Vinny didn’t even give him the time of day with an answer. He was already out the door of the meeting hall and heading quickly to the parking lot where his bike was waiting for him to ride. He sped through the streets as he gritted his teeth through the strength it was taking to fight through the searing pain. His side ached and throbbed from the energy he expended on Benni, Quimby, and the meeting. And by the sound of the rest of his night’s plans, he could not imagine the pain going away anytime soon.
Jackman’s Tavern was thankfully only a few miles away from headquarters. By the looks of the bikes and the men hanging out in the parking lot, it appeared that the meeting had continued on to Gloria’s workplace. Their presence only added another roadblock for Vinny. He had to pull Gloria out without raising suspicions among the men. No doubt that Benni was not lying when he said he had eyes and ears all over the town. Giving Gloria too many details about where he was going and what he was assigned to do was not going to fly with anyone in the Horsemen.
His best bet was to keep it cool, to play it up like a friendly visit to a new Horsemen bar. He walked into the bar with his head held high. The first person to notice him was one of his own, one of his longtime allies from way back. “Michael, my man! How you doing tonight? Can I buy you a beer?” He patted Michael, on his back heavily as he took a seat on a stool next to him.
“What you doing here, you son of a bitch! Shouldn’t you be back home nursing that rib of yours?” He gestured to Vinny’s side as he chugged down the beer he was already nursing.
“Nah, gotta go on an assignment for Benni before the night is done. I just gotta let the old lady know.”
“She ain’t here, kid. Her and her watch left ‘bout an hour ago. I think they said she was heading to her place. You know where that is?”
“Yeah, I’ve been there once or twice...“ He elbowed the man jovially as he tossed some money on the bar. “You ride safe, y’hear?”
Michael was right. When Vinny arrived at Gloria’s place, he ran right into her watch. Ten or so men dressed in all black waited around in her parking lot playing cards and drinking beers. Only one was really paying attention to Vinny as he strode quickly past them. The man tried to protest, but Vinny held his hand up and continued on. No one seemed willing to chase him, but he had no doubt that one of them was going to call Benni for instructions.
Vinny only had minutes to get Gloria to cooperate. He knocked urgently at her door, rang her doorbell. No answer. He shouted her name, “Gloria! Gloria! Open this fucking door!”
Inside, Gloria watched from her bedroom window. She hadn’t moved from her perch since she got home that night and watched as the men pulled into the parking lot outside of her townhome. A bat was in her hand as she nervously traced the lines in the wood over and over again. If they were coming for her, she was waiting and ready.
Now, one of them broke their ranks. He had walked quickly to her door and began to pound away at the wood with his fists. Her heart raced as she worked out where she could run or hide, but she suspected that no matter what she did, she was powerless from it all. But the voice calling her name was familiar. She made the decision to turn on the lights, revealing Vinny as he continued to pound and scream out for her. She looked back at the rest of the men. They were still there, not moving. They just watched with a renewed interest, but they seemed harmless.
Gloria ran down the stairs and removed the propped up chairs from the doorknob. As she released the safety chain from the lock, she paused as Jordan’s warning from earlier in the night played out in her mind. What if Vinny was there to take her away, to do her in? Could she trust him? She could really see no option other than to put her faith in him that he was not there to harm her. He was the only thing left in her world she could put any stake in.
She opened up a crack, giving him just enough room to slip in. He wasted no time as he stared her down, “I need you to give me Calvin Smith’s address.”
“Who?” His odd, sudden request had given her no time to think.
“Junior’s dad, Gloria! I need it now.” Vinny was screaming at her. His voice was thundering and bouncing violently off of her walls.
“Wh—what are you talking about? I don’t know anything about him.” Gloria could only do the one thing she knew would keep her safe—deny.
“Cut the fucking shit, Gloria. I know you have his information. You have that information on every single one of your clients.”
Gloria relented. She should have known better than to bullshit Vinny. He had been privy to her business doings for weeks now. Of course he knew that she kept all that information in her binder. “Fine. Fine. But I’m not giving it to you until you tell me what the fuck is going on.”
“Listen to me,” he growled, approaching her without warning, taking her tiny, pale face in his strong hands. He forced her to keep eye contact with him as he explained, “They’re gonna kill both of us if you don’t let me do this. I need that address, Gloria. I need it now.”
“No, I can’t give that to you. I swore I’d protect—”
“You’d protect him over savin’ your own life? What the fuck is wrong with you? If you don’t cooperate, they’re not gonna let you go because you have information or because you are good looking. They’ll kill you, and Jordan, and everyone else you love. For fun. I can’t keep you safe anymore; you have to do this.”
She shook violently. She had feared for her life the entire night, and now she was getting confirmation that those men really did come after her to harm her. Gloria could only do one thing. She had to play by their rules. She ran to her kitchen to grab her bag where her binder of information lay. Vinny followed behind her and watched as she searched through her names until she came to Smith. She looked up at him and quietly said, “Do you want me to write it down or what?”
