by W. Winters
Thinking about Dad and Grandma makes my throat tighten.
My father didn’t make the best choices in life, but he left me there because it was supposed to be safe. Everyone knew me, and everyone knew I was the daughter of a man who worked for the Vitos.
Even Michael Vito knew who I was. When he spotted me sitting there, he knew. My textbooks were open as I read Lord knows what and pretended I didn’t feel his eyes on me. I pretended the bar didn’t get quiet again.
I remember the sound of his heavy boots. Unlike his father, Michael carried a lot of weight to him. I remember his voice. How it was harsh when he gripped my shoulder too hard to not mean for it to hurt.
He told me to go to the back room.
The back room is where I was never supposed to go. I knew very well what happened to women who went to the back room. I could hear it. Everyone could.
Seth was there along with all of his friends. He scared the hell out of me at school. They all did. I wasn’t a dork, I wasn’t a cool kid, and I wasn’t an athlete. I wasn’t a kid who sold or did drugs either, like they were. I was just a girl who was stuck there. I knew who Seth was though, and when I looked at him, I wanted to see that it was okay and that I should listen.
Because I wanted to be a good girl. I didn’t want to cause problems. Especially not for my dad who excelled at making plenty of problems for himself all on his own.
I should be a good girl and do what I was told. That’s what my father said all the time. And I may have had a mouth on me, but I really did try to be good.
When I looked at Seth though, after being told to go to the back room, his expression was anything other than one of a boy who thought it would be okay if I listened. Instead his face was darkened with fear and then anger, so much anger.
“No,” I blurted out without thinking. I wasn’t thinking of anything other than the sounds of the girls who went into that back room. They liked it. At least I think they liked it.
But other people went into that back room too one night and they screamed. Their faces were in the paper the next morning, printed in stark black and white. Just like the pictures of the crime scene where their bodies were found.
I didn’t know which option Michael meant for me, but I didn’t want either of them.
“Are you telling me no?” His breath reeked of cigarettes. I’ll never forget it.
“My dad told me to stay—” Before I could finish, the back of his hand whipped across my face. My neck snapped to one side and I barely stayed standing upright. I was only able to keep my footing because of the table behind me and the fact that my palms landed hard on it.
Vito yelled something in Italian, but I have no idea what it was; no one from around here is Italian. I never did understand how and why the Vitos used to run this town.
When I straightened myself to look up at him, he sneered in my face for me to get in the back room and get undressed. I don’t think the others heard him, but looking at their faces, they had an idea.
“No.”
He didn’t slap me; he closed his fist and punched me. The burn in my nose comes back as if he’s just done it, but he’s gone. Long gone.
“If someone’s going to show everyone else their true colors to hurt you – let them.” My grandma said that once. She said sometimes people need to see. They have to look at it and swallow that harsh pill. That’s all I was thinking as I lay there on the dirty floor with the taste of blood in my mouth and what I thought was a broken nose and jaw. Sometimes you have to take a hit from your enemy for them to be seen as what they are.
I did. I took the hit. And when I landed facedown and dizzy with Vito’s boot pressed against my back, I didn’t think the hit would do what it did.
I lay there with the coppery taste of blood in my mouth, all the while zoning in and out of semi-consciousness. My vision hazy, I thought it was the beginning of the end. I couldn’t fight back; I knew I couldn’t. The best chance I had at surviving was simply being unconscious. Still, I tried to get back up, with the fear and the desperation clinging to me. Simply because I would’ve rather been dead or unconscious than willingly go into whatever that bitch fate had planned for me.
The one thing I’ll never know is why I didn’t cry. Inside, it’s all I was doing. Outside, I was willing my muscles to push me up. I wanted him to hit me again. However many times it took.
What happened next didn’t last long; it felt like hours, but it was twenty minutes of brawn and bullets. I lay there crying, knowing I was going to die. I got sick once when I heard the gunshots and the yells.
I watched with horror when he was dragged to the back room. He was barely conscious, but they waited until he was with it enough in order to tell him his reign had ended. It wasn’t just a brawl. It was a massacre that ended with Vito being shot in the back of the head, execution style.
The men in the bar weren’t going to stand by and watch while Vito took advantage of the daughter of someone who worked for him. They weren’t going to let him stomp his boot into my back while I helplessly lay on the dirty ground, flat on my stomach, which is what he was going to do after the first punch was thrown.
Even through the haze of my injuries, I saw everything from the worn wooden floors that held a stale stench of beer. I watched while a man punched Cormac in the face for shoving another man in a suit. I watched him nearly be beaten to death. It was the suits mostly, them against everyone else.
Same with Seth; he was almost strangled to death. The only reason he lived is because Derrick shot the man choking him in the back of the head. They were so close to me, the blood sprayed onto my face and neck.
Everyone lost someone that night, but it felt like we won something else.
I have to close my eyes so I don’t cry at the memory.
I was still shaking, tasting vomit and blood when Seth picked me up. Half his face wasn’t even recognizable; he’d been bludgeoned so badly. He walked me home and the other guys came by in twos and threes. They stayed with me until my dad got there, crying and apologizing like it was all his fault.
