by Natalie Wrye
“You hold tight,” I growl back. “If something happens to her, I swear to you, I’ll fucking…”
“You’ll do what?” Marco snaps. “Shit on me for coming to save your stupid ass. Let’s be clear,” he inches closer, almost bringing us nose-to-nose. He bares his teeth. “You’re my half-brother, Javi. Half. And I’ve shown you my better half. And you’d better stay goddamned calm… or I’ll show you the half that got me my reputation. Don’t forget who you’re talking to.”
“Oh, I never do,” I grunt in his face. I sit back in my own seat, pounding a fist on the armrest.
Ang and Edgecomb stare at every part of the car but us, the brotherly fight in front of them flying over their heads, making the small space inside the car immensely tense, fraught with traces of fear.
Edgecomb speaks first, glancing at Marco.
“It’s still unreal to me that we’re here,” he declares out loud, his voice sounding strong. “I mean, I’m sitting in a car with Marco Morelli. The Gafanelli’s former Enforcer. International criminal and hitman. Seriously, dude, I hate to say this… but you’re a Federal agent’s wet freaking dream.”
“Excuse me?” Marco turns to look at him.
“I mean, not in a gay sense or anything.” I swear the child-like agent almost blushes. “But come on, you’re the catch of the century. And not to be a prick or anything, but I was sure you had killed Penelope Castalano, that you had murdered Delilah’s only sister. It was the only thing that made sense… but sometimes my speculation is off. If Javi trusts you…” He peeks my way. “Well, then I guess I do, too. There’s nobody I respect more than this man here. Although, I’m sure we’re breaking more than a few felonies and I’ll spend the rest of my ragged years in prison after this. Hell,” he starts to laugh. “I’m hoping it’s at least worth the story. I’ve never had much of one to tell before.”
But it had never stopped him from trying to tell it. I look at the doe-eyed Fed, his brown hair mussed, a streak of blood still smeared across the edge of his nose. I mentally give the boy props, an imagined fist bump.
In the woods on the search for Marco, he had listened to my story, helped me to leave without kicking up too much suspicion.
My assignment was to find Marco. Mine and five hundred other Feds.
But Edgecomb had pressed on me, digging deeper to get to the bottom of my distraction. When I explained what I could about Delilah, his mouth literally fell open, his eyes barely blinking. I threatened him by assuring him that I would break every bone in his body if he said a word, and after nodding like a faulty bobblehead, he asked me the questions I knew he’d been dying to delve into, ones that had seared themselves on his curious rookie brain.
He started with Penelope.
“You really think it’s her?”
I sniffed softly. “A rumor is just that, Edgecomb. A goddamned rumor.”
“Yeah,” he countered. “But they say that she’s the one who pulled the trigger. Penelope Castalano. They say that she—the ex-legal counsel of Senator Robert Fletcher—set the silver-haired politician stud up, plotting against him this entire time.”
“I’m sorry. ‘Silver-haired politician stud’? Where are you getting this shit from, rook?”
“The New York Chronicles,” he shoots back. “Some say that her boyfriend—an independently wealthy private investigator named Jackson Reed—did it instead. Some say that they did it together.”
“And some,” I interrupt, “are usually wrong, rook. Let’s just focus on getting me the hell out of here without an audience. The last thing I need is Langley getting wind of this. He’ll string me up by the balls.”
“That’s assuming you’ll have any left… after he’s done with you.”
I nodded. We both agreed.
Fast forward to the here and now, and I realize that Edgecomb and I still both agree. Marco Morelli—the rotten fruit of my father’s loins—is the catch of the century, the fugitive of a lifetime.
A man not to be trusted, it seems I’ve put all of mine in his hands, hoping that my wayward, sometimes-smart, mostly-bad brother will do the right thing, even when my instincts are screaming at me to watch my back. To guard my front. To protect what’s mine.
And that includes Delilah. I squeeze a fist by the window, grinding my teeth. I speak into the open space, letting my voice hit every ear.
“Anything happens to her, Marco… you know what I’ll do.”
