by Zoey Parker
“Hey Jane,” Toni says.
I aim the gun at the growling thing.
Toni steps in front of it, says, “Gabe, not Jane, please.”
I look away.
This is a distraction. I don’t have time for this.
“Hey Pip,” I say into my headset, “Any reading on the house - where Hannah is?”
“No, but I can get one. Hang on a sec, Boss,” he says.
While I wait, I turn my attention to Toni, who’s still regarding me with a cowed expression.
“If anything’s happened to my sister, I swear…”
“Boss, she’s in a back room. It’s attached to the basement, but it doesn’t look like there’s a door. The room’s attached to the back wall.”
I look around the room. Back wall, back wall….
“Which one is the back wall?” I ask Toni. I don’t have time to figure out which wall is facing what.
Toni gestures to the far one, where there’s an armchair and a desk. I stride up to it, strike it.
It’s hollow. There’s something on the other side.
I scan the wooden walls furiously, for a hidden door, a lever, anything. But there’s only a stupid ugly armchair and a rickety side table. I can’t shoot through the wall, I could hurt Hannah.
Maybe there’s a back way in, but do I have time to find it?
“Is there a back way to the room behind here?” I ask Toni.
She just shakes her head. “What room?”
“Shit.”
I kick the armchair and it shifts. There’s a line on the wall behind it, a groove. Oh yes.
I shove the armchair over more and soon a low door is revealed. It’s like one of those pet doors, with a flap, except this one is big enough for humans.
I crouch down, stick my head through the flap and my heart freezes in my chest.
Hannah. My sister. There she is, in the corner of this hidden room, curled up in a ball on the cement floor.
I crawl in.
“Don’t follow me. Don’t move,” I tell Toni.
I run to Hannah.
Her bruised eyes are closed, her cracked lips are parted – but she’s breathing. She’s alive.
I carry her to the doorway flap, push her through, then crawl in after her.
Toni’s looking at Hannah like she’s a ghost.
“Gabe, I had no idea, I…”
“Shut up,” I say, then, to my headset, “Hey Pip, you there?”
“Yup Boss.”
“I got Hannah. Tell the boys they can let ‘er blow in five minutes.”
“Okay Boss.”
When I turn to Toni, she’s sitting on the armchair, eyeing me placidly.
I point the gun at her.
“What are you doing? Get up.”
She shakes her head.
“I won’t let you. This is my home, my life. If you’re going to blow it up, then I’ll get blown up with it.”
I scan her face, the set parallel of her mouth and eyes. She’s dead serious.
“Did you ever consider that now that I know who you really are and just what you’re capable of that I may be entirely fine with that?”
She meets my glare with one of her own.
“So, do it then. Go. Leave me here to die.”
The certainty in her voice enrages me.
I pick up her struggling form with one hand, then Hannah’s limp one in the other.
But Toni is thrashing so much that she falls to the ground.
Splayed there, she grins with what I just realize now too, “You can't take both of us.”
“Three minutes Boss, you’re out of there, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, Pip, almost. One second.”
I take a step then check over my shoulder. Toni hasn’t budged.
“Toni, be reasonable.”
“I am being reasonable. What you are suggesting is to destroy my entire life. I may not agree with the way my family has done business or continues to, but they are just that – family. That’s something I thought at least you could sympathize with.”
She glances at Hannah’s slumped form, who flutters open one eye, “What…”
“Shhh...” I murmur, patting her head.
“Two minutes, Boss.”
“Yeah, yeah okay,” I snap back.
“What are you suggesting?” I ask Toni.
“A compromise. You evacuate then blow up the two compounds, but leave the house, leave my family. Carlos is corrupt, but many of the others at the funeral coming here after for the reception are innocent.”
“One minute Boss.”
“Got it Pip!” I snarl.
“You still want me to go through with it?” he asks.
“Yes – no! Wait a second, wait for my command.”
I advance so that I’m less than an inch from Toni, our glares boring into each other.
“You realize what you’re asking me to do?” I say.
“Please, Gabe. I didn’t know anything about your sister. I’m in the process of changing the business now; we won’t be bothering you or interfering with your shipments any longer. I can get them to agree to this change when they see how profitable it can be. I know I can. Please. If you kill them, I’ll have no one left.”
I stand there and take her in: my Mexican princess – the woman who betrayed me, the love who screwed me over in the worst way.