I begged them not to tell my grandma, but she found out. Everyone in Tremont knew what happened. They knew why things had to change.
And I was the good girl, the one who stood up against Michael Vito. Even if I didn’t fight back. Even if I didn’t want to be there.
Seth’s father is the one who took the lead after everything went down, and he was killed along with the men who followed him within two weeks. Sometimes I wonder if his dad was still here and the crew I know today didn’t make it their mission to ensure revenge, if we’d still be here. He promised me once, when he first kissed me, that he’d take me far away from this place. That was two years ago, and here I stand, in a different bar in Tremont. Different bar, different fears.
My phone pings at the same time the woman at the bar tells me she’s ready. It takes a few minutes to do the rounds and I call back an order of fries to the cook, an old lady named Holly who only agreed to work here if she could stay in the back. She’s a recovering alcoholic, but jobs in Tremont aren’t growing on trees, as she explained.
I don’t think anyone can tell I’m emotional. Not Holly and not Cormac. I just look pissed, maybe? Grandma used to joke that I inherited her resting bitch face. I don’t know. I don’t ask and I don’t wait for anyone in here to say a word to me.
When I get back to my phone, I see Cami’s response from me asking her to come to the appointment tomorrow with me. That’s what the ping was.
What’s it for? she asked me and then two minutes later when I didn’t respond, she added, Is everything all right?
Yeah, I text back, just that heart thing. When I was at the doctor’s two weeks ago, they said I had arrhythmia. I had a moment in the office. The stress was just getting to me, but they want me to “get it checked.” Cami knows all about it. Seth too. I looked it up in detail when I got home. It’s fine. It’ll be fine.
What time? she asks.
3:45
/> I’m so sorry babe, I can’t go. I have work until six but I’ll keep my phone on me and I’ll come by tomorrow night?
Sounds good, I text back, feeling a different kind of pain on top of the previous one that won’t let go. I should have figured she’d be working on a weekday. I just wanted someone to go with me.
Cami was freaked out at first. She texts me now what she told me back then. Don’t mess with shit that deals with the heart.
I want to tell her about Jackson; I want her to tell me anything at all to get my mind off of things.
Instead, I text her back, Don’t I know it, and I join Cormac in watching the game.
Seth
“The meet’s all set up.” I’ve just about finished the rundown with the guys at the far left side of what will be our bar. The brown paper is laid out on the floors and the furniture is covered in cloth. The painters are coming back tomorrow since I had to kick them out early for this meet. Club Allure is coming together, piece by piece. “We’ve got a fight next weekend, so let’s get the ring moved downstairs.”
“The place isn’t finished,” Connor interrupts me. He’s leaning against the primed walls next to Cade, who’s in charge of the books, and Liam. Liam is Connor’s brother and looks just like him. Especially now that they’re both wearing dark jeans and dark t-shirts. Cade’s the odd one in a crisp white shirt and black khakis. The rest of these guys couldn’t give two shits about appearing professional. Cade comes from a different background though. He’s all about numbers and left a top accounting firm to come work for me.
In another life, I’d wear suits every damn day. We don’t do that here though. The men before us who wore suits destroyed any desire I had to put on tailored clothing.
“Doesn’t matter,” Cade speaks up, turning his head to face Connor and leaning forward so he can see him. He’s the one who came to me with the idea of a fight club.
“You think anyone betting on the fights downstairs gives a shit what this floor looks like?” Derrick asks Connor, his question dripping with sarcasm.
The three of those men side by side look like they could be their own Irish crew. If things were the way they were two years ago, they’d probably be dead. The Irish didn’t last too long when Michael Vito took over. The three of them are as Irish as they come. Cade comes equipped with a hint of an accent too; he’s first generation. With tats trailing up his right arm, it’s easy to tell him apart from Liam. He’s taller than Liam too, with lighter, longer hair on the top of his head. Liam looks more clean-cut. His short hair’s always neatly trimmed, as is his facial hair. Even though Cade left the business world, you’d think Liam was the one who was trying to be white collar based on how they look.
“You two,” I say as I gesture on both sides of Connor to the other two Irish men. “You get the say since this gig is your baby. Have it here, in the basement? Or keep it where we have been?”
“Here,” Cade says, his accent peeking out. Liam agrees with his friend. The two of them are tight, another reason they’d have been knocked off years ago. I remember telling Connor that it was on him if Cade and Liam couldn’t be trusted. I have a hard time trusting people. These two are the only two guys out of the five in my crew I’ve brought on in the two years we’ve been running this shit. I don’t like new blood, Connor, Derrick, Roman and I have been through everything together. We don’t need anyone else. Cade and Liam can be trusted though and it’s better to keep them close. So it’s just my five guys and me.
That’s enough for now.
“Good. I’m ready for things to start changing and the first—”
“Yo,” Derrick says, cutting me off and leans his head to my right. The dark black glass for the front double doors was just installed and Laura’s admiring it from where she’s at the other side of the bar, still holding one door open.
“I knocked,” she bellows when I call out her name to get her attention. She looks cute in a tight pair of jeans and a cropped top that shows off her stomach. Just the sight of her makes my cock twitch. My first instinct is to smile, thinking she’s come to surprise me, but then I see her expression.
