My father made a choking sound as if he was laughing at me. “To be young again.”
“Yes.” I hissed. “To be young and actually able to get shit done rather than staying at home being completely useless. I mean it. I did what you asked last night, but this is the final straw. You either want me in power or you don’t.”
He sighed heavily on the other end of the line. “It’s complicated, Chase. I’m not safe, not at the house, I needed extra security. Just in case.”
I was silent for a moment. “Did someone threaten you?”
No doubt Nixon was poking around.
“Not exactly.” He cleared his throat. “I just… you know what happens when you drink a lot and…”
“And?” I prompted.
“Nixon,” my dad laughed. “I could have sworn I saw Nixon, but instead it was the De Lange kid. He wants to make a deal.”
Things had just gotten interesting. “Oh?”
“I was going to speak to you—”
“It’s your lucky day. You’re speaking to me now. What does Phoenix want?”
“Money,” my father blurted. “He wants money and then he’s going to disappear for good. But the thing is, Chase… I don’t have access to the funds we use for bribery. I’m going to need you to make the withdrawal.”
Son of a bitch. My own father was going to betray me. Did he think I was that stupid? The boss never made the withdrawal. Not unless he wanted to get A) shot, or B) flagged by the Feds.
“Hmm.” I paused and mouthed to Tex to get the car. “You do have my permission. When does Phoenix need the money?”
“Tonight.”
“Of course he does,” I said. “Fine. I’ll get the money. We’ll put all of this behind us and live like one big defective family. Sound good?”
“I never did get your sense of humor.”
“I wasn’t being funny, Dad.”
“Fine. Tonight then?” Damn if he didn’t sound ridiculously pleased with himself.
“Sure. Oh, and remember.” I cleared my throat. “If anything goes wrong, if for one second I smell a rat, I’ll shoot you.”
“You’d shoot your own flesh and blood.”
“Of course not.” I hung up and threw the phone against the ground. It shattered into a million pieces.
Tex pulled up and got out of the car. “Shit. You didn’t have to take it out on your phone.”
“I need a new one.” I released Trace’s hand and flexed my fingers.
“I’m on it.” Mo ran back in the house. We always kept extra phones around. Mainly because we needed lots of lines open for business, but also because Nixon and I had always had a tendency to break phones when we got upset. Expensive habit.
I paced in front of everyone. “He wants us in the dark for a reason. Damn you, Nixon.” I realized I had slipped. Trace looked at me curiously, as did Tex and Mil. “Sorry, that was uncalled for.” I cleared my throat. “Normal. Everything has to go normal today. Trace, I’ll go to class with you; maybe we’ll find answers there. If not… Shit, I’ll have to get the money myself.”
“Money?”Mo repeated. “What money? What’s going on?”
“Apparently we need to pay someone off.” I clenched my hand into a fist. “And good ol’ Dad wants me to be the one to make the transfer.”
“It’s a setup,” Tex interjected. “No boss does the business himself. He pays someone to do it for him. What Tony’s asking is not only ridiculous, it’s stupid. He knows you aren’t stupid enough to go do it yourself.”
“Which is exactly why I have to.” I scratched the back of my head. “I’ll go to the bank after classes and make the withdrawal with Sherry. She’s family so she won’t blink an eye when I take that much money from the accounts. Just know that if a bomb goes off it’s probably not an accident.”
At Trace’s sharp intake of breath, I paused. “Shit, I’m sorry, Trace. I was being sarcastic.”
Her hand flew across my face so hard I nearly fell. “Well, stop being sarcastic or I’m going to kill you myself!”
Mo had just returned, holding out my new phone, but she snatched it back from me.
“What the hell, Mo, I need that!”
Mo stuffed it in her purse. “Not until you’re done looking like you want to shoot the first thing that looks at you funny.”
Tex grinned sheepishly and batted his eyes.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Looking at you funny. Is it working? You wanna shoot me?”
“No.” I shoved my hands in my pockets.
“Cool. Mo, give him the damn phone.”
“Men!” she shouted and handed me the phone, then got into the running car. Mil stood on the stoop and waved good-bye.
I paused. “There aren’t any men here to protect you.”
She lifted her coffee cup in the air with one hand and pulled a pistol from her bathrobe with the other. “Do I look like I need protecting?”
“No,” I chuckled.
“That would be a hell no,” Tex called from the front seat. “Play nice, Mil.”
“Always do!” She walked back inside and shut the door.
“She scares me,” Tex announced once we were on the road.
I laughed. “Yeah, well imagine what she was like before reform school.”
Chapter Forty-three
Nixon
“So?” I took a long swig of coffee and leaned against the tree. “Fifty-fifty it’s going to work?”
“I’d say…” Phoenix shrugged. “Thirty-seventy.”