Her face looks earnest, those black eyes are opaque, that big red lower lip is quivering. But how do I know that those black eyes aren’t opaque just to obscure what she’s really thinking, that she’s not just quivering her lower lip in time to her lies? How can I trust her now that I know she’s lied to me about everything?
“Boss? They’re ready now.”
Pip’s voice just adds to the din.
My head and heart are yelling different things, each dead set on its own way, unable to compromise.
Kill her. End this.
What if she’s telling the truth?
Toni steps toward, her eyes pleading.
I turn away.
“Ok, Pip. Blow the compounds but leave the house for now.”
I walk to the stairs, then look back, “You coming?”
She shakes her head.
“I’m staying Gabe. I’m staying until you go.”
Now my head is screaming victory: Blow the house too. This is a trap. Why should I trust her if she doesn’t trust me?
How do I know she won’t stab my back again as soon as I turn it?
Toni doesn’t react when I lift my gun. Instead she stands there, her body facing me, open. Trembling, but not moving. As if she already knows what I’m going to do.
I raise the gun to her head, then turn and run up the stairs. I burst out of the house just as the two buildings behind it explode in a roar of flames.
“And Pip?”
“Yeah Boss?”
“Tell them the attack part is off. This is enough for today. The other part we can carry out when the Piccolos try to rebuild.”
“You sure Boss?”
“Yeah Pip.”
As I walk out, a hideous old man runs up to me. Ah, Pulse, the mask, of course.
“What the fuck man? Were there a lot of guards? I was about to go in after you.”
“I’ll explain later,” I say, “I’ve got to get her into the van, to a doctor.”
Now noticing Hannah in my arms, Pulse gives me a relieved smile.
As we head for the van, Rebel Saints streaming around us to the other vans, I hear blasts behind us. We duck.
“Waoooo! It’s go time! You guys ready!”
It’s another hideous old man, Jaws wearing the mask, holding a gigantic bazooka.
“Jaws,” I say, but he doesn’t seem to hear me.
“I’m ready! I am so fucking ready and pumped and hyped and waooooo!”
“Jaws,” I say.
“We gonna make it rain with their blood, use their tongues to clean off our cars, ohhh it’s gonna be some… Yeah?”
“Mission’s over, we’re going home.”
Jaws maniacal grin disappears.
“You’re kidding me.”
“Nope, not kidding. We blew the compounds, it’s over.”
He gapes at me, mumbles, “But what about …?”
“Gabe’s sister is in the back; she’s okay,” Pulse says, going past me to climb into the driver’s seat.
Jaws nods glumly. He understands now. Hannah is all that matters.
I go to the back, sit down beside her.
I check her arms and legs, her face, her scalp. She’s fine. Dirty and bruised, but fine.
Guess they didn’t want to harm their merchandise I think, and my stomach twists.
As we drive away, Pulse throws a pleased look back.
“You know Boss, I didn’t want to admit it, but I reckoned your sister was toast.”
An icy silence, in which I contemplate blowing Pulse’s head off.
“Thanks for keeping that to yourself,” I say quietly, and that shuts them both right up.
I spend the rest of the ride stroking her head. She doesn’t open her eyes again, only tosses and turns with frowns and little sighs of exasperation.
I’d never admit it to the boys, but I was afraid of the exact same thing as Pulse.
Chapter 28
Toni
The aftermath is oblivion.
I sit and wait, while my mind screams at me to leave.
Go, it says. Go and leave Carlos and the others to their fate. Leave this old house with its old memories to its fate.
Go with Gabriel, your love. The one person who hasn’t betrayed you. Who loves you – or did before at least.
I pat Jane absently. She has lowered her head to the ground, slumped into a crumple. She knows. There’s no way we’re leaving here.
This old house and its old memories are all I have left of my parents now. I can’t let the Rebel Saints destroy it.
And what of Maria Fernanda? I can’t just leave her here to die, there would’ve been no time to alert her, to save her. Where is she now?
I try to stand up, but my body refuses to move.
And those girls, all those girls, the whole business. I need to fix it. I just need time. A few months. A few months to make the business legitimate, get it off the ground, then I can hand control over to someone else. Then, only then, can I be free.
I owe it to those girls, my family, myself.
I stand up, slide the armchair back in place. Sit back down on it.
Wait for what will come. Whatever it is, I have a feeling that it won’t be good.
Carlos gets back sooner than I would’ve hoped. Maybe fear speeds time along, who knows. Then again, I would’ve hoped he’d never get back.