“Don’t worry, big brother,” he grins, never looking at me. “I’m a professional.”
“A professional what? Lunatic?”
Edgecomb interrupts. “Hey,” he glances at me. At least the men your brother killed were criminals, gangsters with evil in their pasts and blood on their hands. It wasn’t like he set up hits against innocents. At least he didn’t kill Penelope…” His eyes avert to the floor as our huge Hummer of a truck finally parks. He blinks up at me, barely meeting my eye. “Sorry. I know that’s a sensitive spot. Penelope Castalano’s death is nothing to make light of. May her soul rest in peace.” He mimics the sign of the Cross. “Wherever she is.”
The back door opens suddenly. A curtain of red hair comes inside first, followed by a bouncing body. A pair of tights fit on a tight frame, a long sleeved shirt pulled over toned shoulders. Edgecomb’s eyes enlarge into open saucers and he gapes like he’s seen a ghost, his mouth literally forming an “O” as the ginger-haired woman slides into the seat beside him, a grin on her lovely face, a pair of black finger-less gloves fitting over her tiny hands.
Penelope gazes at the fledgling FBI agent, her red lips spreading apart to reveal white teeth. She shines them in his direction.
“You were saying?”
Fallen Angel
DELILAH
I knew it would be a cold day in Hell before I’d let myself get attacked again like I had in The Sweet Spot. But I guess that day is here.
I sit, strapped to a chair in an empty warehouse, the room colder than the heated springtime air should allow. I can almost see my own breath. A bag had been placed over my head in the car. I blinked furiously, trying to clear my vision, but even if the bag wasn’t there, nothing would have worked.
I was on the opposite side of town, far from my familiar San Francisco neighborhood street, and though I could still smell the oceanic spray from the nearby bay, I knew I wasn’t in Kansas anymore, and the guy in front of me was no Oz, though he did have surprises behind the “curtain.”
Namely a huge projector screen, which he shone on the wall opposite to me, an excited swagger in his step as he strolled across the dark grey floor, his heavily scarred hands constantly moving.
It was as if he were waiting something. And I saw what that something was the minute the first image popped up on the screen.
It was Penelope.
She looked beautiful. A gorgeous blue dress decorated her curvy frame and she walked across the screen of what looked like an elevated security camera, a frown on her face, a debonair man at her back.
I recognized Jackson immediately. In his tux. His dark blond hair carefully mussed in a way that made him look even more gorgeous. My sister’s boyfriend, her partner in life, had always been breathtaking. At times, he stunted my own.
But then the projector screen flickers, showing a different screen.
The picture shows the same carpeted hallway, the same angle, but the shot has broken into chaos. People scatter every which way across the slowly scanning lens, some tripping over themselves, some stumbling.
The horror is evident on their gaping faces and I stare, feeling a similar sentiment overcome me, my blood rushing to my head, making the heavy body part feel light.
And then the scene cuts away and focuses on a different set of people in the center. Ones I instantly recognize.
The fleshy face. The salt-and-peppered hair.
Senator Robert Fletcher stands in the middle of the new mini-movie in front of me, and I realize in the span of a second, that what I’m watching is the scene from the New York Opera H
ouse. The night he was shot.
The fancy seats. The dull gold décor, its color deadened by the black-and-white filming, is evident, despite the semi-grainy video stitched together and I view the scene projected against the paint-chipped wall with new eyes, soaking in every second of a piece of footage I’ve never seen before, from an angle the news reports would never show.
The video is haunting… and unquestioningly curious. I don’t understand how I could have missed this—this deadly scene so full of damning evidence, I was sure.
I stare at the film before me, without blinking. Until the stupid asshole who kidnapped me pipes up.
“Never seen this before, have you? That’s because nobody has it. Nobody… but me. And a few other trusted friends.” He smirks, sounding so damned full of himself. The thought of him makes my stomach twist. I scowl at him.
