Chapter Forty-Two - Weston
We hold hands on the way back down to the living room where Five, Oliver, and Pax are sitting at the bar, drinking as they watch televised horse racing on the flatscreen TV.
They all stop talking and look at us when we come towards them.
“I think we have a problem,” I say. Tori squeezes my hand and I squeeze hers back. Her squeeze says, No, please, don’t tell them. My squeeze says, Trust me.
She stands still by my side, for once in her life taking my promise at face value.
I want to kiss her right now. I want to kiss her long, and deep, and softly. So softly, she will melt into my arms and we will float into some other life where shit is not hitting the fan and people are not trying to kill us.
But that has to wait.
So we tell her story again. Together.
Five stops us at the phone call at her work, asking, “Who was it? Did you recognize the voice?”
“No,” Tori answers. “But he sounded young. Our age. I think it was one of Lucio’s men.”
Five walks over to a briefcase, pulls out a laptop, opens it up on the bar, and starts typing.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Checking her phone records for that day.”
“Go on,” Pax says, unable to keep the impatience out of his voice.
“He said he’d give me a fair chance at that contract to rebuild my business and he’d pay my debt off. All I had to do was keep West busy for a couple days.”
“So they could rob him,” Oliver says.
She shrugs.
“It’s not your fault, Tori,” I say. “The part you guys need to know, the part I never told you because Five insisted we not share stories, is what’s important here.”
“What’s that?” Oliver asks. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I saw her,” Tori says. “I was there that night she said she was raped, you guys. I was standing in the trees in the back of the house. It was dark that night, remember? So no one could see me. I was freaked out because my… rapist…” She stops talking and shakes her head, drawing in a breath like oxygen contains the courage she needs. “So I was hiding. Just waiting for West to come outside so I could see him.”
It takes a lot of courage for Tori to use that word in front of my friends. So much fucking courage. I pull her in tighter and give her a hug.
“Lucio was looking for me. He attacked me the night before you guys were accused. And I have a feeling he is the one who set you up. I know Weston never touched that girl. She was drunk by that time, but I saw the entire interaction. West was with some buddies out back. They were drinking and laughing. Then they went inside and I was just about to make myself known when she came stumbling up. She had her hands all over West, but he pushed her away and asked her if she needed a cab home. She took a swing at him, missed, and fell down. That’s when I came out of the shadows, and we went up to his room.”
“You knew this?” Pax asks, looking at me.
“This was my story. I always had a witness. I was never worried about it. But Five told us to shut the fuck up, so I shut the fuck up.”
Everyone looks over at Five, who is still typing away. “Keep going,” he says, without taking his eyes off his screen. “I’m listening.”
“It was him,” Tori says. “It was Lucio Gori Junior who set you guys up. It was Lucio Gori Junior who raped me, over and over as a child. And if I had to guess, I’d say it was Lucio Gori’s friend who called me and offered me that contract.”
“Bingo,” Five says, spinning his laptop around. “That call came from a bar owned by Lucio Gori Senior.”
“That motherfucker set us up,” Pax says. “I’m gonna kill him. I’m gonna fucking kill that asshole.”
“No,” Five says. “No, we’re not killing him. The last thing we need is the mob on our asses. And we don’t have any evidence, other than Tori’s story, that any of them were involved in the rape accusations.”
“Then we need to get that evidence,” Pax says, walking towards us. “I want my fucking name cleared, do you understand me?”
He’s looking at Tori like this is all her fault.
“Hey,” I say, putting my hand up in front of Pax’s face. “She didn’t smear your name. That Lucio asshole did.”
“It doesn’t matter. She’s the one who can get the evidence we need. She’s the one who can get close to him. Not us,” Pax says.
“She’s not doing anything, Pax, so back the fuck off. And don’t give me this ‘I’m innocent’ bullshit again. We all know you’re not innocent.”
“Fuck you,” he roars. “You don’t know shit.”
“I know you’re one twisted dude.”
“Fuck—”
“Hey,” Oliver says, coming between us. “Knock it off, Pax. Just calm the fuck down and let us figure this out.”
“What we need,” Five says, head buried in his computer again, “is some incriminating evidence. Something to tie him to the whole rape thing ten years ago. Something concrete. Something irrefutable. Something that would stand up in court.”
“Something like… a confession?” Tori asks.
We all turn to look at her.
“Yeah,” Oliver says. “Something like that.”