He is a shout outside the house, a racing from room to room, his footsteps a drum roll until he finally makes it down to the basement.
“WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?” he yells.
“I don’t know,” I say.
Now he’s right in front of me, his voice a deadly hiss, “Two of our compounds were just blown to shit and you’re sitting here, calm and quiet and have no idea how.”
I shake my head.
“No.”
He rips me off the armchair and throws me to the ground. He starts shoving the armchair over, slow-going with his one usable arm, speaking as he goes:
“Well, it doesn’t matter really. Because those Rebel Saints are sure gonna be sorry they messed with us. Because now, Toni, you’re going to see what I’ve been trying to show you for weeks now. You’re going to see why we’ve got the Rebel Saints in the palm of our hand. How we’re going to crush them now that they were stupid enough to attack us.”
The door flap now revealed, Carlos crouches down and sticks his head through.
I knew what he’d find, and yet the vehemence with which he swears still sends a chill down my spine. As did his scrambling in and storming around.
I consider trapping Carlos in there, but he’s out before I can make a decision, snarling in my face before I realize that I should have left as soon as he came home.
“What… happened?”
His eyebrows are arched incredibly, and, his eyes flashing, he almost looks like Papa now. It’s in the mouth more than anything, the bared teeth, the curve of the lower lip, that’s too big for the top one.
His eyes are full of tears, like he’ll cry or strike me or both.
Should I tell him or should I lie?
“Toni…” he growls.
I open my lips, but no words come out.
Carlos doesn’t understand. That this is it: my final decision – where my loyalty lies: my family or Gabriel.
“What… happened?” he says, and his hand trembles so that the light catches on the green of his ring, and suddenly I get it. What I’ve known all this time.
“I don’t know,” I say, and Carlos strikes me.
“You bitch,” he hisses, grabbing me by the shirt, shoving me through the flap door.
“Carlos!” I cry, crawling out.
He draws his gun, presses it into my forehead. The second time today I’ve been in this position.
I stare into his eyes.
The tears are streaming down now, no longer obscuring the rage there. The unmistakable, dangerous rage.
“Carlos,” I say and he cocks his rifle.
“Don’t talk. Don’t say another stupid lying word. I know, okay? I know.”
He wipes away the tears with his gun hand, his bandaged arm trembling.
“I know about Gabriel Pierson, about how you’re trying to change everything, even went down to the Factory.”
For one stupid, crazy last chance of a second, I wonder if Carlos actually understands. Is only mad about the withholding, is only doing this to teach me a lesson, to teach me about trust.
But then Carlos laughs, and I know it’s all over.
“How dumb are you? You think that Gabriel Pierson of all people is doing anything other than using you for the stupid bitch that you are, trying to mess with us from the inside? God Toni, I knew you were sentimental, but I never took you for a full-on idiot.”
His mouth is an ugly sneer, his eyes flicking search lights – searching, scanning, eager to see that he’s cracked me, hurt me as much as he intended to.
I blink back my own tears, refuse to move. Those tears will come out over my dead body. No way am I giving Carlos the satisfaction. That he’s getting to me. That he’s voicing my greatest fear, giving it wings, claws, fangs. That his words are sending my stomach swirling.
“Ironic, isn’t it?” Carlos is saying, “That what I did to his sister, Gabriel Pierson pulled on my own. Guess stupidity is more universal than I thought.”
There are no more tears in his eyes now. Only a sheen of indifference.
“You won’t get away with this,” I say, and he laughs again.
“How do you figure? I’ve got a gun to your forehead. I’ve got Clarence, Anthony and Roger ready to take my side at any minute. Hell, I’ve even got Papa’s blessing in writing.”
A shiver runs down my spine.
“Oh no…” I say.
“Oh yes,” Carlos says, his one hand gripping the gun while the other burrows into his jacket pocket.
“Actually, I’ve got it right here.”
His shaking hand unfurls the crumpled paper, while his shaking voice spouts off its contents gleefully, “I, Earnest Taurus Piccolo, do assert that my business be handed over to my son, Carlos Piccolo.”
He turns it and mashes it in my face, so the swooping pyramid of Papa’s signature is unmistakable.
“No,” I say, twisting my face away, “That isn’t legitimate and you know it. Getting your vile mother to force it out of him on his deathbed isn’t what anyone is going to consider lawful.”
Tucking the paper back in his pocket, Carlos nods as if he’s actually considering my words. But when he looks up at me, there’s a malicious gleam in his eye.