“Chase will do it because he knows it’s not a normal call to make. We can bank on that.” I replayed the plan in my head over and over again until I wanted to puke. “I told him to go about business as normal. He’ll do it.”
“Good.” Phoenix nodded. “Because if he doesn’t your entire plan goes to hell.”
It would be fine. It had to be. “How was Tony?”
“Oh, you know.” Phoenix shrugged. “Pissed, but when you make an angry man an offer he can’t refuse—”
“He’s evil,” I interrupted. “Pure evil. No doubt about it.”
“As am I,” a voice interrupted us. “The danger does not come in the evil, but in the person. Evil is everywhere, but in the end it is always a choice.”
“And you choose it?” I asked Luca. “You choose to make life hell for everyone?”
“Absolutely not,” he scoffed. “I keep order in a world full of chaos. I am perceived as evil, but true evil? The type that people fear—it masquerades as something far more worse than darkness.”
He sighed and put on dark sunglasses. “It makes you believe it is light itself, and that is where you find your danger. Be ready tonight, gentlemen, or you will both be waving at me from the bottom of Lake Michigan.”
Phoenix swore. “Such a charmer.”
“I never thought—” I laughed. “I never thought that in the end it would be me and you. Old friends, sworn enemies.”
“Yeah, God has a great sense of humor.”
I watched Trace walk into class. She was holding Chase’s hand and they were laughing. The knife went deeper into my chest as I tried to look away but it was like I couldn’t. I was so damn happy she was healthy, alive, safe. Shit. I’d spend my life watching her from afar, as long as I knew she would still be smiling, as long as I knew she would be safe from the evil around her.
Phoenix slapped me on the back. “If it’s any consolation, she clearly loves you.”
“How would you know?” I snapped.
He removed his hand from my back. “The way she looks at you. It’s different than how she looks at Chase.”
“And how does she look at Chase?”
“Like he’s her savior,” Phoenix said softly.
“And me?”
“Like you’re her oxygen.”
I didn’t say anything.
The problem was that I didn’t just see how they reacted to one another. I could tell by her body language that slowly, piece by piece, she was willing to let go of me. I wasn’t sure what hurt worse: how fast she was able to do it, or knowing the person she was actually doing it for.
Last year I’d practically branded her as mine.
And now I wasn’t so sure. No matter what anyone told me, I knew what I saw. She was slipping like sand through my fingertips and I had no one to blame but myself. I wanted to punch Chase until he bled, but he wasn’t the real villain, not in this story. No, I only had to look in the mirror to see that guy.
I was forced to be the bad guy so that she could have a chance.
But damn, how I wanted, just for once in my godforsaken life, to be the hero, the knight in shining armor, the guy she deserved to have. The guy who’d rescue her at all costs, the guy who’d damn his family to hell in order to keep her.
But I couldn’t forget my family.
My blood.
My damn code of honor.
I envisioned myself standing with Trace in the end, but lately, her face had started to disappear, right along with my future.
Phoenix slapped me on the back. “She needs you man; just give it time. And do me a favor: When this is all over and we aren’t waving to Luca from the bottomless pit of Lake Michigan, give her a chance to process through stuff, okay?”
I snorted. “Never took you for one to spout out wisdom.”
“Yeah well, impending death has a way of doing that to a person.”
“You aren’t going to die.” I turned around to face him. “Neither of us will. Now, let’s go wait back at the house. If memory serves, you’re supposed to be helping Tony get the gang together.”
Phoenix laughed. “Mass killings are my specialty.”
“I still can’t believe he’d go along with it.”
“He wants to silence everyone and he’s a bastard. Of course he’d go along with it. He double-crossed the most powerful mafia boss in America, and then spat in the face of one of the Originals in Sicily. If that wasn’t bad enough, he tried to wipe out Trace and set up his own family. I’d say he deserves what’s coming to him.”
“Right.” I had a sinking feeling things weren’t what they seemed but I didn’t voice my opinion aloud. I didn’t want Phoenix to hesitate; hesitation could mean death, and after seeing Trace again I very much wanted to stay alive.
Chapter Forty-four
Chase
“And there he is,” I said under my breath as Luca waltzed into the classroom, clipboard in hand.
“Good morning, class.” He smiled in every direction but ours. “Today I’ll be handing out a study sheet for next week’s test. I trust all of you have been diligently studying. The test will be in lab format. You’ll need to go through a series of three labs for a chance to gain 150 points toward your midterm. Any questions, please do not hesitate to raise your hand.”
I itched to raise my hand and say something along the lines of, “Why the hell would you pretend to kill my best friend? What game are you playing?” Instead, I bit down hard on my lip and turned in toward the desk. Papers were passed back until they reached us. They were one short. Great. Now I really did have to raise my hand.