Devil May Care: Boxed Set (73 page)

“Gordo…what is this?” Jawbone whispered.

Gordo hiked up his sweats, which had started to fall down around his ass. “Just what it looks like,
president
,” he sneered sarcastically. “I made a little switch. Different team now. Unfortunate timing for you, though.”

Antonio walked over to Jawbone, who had not budged. “You look very confused, so before we kill you, I’ll do you the courtesy of explaining how you lost.” He pointed at the Japanese man, still standing patiently with his hands folded in front of him. “This man does not represent the Yakuza. He never has. In fact, there never
was
any Yakuza. This is just some Asian guy from the Chinese restaurant down the street. You can go now, Charles.” He scampered away immediately and was gone.

Jawbone’s eyes turned dumbly to where the Japanese man had run off, then back to Antonio. He was at a loss for words.

“We tricked you, get it?” Antonio continued. “You thought you were headed for a big old payday, didn’t you? I almost feel bad for you. It must have seemed like such an attractive deal. Shame it was never going to take place.” He clapped Jaw on the shoulder. “I do applaud you, though. Setting up a counterattack to my attack would have been a good move. But, fortunately, I heard about it a little bit in advance. Gordo, come here.”

Gordo sauntered over to Antonio, who slung an arm around the hitman’s shoulders. “I managed to persuade my good man Gordo here to come on over to our side of the table, so to speak. I offered some money, some women, a little piece territory to run for himself. All the man wanted was influence, my friend. It wasn’t so hard to convince him which of us was in a better position to give him that. And then, as for these men,” he said, gesturing at the Broken Bones men following Gordo, “they just wanted more of the same. It was a nice addition to our organization, if I do say so myself. A nice little coup.”

Gordo had stabbed his own club in the back. I hadn’t felt such a murderous rage since I walked in to see Slim’s last breaths. It was like a cloud boiling up inside me, obscuring my thoughts, my vision. All I could see was red. Angry, bloody red. The motherfucker betrayed us.

“And last but not least, we have our good friend Dominic,” Antonio said. Every man in the square turned to look at me. Thirty guns were staring me down. My blood ran cold. “Maybe the biggest fool of you all. We had you from the start, Dommy boy. Did you really think you would just waltz in unnoticed and undetected? Ridiculous! You thought you were so damn coy, with your bad boy attitude and everything. I can’t believe you took me for such an idiot.”

He looked legitimately disappointed in me. His face fell into an unhappy frown, his arms hung limp by his sides. Then he sniffled and stood up tall. His frown transformed into a hideous snarl. “But if there’s one thing I hate in this world, it’s a rat in my own house. Do you know what I do with rats, Dominic?”

I stood completely still. My gun was still held at my chest, but I didn’t dare move it. I hardly dared to breathe.

“I don’t kill them right away. Oh, no. I like to play with them first. I like to tease them and prod them and let them think they are about to get away. I’ve had some fun with you, but I’m not finished yet. Far from it. There is still more fun to be had.” He turned to look down sadly upon Jawbone and the rest of the Broken Bones who had stayed loyal to the club. “Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the rest of you. Gordo, take Dominic to see his girlfriend. As for the rest of these
biker boys
…kill them.”

I started to yell, to move, to do something—anything—but the man to my right brought down the butt of his gun to my skull before I could even begin. I saw stars swimming in blackness, then I crashed into the ground. Just as I was on the verge of passing out, I heard the gunshots.

It was a slaughter.

Isabel

I sat slumped beneath the piping. My arms had gone numb a long time ago from being chained behind my head. My mouth was sore and aching. Sticky liquid looped between my lips. I hovered somewhere between awake and asleep, too horrified to face reality head on. I couldn’t. Not after what had just happened.

The incessant sound of water splashing one drop at a time into the puddle collecting on the floor beneath the leaky pipe was driving me insane. I groaned, if only to let the sound of my agony cover up the torturous, repetitive noise.

I didn’t know how long I’d been sitting there. The man in the sweatpants had been gone for a while, though. I only knew this because his cum had dried on my lips. I felt numb. Broken.

The door swung open and the first thing I saw was him again. He gave me a sickeningly warm smile and a taunting wave of his fingers, like I was an old friend he hadn’t seen in a while. I fixed my eyes on him. I didn’t have the energy to talk or to curse, but I tried to let him know with my gaze just how much I hated what he had done to me. He only laughed harder.

Then I saw who he had with him.

Dominic was bleeding from the head as the man dragged him by his arms. I heard a low mumble coming from deep in his chest as he was pulled next to me and locked up just like I was, his hands twisted behind his back and suspended from the pipe above.

