I’m counting on Mikey mattering to them in some way. If he doesn’t, they’ll just execute him right here. Without a hostage, it’ll be four against one. Goddamn, this is a mess. I feel my heart pounding. I want to snap Mikey’s neck in rage.
“Who wants to die tonight, gentlemen?” I say, feigning confidence, like I’ve got it all under control.
“Seems like you do.” A gruff-voiced man steps forward, a blood-red teardrop tattoo under his eye. “What sort of idiot’d do a fool move like that—fuck!”
He glances over my shoulder. I don’t turn, but I feel a presence walk up beside me. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see Felice raise his pistol. He can barely stand, his legs trembling, but he holds the pistol steady. When he talks, his words are choked with pain and I wonder if the impact of the car was holding something in place, if he made the bleeding worse by sliding free from the wreckage.
“Idioti,” he snarls. His signature ponytail has come loose, his blood-streaked hair falling around him, making him look deadly capable and unhinged. “You threaten my boss? You threaten the son of Carlo De Maggio? Are you crazy? Do you have a fucking death wish?”
“You know who this is,” I say, eyeing the teardrop man. I can see it in his eyes. I can feel the tension in Mikey as he quivers in my grip. I also know that Felice can’t stand here forever, that he’s bleeding out. Levi is still unconscious.
“So how do you want to play this?” I snarl.
“You are a fool if you think this is the end,” the teardrop man says after a long pause. They are slowly backing away to their car.
“Threaten my boss again,” Felice barks. “Go on, little man. Do it. Do it.”
He licks his lips, considering it, and then shakes his head in disgust. “We’ll be seeing you, Angelo.”
Felice curses in Italian and makes as if to shoot them. I shake my head, giving the signal not to. As much as I want to slaughter them all for how brazen this attack is, as much as the anger is gnawing at me with red-hot teeth, I know that if we shoot them now, we’re dead. Felice takes a step back and we watch as they pull out of the street.
I cuff Mikey’s hands behind his back and shove him into the car, and then go around to the back and shake Levi awake. He blinks his eyes open, clearly disoriented, but when I explain what’s going on, he sits up like he’s ready for a fight.
“They’re gone, fratello,” I say. “Come on. We’re going to the hospital.”
Felice leans down into the car, nodding at Mikey. “What about this prick?” When Mikey makes as if to speak, Felice casually reaches around and places his gun to the side of his head. “Does talking right now really seem like a good idea, friend?”
“I’ll call Giuseppe, have him circle back for this bastard, and then drive us to the hospital.” I look doubtfully at Felice. “On second thought, I’ll call him and then drive Felice down right away. You good, Levi?”
“Head hurts,” Levi grunts. “Nothing that’ll keep me down, Angelo. Let’s take care of business.”
About an hour later, I’m sitting in the hospital waiting room, sipping coffee and waiting on news of Felice. Not that that’s all I’m doing, of course. There is distribution to take care of for the King Kong shipment, as well as putting the feelers out for Mikey’s friends. I go to the stairwell for this, talking on my burner cell, pausing any time a nurse or a rogue patient sneaking out for a smoke break interrupts me.
I’ve just finished my latest call when I see that Levi is calling. When I answer, I expect it’s to tell me that he and Giuseppe have got Mikey to a safe house for questioning and he’s on his way to the hospital now.
But instead, he says, “Slippery fucker got away, Angelo.”
I tighten my grip on the phone. “How?”
He tells me a story that, if it came from anybody else, I’d label as complete bullshit. Apparently, Levi got out of the car to have a smoke break, and Mikey opened the door and just sprinted down the alleyway. He must’ve turned his body and opened it from behind, since his hands were cuffed. Levi has been chasing him for almost this entire time, he tells me, but Mikey—still in handcuffs, I know, because I’ve got the keys—has finally gotten away. But Levi is my oldest friend, and he most likely has a concussion. So maybe it isn’t bullshit. I’m torn.
I try to force some calm into my voice, but even so it comes out fierce and impatient. “Now we have no fucking clue who was behind the attack,” I tell him. “Now we—Forget it, shit. Just get to the hospital. Shit.”
I hang up before we can say anything else, worried about what I’m going to say. Because even if Levi is my best and oldest friend, there is something wrong with that story.
Or maybe he’s just getting incompetent. Which, in our line of work, is just as fucking bad.
17
Dani
The next morning, I’m outside my bedroom door, ear pressed against it, wondering if I should go and get a glass so I can eavesdrop better or if that only works in the movies. Wyatt is on the phone to some official from the school and, well, let’s just say that butterflies in my belly is one hell of an understatement.
“I really didn’t—heck, no, sir, I understand—oh, well …”
None of it sounds good. Whoever is on the other end of the phone isn’t even letting him talk. They just keep ranting over him every time he opens his mouth. I have to stop myself from marching in there and screaming at them to let him talk.
Soon, the phone call is over and I run across the room just in time for Wyatt not to see I was eavesdropping. When he appears, he’s wearing last night’s clothes, red hair ruffled, looking more like he just got back from a sleepover than a drug-fueled party.
“Suspended,” he says. “Fucking suspended for a bit of weed and a few lines. I swear to God, sis, this is just fricking ridiculous. Apparently, what I put in my own body is their concern. Fuck me.”
He groans and kicks the couch, slumping down.
“How long are you suspended for?” I ask quietly, thinking of Mom and Dad and how disappointed they’d be. In Wyatt, yeah, but also in me for letting this happen.
“Until the hearing. Colleges have courts now. How funny is that? And then I’ll most likely be expelled, the lady told me. Unacceptable, she said.”
“I can’t believe you put yourself in this mess,” I whisper, tears stinging my eyes. I blink them back. I feel myself on the verge of exploding at him.
He just looks at me sadly, not even angry. “I’m sorry, sis. I know I’ve let you down. I never meant to.”
I sigh. My anger defuses when he doesn’t snap at me like I expect him to. He makes a sniffing noise and I know he’s trying hard not to cry. “What the heck am I going to do now?”
“So you still want to be in college?”
He flinches. “Why would you ask me that?”
“The parties, the drugs, missing class …”
“That’s fair,” he murmurs, his hands worrying at each other. “But yeah, of course, I still wanna be in college. I love math. I know I messed up. And I’m scared of what will happen to me if I don’t have college to focus on.”