time. Pathetic Fallacy. Macbeth is the perfect example. When the three witches are gathered around their cauldron, something wicked that way a-coming, the sky was roiling with storm clouds. Thunder shattered the night air, and lighting split the darkness in two. That’s what this feels like right now. Dread hangs on the horizon. I don’t know if that dread belongs to the Barbieri family, or to me. If I have anything to do with it, it’ll be visited upon the heads of the largest, most violent mob boss in the city. I guess time will tell.
I rent a car.
That’s a lie.
I steal a car.
I’m like a kid in a candy store; the long-stay parking lot at JFK is packed end-to-end with Lincoln town cars and other five-door monstrosities. I pick something a little sleeker: a BMW 740i. Michael’s pre-packed some of my favorite toys in my duffel, but he’s also provided me with some brand new toys, too: a tiny black box, with a yellow wire protruding from its base. On the other end of the wire: a generic car key. I slide the key into the BMW’s lock, and I hit the button on the device. A series of numbers appear on a dim analogue screen, flashing red, cycling through alpha-numerical sequences until the first number turns green. Then the second. Then the third. It takes seconds for the computer to crack the car’s security system.
I climb inside like I own the damn thing, throwing the duffel bag onto the passenger seat. My cell phone buzzes in my pocket.
Michael: All three of them are at the restaurant. Some sort of wedding party. Tonight’s no good.
Fuck.
Well, that changes things. A wedding party means guests. Lots of guests. Especially if it’s an Italian wedding. I’ve seen The Godfather. I know how these things go down. There won’t be a single member of that party who isn’t armed and dangerous. A more subtle approach is required. I need to wait until later, after everyone’s left. I need to get into the Barbieri household somehow. Killing Roberto in his sleep isn’t going to be very gratifying, but I’m on a schedule. I have a return flight tomorrow at noon and I aim to be on it. I leave an inch of rubber on the blacktop as I burn out of the parking lot.
The Hilton hotel Michael booked for me isn’t really a hotel, nor is it a part of the Hilton chain. It’s a more of a safe house, if you will. A place where the more suspect members of society might stay if they were planning on attending La Cucina Del Diavolo for an evening of debauchery and sin. I have a suite on the top floor—ought to give me a good vantage point of the building opposite. The Barbieri family restaurant is hidden behind the façade of an industrial warehous
e, much like my warehouse those bastards burned down in Seattle. Same setting. Same idea. A place close to the water where goods can be shuttled to and from storage—guns, drugs, women in their case, I’m sure. The police have no jurisdiction inside the Hilton, the same way they have no jurisdiction inside La Cucina Del Diavolo. The second I check in at the front desk, the receptionist is going to notify Robert Barbieri of my presence. Sure, there are a thousand other places I could stay in New York, but none share the same proximity to my quarry. And besides. I like the idea of those fuckers knowing my exact location. It shows the lack of fear on my part. It shows them I mean business.
I know New York well enough to navigate the city and reach my destination relatively quickly. It’s after nine by the time I reach the Hilton.
I collect the duffel bag, leaving the engine running as I climb out of the BMW, and I hand the inconspicuous valet a fifty-dollar bill. “Make it disappear,” I tell him. “Do whatever you want with it. Just make sure my fingerprints are gone by the time you leave it.”
He gives me a curt, sharp nod, jumps in the car and burns off. In less than an hour, the vehicle will either be in pieces, welded to parts of another cut-and-shut, or it’ll be at the bottom of the Hudson and I will never see it again. Car thieves are masters of their trade in this town.
My plans of a grand entrance are thwarted by an empty reception desk. The place is literally deserted. What the fuck does that mean? This is the kind of place that is watched over twenty-four seven. I’m surprised there weren’t heavily armed, thick-skulled guards standing on either side of the door when I came in. The lobby, if you can call it that, is eerily quiet and cold, with rough cast concrete walls and recessed lighting that make the place feel like a morgue. Hanging around here is a bad idea. I can feel it in the air, thick and stifling: violence.