He looked at me with dazed eyes, then blinked hard. His pupils refocused. “Isabel…” he murmured. His lips were busted and swelling. The blood dripping along his chin fell to the floor. It was fresh. They must have just beat him. I wondered how he had gotten here, what had happened to him that he ended up restrained here next to me. Wasn’t he a Capparelli? Why would Angela chain him beside me? I wanted to understand, but I was too deep in shock to even begin processing the possibilities.

“You’re one stupid son of a bitch, do you know that?” said the fat man in the tank top to Dominic. “You didn’t think once that you were being played? You were just a pawn, man. Just a tool getting used. Goddamn. Makes my heart hurt seein’ you strung up like this.”

“Fuck…you…” Dominic sputtered.

He straightened up and chuckled, shaking his head from side to side like a parent would when their child just didn’t understand something. He caught sight of me and a twinkle popped up in his eye. “Well, hello, darling,” he said in a faux-polite tone. “I ain’t seen ya in a minute. Sorry I had to go so suddenly. But, you know, duty called.” He prodded Dominic with a toe. “
This
one had to be attended to. He went and made a real doggone mess of things.”

“You traitor,” said Dominic.

“Me? No, I would never! Well, okay, that’s a lie. I would, and I did. I stabbed you in the back, I guess you could say, couldn’t you?”

Dominic growled and yanked at his chains. They rattled against the pipeline but refused to give way.

“Tut, tut, don’t be doing that, Dominic,” he said. “I already had to discipline your girlfriend here. Don’t make me do something worse to you.” He licked his lips lasciviously and gave me a heavy wink.

Dominic looked at me. I tried to hide my face, to wipe it on the sleeve of my clothing. I didn’t want him to see me like this, but it was no good. He peered through his pain-induced haze and saw the evidence of what the man had done to me. How he had used me.

I saw the blood drain from his cheeks. His eyes deepened, hardened. They grew even colder. He turned his gaze to the man standing in front of us. When he spoke again, his voice wasn’t wavering anymore. It was hard as rock, impossible to ignore or to deny. “You’re going to die for what you did to her, Gordo,” he said, one clearly enunciated word at a time.
Drip, drip
, went the water from the pipe, adding more and more to the puddle.

Gordo pulled a gun from the back of his pants, cocked it, and stepped forward to press it against Dominic’s forehead.

“No!” I managed to say, finally breaking through the numbness that surrounded me like a heavy blanket.

“Quiet, Isabel,” Dominic said firmly. He didn’t break eye contact with Gordo. “I’m going to kill him.”

“No, Dom, you’re not,” he hissed. “I’m going to kill you. First, I’m going to rape her again, while you sit here and watch. Then I’m going to put a fucking bullet through your skull, you smug son of a bitch.”

“You’re wrong about that, my friend,” Dominic replied.

Here he was, locked up, a gun pointed at his face. But suddenly, out of nowhere, I remembered what he had told me in his apartment.
I protect what’s mine.

Despite everything around me, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the crazy thing was, I still believed him.

Dominic

When I was thirteen, I sat in a chair in the basement of the Broken Bones clubhouse, body riddled with a drug that transformed every tiny sensation into burning agony, as a man I trusted snapped my wrist in two. That was pain. It had never left me since then.

My body was a tapestry of scars, shattered bones, bullet holes, and burns that I’d earned the hard way. I came from nothing and nowhere and I made my life, piece by piece. Always, there was one thing driving me forward: revenge. The cost of getting there was more pain, but I was willing to do whatever it took to get my hands on the people who had hurt my savior
. Take my skin, break my bones, torture me, but just know that when I come back for my vengeance, what you feel will be a thousand times worse.
That was my bedtime prayer, the mantra I repeated to myself again and again over the twelve years since Slim was killed. I’d learned everything I needed to learn from Jaw and the rest of the club to do what had to be done.

This moment was like the silence before the car engine roared, the last moment of calm before all hell broke loose and fire ignited and pistons slammed and the beastly machinery shuddered into life. I took a deep breath and savored it. One more second of silence. Then it would happen. Everything, the way it should have happened a long, long time ago.

Gordo was sneering down at me along the barrel of the gun. Its metal was cold on my forehead. I could see sweat slicking his brow. The air was damp, moist, whether with humidity or fear, I wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter. All these details registered as abstract and irrelevant. One thing mattered and one thing only: pain. Both mine and others’. In my experience, it took one to get the other. First, they hurt me. But then I hurt them. That was how my life was slated to go. That was what was about to happen.