“Just tell me.” Vinny could feel her fear. He lowered his voice to keep her calm and said reassuringly, “I’ll remember it.”
“201 North Maple, Jackson.” She looked up at him with pleading blue eyes, adding, “He’s got a wife, Vinny.”
“If he gives me what we need, they won’t get harmed,” Vinny said, though he knew it would not be that easy.
“And if he doesn’t?”
Vinny couldn’t answer her question. He knew Gloria was well aware of what was going to happen. “I have to go, Gloria. When it’s done, I’ll go back to my place. I’ll call you from there. In the meantime, you stay inside. Don’t try to go anywhere. Have Jordan wait around with you. If you find trouble, you stall as much as possible.” Vinny again took her head into her hands as he circled his arms around her. Kissing her on the forehead, he could feel a few tears stream down her face and rest in the cloth of his shirt. He broke away before he could say much more and walked out the door.
Gloria watched from the living room window as he walked past the group of men and on to his bike. The rest of the gang watched him go, all talking about his departure. Gloria knew this was her chance. While they were distracted talking among themselves, she ran to where her car was parked and closed the door softly. She pulled a hat from her backseat and pulled her hair into a bun under the cap. She pulled the neck of her shirt up to her face and placed a pair of sunglasses on. It was a stupid idea, but she knew that sometimes even the most ridiculous ideas were the best.
As she pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street, she didn’t dare glance back at the men. There was no sound of bikes starting, no peeling of wheels on the concrete streets. All she could see was the dark of the early morning roads and the sound of her own heavy breathing. She had managed to escape.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Gloria was speeding wildly down the open roads. Her beat up junker was pulling and pushing under the pressure of her breakneck speeds and sharp turns. She had only minutes to get there before Vinny had figured out the address she had given him was off by a couple of numbers.
She couldn’t imagine he would dare break into every house on the block until he found Calvin
Senior. That would be too cavalier, too risky. He would have to know better than to involve tons of unknowing witnesses. But, then again, how much did she truly know about Vinny and his personality? After all, he was an enforcer with a deadly motorcycle gang—a motorcycle gang that was totally okay with hiding away a murder in their own parking lot.
All Gloria could do was trust that he would be smart about this…and hope she wouldn’t be the one winding up dead by the end of the night.
As she approached Maple Street, she turned off her headlights and slowly pulled into the pristine block. Lined with flowerbeds, novelty mailboxes, and freshly painted window shutters, the neighborhood was practically out of a dream. How could a kid like Junior come from such a beautiful place and turn to a life of crime? Gloria had expected abandoned buildings and deserted streets. But 209 Maple was practically a castle, with its brick façade and second-story awnings.
But one, very out of place thing caught her eye: two motorcycles resting up against the garage of Calvin’s garage. She scanned the home as she slowed to a stop. Only one light was on in the basement window. The clear, glass bricks made it hard for her to make out anything concrete, but she could clearly see the shadow of a towering body standing inside the basement. A pain of regret washed over her. She was too late. They were already here.
Still, she soldiered on. Gloria left her car on the street about three homes down from where the Smith family resided. As she slipped out of her car and softly closed the door, she knew she had to be quick about it. If she lingered too long or made too much of a scene, she would put herself at risk of being caught by not only Vinny, but by a noisy neighbor or two. She slipped behind bushes, walked the parameters of the fence lines, and avoided motion cameras and lights as best as she was able.
When she made it to the Smith’s home, she checked the front door first. It was still firmly closed tight and locked from the inside. Vinny could have picked it and then relocked it, she guessed, but she couldn’t see any signs of that. It was still so pristine.
She slipped toward the side of the home, searching for a busted window or an open gate. Instead, she found the entrance to an underground cellar. It was padlocked shut, but Gloria’s wild high school years had taught her the best way to bust through one of those. Taking a metal pin out of her hair, she began twisting it inside the lock. When she could hear it click, she used a garden stone to hit it open. It only took two tries before the metal lock smashed to the ground and the cellar door swung open from the force.
The cellar was dark and musty. It was clear that no one had been down there in months, let alone Vinny and whomever he rode with. Gloria felt her way through the jumble of gardening equipment and lawn supplies until she felt the end of the wall. Using her hands, she traced the corners of the space until she felt the handle of the door.
Looking down at her feet, she could see a hint of light spilling through the cracks of the door. Sound, too, was passing through as she struggled to make out the voice. “Tell us where he is! You fucking know where he is! Do you think we’re joking! Show him we’re serious, Vin!”
She heard a loud, unnatural crack and a thud. It was the sound of a man’s jaw breaking as his body fell to the floor. Gloria was all too familiar with the noise of bones shattering under another man’s hand. The thud, she guessed, was the beaten man falling to the ground.
A screech of a chair being pulled over a tile floor followed and a new man spoke. She knew the voice in a second as Vinny shouted, “Calvin! Just tell us where that little fucker is, and we’ll let you go—you and your wife!”