“Come on down,” Derrick calls out to her.
“Give me a minute,” I tell the guys, not liking the look on her face. It’s the one she gets when she’s scared but she’s trying not to be. I know it well. I take a few slow steps toward her as she takes the shortest path across so she doesn’t have to walk the entire distance of the place.
“It’s really coming together,” she says sweetly, greeting me with a quick peck and then saying hi to the guys.
“Yeah, it is. We need a few more permits,” I tell her and wait. She’s got both hands shoved in her pockets when she asks if there’s a room we can talk in.
I don’t like it. The way her shoulders are hunched in and how quietly she’s talking.
“Everything all right?” I ask her as I place my hand on the small of her back and bring her around to one of the back rooms. Her doctor appointment is tomorrow. It’s the first thing I think of with how she’s acting. She said it wasn’t a big deal. She said her heart skips sometimes and I took credit for it. Looking at her now, I feel like a jackass for making light of it. Her exact word was “harmless.” She said it was harmless and the procedure was routine for diagnosis.
She better not have lied to me. Maybe I should go with her.
“Let’s just talk,” she answers and I pick up my pace.
The small corner room, opposite from where the guys are and what will be used for storage of unopened liquor, isn’t furnished and the floors are covered with brown paper. Other than that, there’s only blue painter’s tape on the trim.
Laura lets out a deep exhale before I’ve even shut the door.
“What did you do?” she asks and her question comes out frantic. She sounds scared and it instantly makes my muscles coil, ready to beat the shit out of whoever’s gotten her so worked up. But then what she says hits me.
What did I do? Relief is the first thing I feel, but then it’s quickly followed by confusion.
“Whoa, hold up, what’s wrong?” I ask her, taking her elbow so I can pull her in, but she pushes me away, backing up to the other side of the small room. Nervous pricks run up my arm.
“I don’t like this. I don’t like any of this.”
With her arms crossed, she faces me from the other side of the room. I stay where I am, waiting and crossing my arms just the same.
“What did you do?” She repeats her question.
Speaking clearer this time, I ask, “What happened?”
She’s stubborn. Babygirl is a stubborn broad, but she also knows I’m not going to lie to her. Which means I’m also not telling her a damn thing. It’s a rule we have in the crew; it keeps the people we love out of harm’s way. She doesn’t need to know.
Uncrossing my arms and slipping my thumbs into my back pockets, I take a single step forward and raise my brow. Waiting.
A look of despair mars her face when she uncrosses her arms and confesses, “Jackson came to the bar.”
A spike of rage goes through me. Just one, a blip.
“What did he say?” I ask calmly, evenly, although my voice is lower now. We have an arrangement, and for Jackson to go behind my back and tell Laura something that’s got her worked up… I’m going to have to have a word with that prick.
“He said the guys you’re dealing with aren’t going to let you get away with it,” she says. Her voice cracks and it fucking shatters me.
Another spike of rage hits me, but this one simmers. “That seems cryptic,” I tell her, keeping a poker face even though I’m already second-guessing if Jackson is talking about Mathews or if he’s referring to something else. What does he know that I don’t know?
Nothing.
The answer in my head is arrogant, but I can’t see how he knows something I don’t.
“What did you do?” Her tone pleads with me as she closes the distance between us.
The tough-gir
l bit falls pretty quick with her. “Please,” she begs.
The second her hands reach my arms, I bring her in, holding her tight. It’s what she needs, and she’s quick to hold me back.
“Please, Seth,” she whispers this time.
My chin rests on the top of her head as her grip on me tightens. “You’re worried,” I tell her, rocking her small body and staring at the blank back wall, picturing everything that happened and at what point someone would have known it was us. Jackson can’t know. No one knows. He’s confused or he’s trying to start shit. I’ll set him straight either way.
“How could I not be worried?” Laura responds with despondency.
“Jackson’s bluffing, saying anything he can to get to you,” I lie to her. Or maybe it’s the truth. If it was though, I don’t think I’d feel the way I do. Ice cold and like something bad is going to happen.
I move to hold her tighter, hating the way everything’s feeling hot and numb all at once, but she breaks away, her hands on my chest as she shakes her head.
“It’s not a bluff; he was worried about me.” She raises her voice as she speaks but it’s the emotions getting to her.
“There’s no reason for you to worry,” I tell her, trying to calm her down by grabbing her hands, one in each of my own.
I kiss her knuckles before telling her that I’m sorry Jackson freaked her out and that he’s just a jackass.
She’s not in the mood for my jokes though, if her ripping her hands away from me and pacing is any indication.
“You need to calm down,” I tell her as I square my shoulders.
She asks with wide eyes, full of both hope and desperation, “Why don’t you just get out of all that?” When I don’t answer, she adds, “You have this bar.” Like that’s some sort of justification.
The bar only works because we’ll do the deals here, host fights in the basement, and launder money through the alcohol sales. I struggle for a reason to give her. One day she’ll realize it all. She’s too smart not to piece it together. She’s just messed up in the head right now and unable to see it. It’s not this bar or that life. They’re one and the same.