He dropped the gun to his side and turned around. “I want to kill you so fucking
badly
,” he gasped, clawing at the air like it was my throat. “It’s so hard! It’s like I’m fucking a bitch and trying not to bust my nut too soon, you know? I can’t do it yet. I need to make this last. Whew, calm down, Gordo boy, calm down, okay? Let me take a second.” He paced a few steps away, rubbing his face in the palms of his hand and muttering to himself.

I heard Isabel whimpering next to me. I wanted to protect her. I owed her that much at the very least. I had made her a promise, and I was hell-bent on keeping it. This son of a bitch had not only betrayed his brothers and his president, he had laid his hands on my girl. I meant every word that I said to her. I would keep her safe. He had slipped past me, but he would pay dearly for it. Starting. Now.

“You made a mistake, Gordo,” I told him.

“Eh?” he called over his shoulder.

“You shouldn’t have left my hands free.”

He spun around. “What are you talking about?” he asked as he took a couple steps closer. That was his mistake. He came within arms’ reach.

The roar started in my stomach and ripped out through my bleeding mouth. I bellowed as I loaded all my weight onto my right side, then jerked as hard as I possibly could to my left. The bone in my left wrist snapped.

And my hand came slithering free of its restraints.

Gordo’s eyes bulged, but I was too quick. I swung my broken hand into his face, fist clenched as tight as I could manage. The pain nearly made me pass out, but I bit my tongue hard enough to keep me conscious as Gordo crumbled beneath the blow. He fell to the floor, stunned, and his gun came skittering towards me. I picked it up with my free hand and rose to my feet. My fingers shook with the effort it took to hold it straight, pointed down at him.

He looked up and froze. “How the fuck did you…?” he said in surprise.

I stared straight at him. “Pain means nothing to me, Gordo. It’s been my friend for a very long time.”

Then I squeezed the trigger. He didn’t move anymore after that.

# # #

The gunshot echoed in my ear for a long few seconds after I’d fired. Adrenaline surged through me, covering over the pain from the blow to my head and my limp wrist. I looked at Isabel. “It’s going to be okay,” I told her. She nodded but I could tell that she was still terrified. God, what a beauty. Her eyes were wide and brimming with tears, but they were full of trust, too. Trust in me. Trust in my promise.

“This is going to be loud,” I said. I pointed the gun at the chain still binding my right hand to the pipe and fired again. The link popped off, searing hot from the combustion, but I was free. I walked over to Gordo’s body and fished the key out of his pocket. Blood was trickling from the hole in his forehead. His face was frozen in complete shock. Served the motherfucker right.

I hobbled over to Isabel as fast as I could. Inserting the key into the lock on her manacles, I twisted them open and pulled her to her feet. She fell into my arms immediately, sobbing, finding a new voice in her tears.

“Dominic, I…I…”

“Shh,” I told her, stroking her hair. “It’s going to be okay. First, we have to get out of here.” My wrist was a lightning bolt of pain, but it was overpowered by the sudden upswelling of a strange, foreign emotion in the middle of my chest. I looked down at the girl cowering against me and realized that it was for her.

She was more than just my possession. In just a few short days, she had wound her way into my heart. I didn’t know how, but I had a strange feeling that she wasn’t leaving anytime soon.

I reached up my good hand and wiped the sticky residue from her lips. She gave in to a fresh outpouring of tears. Her voice choked as she said, “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t stop him.”

I felt the anger and bile rise in the back of my throat. I grabbed her chin and forced her to look at me. “Listen to me, Isabel,” I said. “Nothing was your fault. Do you hear me?
Not a damn thing.
Don’t you ever, ever apologize to me for what that sick fuck did to you. Nod your head. Tell me you understand.”

Her face still streaked with tears, she slowly nodded that she understood.

I gripped her chin hard. “I’m here now, Isabel. And I’m not going anywhere ever again. I’ve never felt anything like what you do to me. You make me forget who I am. And if another man touches you, he’s going to end up exactly like the son of the bitch over there. Dead as a fucking doornail. That’s an oath.”

“Okay,” she whispered. “I believe you.”

I bent down and pressed my lips hard against hers. Her warmth flooded me, her smell lingering in my nose, so exotic and uniquely hers. “Now, come on,” I said as I broke it off begrudgingly. “Let’s get the fuck out of this city.”

I took her hand and started to pull her out of the room, but I felt her stop as we passed by Gordo’s corpse. I glanced back at her. She was staring down at him, an unreadable expression on her face.

“He’s dead,” I said gently. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”

She looked up at me, brows knitted in a fiery glare. “I just hope the motherfucker is burning in hell,” she said in a firm, unwavering voice. Then she leaned over and spat on his face. In spite of everything that was going on—the murder, the betrayal, the agony ripping my wrist apart—I smiled. She still had some fight in her.