Through all the yelling, the threats, Gloria could tell it was not just Vinny trying to scare the shit out of him. He was genuinely trying to save the man. There was a pleading in his voice that made Gloria think he wanted to be there less than Calvin Senior. did.
“L-look, fellas, I already told you, I don’t know. I ain’t seen Junior in a week.” The man was crying, sobbing. The injury to his body had made it a labor just to talk. But he had to do it to save his life and the ones that he loved. “Please, leave Jessica alone. She didn’t—she didn’t know.”
“Whaddaya think’s keepin’ us from burnin’ this shithole to the ground with your wife tied up upstairs?” Vinny had lowered his voice almost to a whisper. “You got somethin’ we want. You tell us what we need to know, and we’ll move on like nothin’ ever happened.”
The second man was less patient. There was a pause before he screamed, “TELL US, MOTHERFUCKER!” A pulsating scream rang out vibrating the walls and forcing Gloria to step back from the door. Whatever the two had just done to Calvin meant the end was near. His life was slowly slipping away, and Gloria’s time to save them all was dwindling fast.
But getting to Calvin was impossible. If it were just Vinny in that basement, she would have taken the risk of him killing her and would have forced herself in. But the other man in the room certainly would not have shown her mercy. She would just be another dead body on the floor of a basement to him. No, Gloria had no other option than to find another way.
She slowly ran outside, carefully shutting the cellar door once again and replaced the broken lock to conceal her tracks. Moving farther back in the yard, she spotted a deck with a back entrance to the kitchen. The screen door was open but she would have to break in again to through a nearby window. Luckily, Vinny and his pal had already done the job before her. As she placed the hairpin in the keyhole, the door slowly opened on its own. They had used the same trick to get in.
The kitchen was dark, untouched. The men had left everything in its right place to make sure it didn’t look like a break in. Pans were still hung over the sink, a man’s briefcase still laid open on the dining room table with papers in a neat pile, photos of the small family on vacation were hung without a speck of dust on them in the living room. Gloria didn’t dare to leave a fingerprint on anything.
Upstairs was more of the same. Doors were shut, lights were off, beds were made. Gloria had methodically gone through each and every room, peeking her head into the doors as she went for the sign of Calvin’s wife. There was nothing but dark stillness.
As she turned to head back downstairs to the living room, the sound of a muffled, shaking cry broke through from the master bedroom she had just left. Gloria raced to the room and opened the door. Still, she could not make out anything but the outline of the large wooden furniture. Yet, the sound of the cry grew louder. She had just checked the bedroom a moment earlier and had seen nothing off. The bed was a bit messy, but there were no signs that someone had forced their way in or someone’s body was dragged out.
But there, withering on the ground with her arms and legs bound to the post of the king-sized bed was a small, shaking woman. Gloria ran to her side and removed the necktie that was stuffed barbarically into her mouth. Before the woman could get a chance to scream, she used her hand to cover her lips.
“Don’t scream!” Gloria whispered urgently. “I’m here to help you, but you have to stay calm. Did you see who took your husband?”
“No—there were two of them,” Jessica softly sobbed as the words dribbled from her lips. “Big guys, with dark clothing on. I think they had masks on. One of them had a gun. They kept screaming about my son, Junior, asking where he is. I didn’t know what they were talking about. They tied me up and left me up here…” The woman realized the important detail she was missing as a look of terror covered her face. “They took my husband!”
“Your husband is fine—for now. I was just down in your basement and saw where they’re keepin’ him. But we don’t got time. We gotta get you outta here.”
“We can’t just leave him! They’re gonna kill him!” Jessica was practically yelling at Gloria as she shook and cried uncontrollably.
Gloria took the woman’s shoulders in her hand to steady them. Pressing her fingers hard into her skin, she looked her into her eyes and said, “Listen to me. You cannot save him right now. We need to get out of here and then we will get to him. Do y
ou hear me, Jessica?”
The woman’s brow furrowed. “How do you know my name?” A spark of fear hit her as she tried to crawl away from her. “And who exactly are you?”
Gloria had made a fatal error in saying her name. But she had to make her understand, “I’m here to help you and your husband.” She held up a hand to head off the inevitable question. “I can’t tell you any more than that. But please, I want to help you get out of here, because, believe me, the other man down there is going to kill both you and your husband by the end of the night. You’re just gonna have to trust me.”
Jessica slumped down farther into the ground as she thought through her options. From her place in the bedroom, she could hear the occasional shouts of her husband and his captors. She knew that whatever was happening to him, whatever they were putting him through, was not going to end with everyone just happily walking away like nothing had ever happened. Gloria was right. To save the person she loved, Jessica would have to save herself first.
She nodded as she moved out of Gloria’s way to reveal just how tightly she was bound to the bedposts. Gloria ran her hands through the length of the line, searching for some way to twist it free. But the knots that Vinny or his partner had made with the thick, dense material were strong and unyielding. Only a professional with years of experience tying up a body could make something so strong and impenetrable.
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