She bites her lip, like she wants to say more, and when I look at Pax and Oliver’s faces, I realize what they’re considering.
“Fuck you both,” I say. “She’s not gonna be the bait.”
“How would you get a confession?” Five asks, walking away from his computer and towards us. “It was ten years ago.”
“She’s not gonna get anything,” I say again, only louder. “Tori, you’re not doing this.”
“I think he’s just arrogant enough to tell me the truth,” Tori says.
“Stop it, Victoria.” I look over at Pax and Oliver. “She’s not participating in this con, you assholes.”
“What if I go home to Brooklyn, let him know I’m there? Keep him in some public place. And then start telling him all these things about you guys that might lead him on. Make him talk?”
“Why the fuck are you ignoring me?” I grab Tori by her arm and make her face me. “Stop it. You’re not going near that guy ever again. I don’t care what kind of confession he might give up.”
Tori looks me in the eyes, then turns away and resumes talking to Five, Oliver, and Pax. “What if I get him to admit what he did? And get it on tape. Then you have me first-hand witnessing that girl coming on to Weston ten years ago, and Lucio’s confession. That’s more than enough to charge him with whatever.” She looks up at me, like she’s just remembering I’m here. “What kind of charges could we get him on, Weston? If he planned all that ten years ago?”
“We’re not doing this,” I say, trying to remain calm. “You’re not doing this. It wasn’t even Lucio—” I stop before I say too much. Everyone is talking at the same time, putting in their opinions, Tori arguing that she knows that neighborhood, and him. Pax yelling about his stupid reputation. So my blunder goes unnoticed.
“Felony obstruction,” Five says, answering Tori’s question once things calm down. “Conspiracy, maybe blackmail. If we find more people involved.”
“Tori, please. Listen to me. I’m not going to let you do this.”
Tory stays quiet for a few moments. I look at Pax, and Oliver, who are both refusing to meet my gaze. Then she turns to me and says, “You don’t get to make this decision, West. I love you, and I want to be with you. But we have these things,” she says, “hanging over our heads. And I can’t live my life waiting for him to come back and hurt me. And you can’t live your life waiting for someone to pop back up and try to nail this rape thing on you again. And before you say, Who cares, I didn’t do it—it doesn’t matter. If you’re a team,” she says, waving her hand at my friends, “then you stay a team.” She turns back to the guys and says, “It has to be done. And I’m the only one who can do it. It just has to be done.”
“He’s never going to confess, Victoria. Never. He’s not stupid. He’s the son of a major mob boss. You won’t be hunting him. He’ll be hunting you.”
“Well,” she says, turning away from me and towards my friends, “then I guess I better get some pointers from Mr. Mysterious here.” She looks me dead in the eyes for her final words. “Because I’m tired of being afraid. I’m tired of letting the memory of what he did haunt me. I’m tired of running, Weston Conrad. And you of all people should understand how that feels.”
“I do,” I say. “I fucking do. But we don’t even know how this fits into the plot with Liam. Maybe it’s nothing. Did it ever occur to you that Liam was the one who set us up?”
“Corporate’s right,” Five says. “It could be Liam.”
“But wait.” Oliver turns to look at Five. “We have to follow the trail from the origin. And the only origin we have right now is Lucio Gori. We should go with Victoria’s plan. And we should do it now.”
“Fuck you,” I spit at Oliver. “Just fuck you. The origin is Liam, asshole. Liam is the one everyone is connected to. And how much you wanna bet Liam and the Gori family are old friends. You’re not calling the shots here, Oliver. We should go after Liam first. We all agreed to listen to Five ten years ago, so let’s agree to that now.”
“You’re only saying that because he doesn’t like her plan,” Pax says.
“So? He’s the fucking genius, right? We should listen to Five.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Tori snaps, yanking her arm out of my grip. “How many times do I have to make this clear, Corporate? I’m not your property. You don’t dictate my actions. You’re not allowed to discount my opinions.” She lifts her chin up in defiance. “You’re not calling my shots, Corporate. I’m calling my shots. I’m doing this for me. Not your friends, me. I want Lucio gone and I want to be the person who puts him away. This is my fight, so stay the fuck out of it.”
She turns and walks towards the front door.
I wince as the glass doors slam shut and then look over at Five. “It’s your call. You let me know. But I’ll make this very clear right now. If you say yes, and she gets hurt, I will fuck you up.”