Winding her fingers between mine, she joined me as we ran towards the door, headed for the outside.

We ran down a long, dank hallway. Our feet pounded on the concrete floor and our breath came in harsh gasps. A set of double doors loomed at the end. We reached it and burst through into the courtyard. I was hardly halfway through the doors when I felt a smashing blow slam into the side of my head, right where the Capparelli foot soldier had hit me earlier. I fell to the floor, struggling to see who had attacked me.

I rolled onto my back and looked up in time to see Emilio plunging towards me, elbow extended like a battering ram. He dropped the full extent of his weight behind it. The air rushed from my lungs and I felt a rib crack beneath him.

“Run, Isabel,” I gasped. “Now!” I couldn’t see where she was, but I heard her footsteps slapping the floor as she scrambled away.

He was massive. His fat pressed around me on all sides, sealing me to the ground. There was nowhere I could shift to find enough leverage to push him off of me. He scrabbled for my neck, wrapped his hands around it, and began to squeeze the life out of me.

Gordo’s pistol was still in my broken left hand. I was struggling to find the strength to raise it up high enough to be able to shoot Emilio.

“Stop…” I gasped as my face began to turn blue. I could feel tiny blood vessels popping in my nose and eyeballs from the strain. My lips and fingertips were tingling.

“You fucked with the wrong people, asshole!” he screamed, his voice oddly high-pitched for a man of his size.

My wrist was shrieking at me. Panicked messages were shooting down my veins, begging me to stop moving it, to just let it rest and recover. There wasn’t any time for that, though. I closed my eyes.

C’mon, shorty,
said a tinny voice in my head.
You gon’ get licked like this? That wrist of yours ain’t so bad. Pick it up already. Shoot this sumbitch.
All these years later, and Slim was still a part of me. I wanted to laugh or cry or both.

Another inch and I’d be in position to fire.
C’mon, shorty
. Pick it up. Shoot. Pain’s your friend, remember?

My whole body flexed in unison as I swiveled the gun towards Emilio’s leg and pulled the trigger. A fountain of blood plumed upwards where the bullet entered his fatty flesh. He howled demonically and flailed backwards, immediately letting go of my neck. Air—sweet, blessed air—flowed into my lungs.

I twisted onto my knees and reached over to grab Emilio’s hair. Pulling his head back, I pressed the gun against his mouth. “Your turn,” I growled. I prepared to fire. He looked terrified.

“Not so fast,” someone said from a few yards away. My finger hovered against the cool metal trigger as my gaze shot up. “If you move, I’ll kill her.”

Antonio was standing with a gun pointed at Isabel. She stood rooted to the earth, halfway between him and me, staring back in my direction like a deer in the headlights.

Antonio’s nostrils were rimmed with white. His eyebrows jutted far above into his forehead, giving him a manic look in the shimmering halogen lights overhead. His shadow was jagged and long. It stretched across the courtyard like something out of a nightmare.

Behind him, the Capparelli foot soldiers stood arrayed in ranks, guns at the ready. I saw that two of them had taken charge of the wagon with the chem weapons. We were surrounded. Escape was not an option.

This was it. I’d come this far, only to fail at the crucial moment. I wouldn’t get my revenge. I wouldn’t do what I’d promised to do for Slim. I was going to die instead, on my knees in the earth like a dog. I failed. I failed.

And it wasn’t only Slim who I’d let down. Isabel was paralyzed with fear. But when she looked at me, there was no mistaking the trust in her eyes. I almost wanted to laugh.
This time, babe, we’re not getting out of it,
I thought to myself. I couldn’t keep my promise to her. I was going to let her down—brutally. Painfully. Fatally.

Emilio struggled to his feet, favoring his injured leg. The bullet had passed through the thickest part of his thigh. He was bleeding badly, but it looked like he’d make it through this one. Pity. He wobbled, then straightened, glowering at me with a sadistic hatred in his eyes.

Antonio walked towards where I was kneeling. His gun moved from Isabel to me as he crossed the few yards of terrain that separated us. Behind him, one of his men moved to her and seized her upper arm roughly. But her eyes never left me.

He paused a couple feet in front of me. Emilio stood to my right, looking down in eager anticipation of the quick execution that was about to take place. “Time to put you down,” Antonio said softly. He had such a predilection for the movie villain put-down. I wondered who he was trying to convince he was tough. Himself? His men? His dead father? Whoever it was, he was a slave to their approval. I hoped, for the sake of his sanity, that he’d get it one day.