“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” he comments, his voice picking up in pitch. “What a coincidence it was. Jackson Reed. Lover of Senator Fletcher’s ex-lawyer. Sitting in an opera house. Just seats away from the infamous senator after his esquire panty-dropper nearly sets the senator up to take a fall for a case from years before. Makes you think, don’t it?”
I hate what he’s implying, what he’s saying without saying.
The silent implication that Jackson—lovable, Southern, loyal Jackson—could be the Gafanelli mafia’s new Enforcer, the attempted murderer of a U.S. Senator is more than I can bear, and I spit in the smarmy guy’s direction, my saliva landing at his feet, hopefully spraying him in the face.
I pull at the restraints behind my back, twisting my wrists in my seat.
“Go to Hell.” I spew at him.
“I was born there, sweets.” He wipes the edge of his thumb against his cheek. “Nothing new there.”
He glances towards the door, which opens, just as the videotape turns to the good part.
The assassination attempt.
Down goes Flecher’s wife, crumbling to the floor after a shot. I wait for Fletcher to go down beside her as everyone around them scatters, making themselves scarce, but the angle continues to zoom in as Fletcher reaches for his wife, his fingers wrapping around her tiny wrist before letting go.
He pulls some sort of small packet from his pocket and as the shots seem to continue to ring out, he slams the packet against the side of his head, causing the liquid-filled bubble to burst. What appears to be blood goes flying, and Fletcher sinks to the carpet beside his young wife, like a man injured.
Like a man shot. Like a man someone tried to pull an assassination attempt on.
Only they didn’t. Because the shot wasn’t real.
The little blood bubble in the senator’s pants pocket prove that the injury was a fake. A fucking phony, this entire time.
My head goes spinning, the wheels turning so fast in my head that I can’t keep up. The inside of my mouth feels like I’ve swallowed cotton. I know what this means.
That the coma was a fake. The assassination attempt. The bullet that incapacitated Fletcher.
All of it.
The hospital workers. The doctors. Maybe even the press.
A concerted effort was put together to create this mess, and it seems that the whole fucked up world was in on it, all to inspire sympathy for a snake of a man. A cold conniving monster made of money, power and greed.
And then my blood runs cold.
The rally. His new announcement.
Who better to be put on a path to presidency than a pretty-faced politician who’d lost his family and almost his life while enjoying a night out all because of a ruthless mafia organization and one diabolical hitman known as their Enforcer? But the Enforcer hadn’t done the job he was meant to do. He’d failed. I look down at the floor, putting the rest of the pieces together.
That is… unless he was meant to fail, meant to botch the one job he was best at. Killing for the Gafanellis.
Could the new Enforcer be in on it? In on the massive ploy, what appears to be devious plot for the highest office in all the land?
My brain begs to tell me that it can’t be so, but the clapping on the other side of the room only seems to confirm my greatest fears when I finally look up at our new uninvited guest.
The man who walks through the door. Otherwise known as the Associate Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Criminal Investigations division.
Aidan Langley.
Love Galore
JAVI
Penelope Castalano is so much like her sister. With the sassy mouth to boot.
Using a body from the morgue to fake her death was one of the best ideas I’d ever had, and while the FBI withheld her untimely demise and its grisly forest details from the public and press, they’d planned in the background to smoke her killer out.
Insider circles buzzed with the nefarious news, and Jackson’s partner-in-crime—sometimes literally—put his private investigation skills to the test, scoping out which circles buzzed the loudest.
Which brought them to Langley.
And nobody knew the prideful prick’s haunts more than me. We hit every one of them.
An hour passes then two. The deepening dusk becomes darker and with every minute that passes, my rage grows, my desire to get my hands on Langley sinking to depths I didn’t know existed.
And I can feel our little group of misfits flounder on the edge of hope until we pull up to the tin-enforced abandoned warehouse, where Langley brought most of his unruly suspects. The ones whose screams he didn’t want heard in the midst of a few grueling “interrogations.”
The sight of his government-issued Cadillac makes me hop out of the armored truck immediately and through the sparse woods, over the barren earth, I barrel towards the back door.
I bust it open, only to find myself staring at the deadly end of a new nine millimeter, its black muzzle pointing in my direction. I raise my hands slowly, refusing to turn now how matter how badly I’m tempted to under the harsh fluorescent bulbs beating down overhead.
I call out Langley’s name and he responds. From across the room.
“Well, look what we have here.” He saunters in my direction in a navy suit. “An agent of epic proportions.” He looks at the man holding the gun at me. “We’ve been expecting you.”
“Yeah, I’ve had all types of welcoming parties today. The second isn’t as sick as the first. Always second-best, huh, Langley?”
His smile sinks, his sense of humor seeming lost despite mine. “Don’t push your luck, Mondello. I’ve never liked you.”
“The sentiment’s the same, you hairless bastard. But I’m not wrong, am I? Second to the director in the Criminal Investigations unit. Second to the real Enforcer. The Gafanelli’s real one. Until he got arrested. You just can’t win, can you, Aidan? Never anybody’s pick. And how could you be? With a fucked-up hairline like that?” I shift on my feet, throwing my hands higher. “Seriously, I know you consider yourself a looker, but Rogaine. Look into it. Invest, for fuck’s sake.”
“You shut your goddamned mouth,” he growls in my direction. “You don’t have the upper hand this time, Mondello.” He tries to restore his former grin. “I’ve got your girl.” He wanders farther inside the warehouse. Let’s see what’s behind door number three, shall we?”
He drags a chair out of its hiding spot from behind a metal barrier. The chair scraps across the floor, its legs screeching against the cement underneath, mostly from the weight.
On top of the tilted seat sits my entire world. Delilah. Strapped to its back and legs, her normally red mouth covered by silver duck tape, her small hands tied behind her unnaturally ramrod back.
She wiggles her fingers, her eyes going wide when she sees me. Wet tears shimmer behind her blue eyes, but they refuse to fall. I swallow a ball that leaps into my throat. Good girl.
She makes no noise, but looks at me. It seems that everyone is. Including Langley.
He stares from me to the gun pointed at my head.
“You should be flatt
ered, Mondello. This is all for you.”
“For me?” I shrug. “Well, gee, it isn’t even my birthday. I have to say… You suck at presents, Langley. I’d have gone for a small raise.”
“Shut up,” he spits. “Fletcher and his crew needed someone new to take the fall for the new attacks on the would-be next president of the United States. Looks like the lucky winner is you.” He shrugs. “Now that Penelope Castalano is out of the picture…”
I scoff. “Really now…”
“Yeah. Now that that idiot of a redhead is six feet deep, we need a new contestant to pin crimes on. You’re going to be famous, Mondello. The next Lee Harvey Oswald.” He grins. “Except you won’t be anywhere near as successful. Your attempts to kill the new president will be the catapault that sends Robert Fletcher into the stratosphere. And everyone, including those fucks called the Gafanellis will fall at Fletcher’s Ferragamos.” He saunters closer. “I have to admit: It was fun playing flunky for the Gafanellis. The money was pretty fucking great. But the bastards know nothing of true power. The kind that big politicos like Fletcher possess. The kind that makes you wealthy enough to wipe your ass with hundreds.”
“Sounds like a shitty idea to me.” I lower my arms by just a fraction. “No pun intended.”
My hands sink as the gunman beside me keeps his eyes on Langley, his shaky stare seemingly entranced. Langley launches into another tirade about gold, silver and all that is greed until the gunman, at last, catches on as my arms drop slowly to my side and he pushes the barrel of the pistol farther into my skin, pressing so hard I almost see stars. His finger hovers over the trigger and I elevate my arms again, showing my hands. I squeeze my eyes shut and pray not to hear a shot.
I breathe in faith, breathing out my disbelief.
I’m better than this. Better than Langley. Better than a fucking villain.
And then the door bursts open. The gunman takes a bullet between the eyes, going down. His body hits the grey hard floor with a solid slam, and I glance up to find a pair of deep, ink-black eyes staring at me, a face so familiar it sometimes feels like a reflection nearly mirroring every one of my calculated movements.
