Chapter Twenty-Five

Rust and rotting fishes greeted him through the darkness. It was a stench he knew well from years onboard various ships. It didn’t mean he liked it.

But there was something else there, a hidden stink he wasn’t familiar with. The sharp, acidic tang made his nostrils burn and his eyes water. He vaguely thought of bleach, but stronger. Potent.

De Marco stalked past him without batting an eye and walked down a narrow corridor. James followed and they passed two cramped offices, before reaching an opening that yawned into a vaulted space large enough to fit a house. Metal stairs led up to a second and third story veranda overlooking the center arena. Thick rafters ran in crisscrosses overhead, choked with chains that hung all the way to the ground like the gray hairs on a dead woman’s head.

The image made James shudder.

The ground didn’t remain level as James had originally thought. Halfway to the center of the room, a set of stairs appeared, leading them downward into a hole with metal basin as big as a pool embedded into the concrete. It bubbled a black, tarry substance that plumed tufts of gray smoke.

“Jesus.”

The smell was overpowering. It reached into his very lungs and set them on fire.

“Breathe through your mouth,” was all the advice he was given from the man making his way down.

It only seemed to get worse the lower they went. It was as if whatever was brewing in the pit clouded and remained a heavy saturation in the air surrounding it.

Yet that wasn’t the thing that made James forget all about dying on toxic fumes. It was the seven wooden chairs all lined in a neat row alongside it. It was the seven men tied to those chairs, and the one that should have been dead.

Roman Endrizzi alive and breathing sat ashen and sobbing a mere six feet from James.

“What...?”

“It’s strange how our lives work, isn’t it?” De Marco moved to a table set up near the outer corner and removed his coat. He folded it neatly and draped it over the back of a rickety chair. “We think we have so much control over it only to learn we were never in charge to begin with.”

“What is this?” James asked.

De Marco returned to stand next to him. “These are the men responsible for your sister’s death.” He turned his head to James. “I had them brought in for you.”

James could only stare, struck dumb and mute.

De Marco took his silence for doubt and moved away. “It’s all here in Roman’s ledger.”

From the table, he picked up a thick, leather bound book. He flipped it open to an old, stained page and held it out to James.

James hesitated, not sure he wanted to see whatever was written there.

“I did some searching after you told me your sister’s name,” De Marco went on, unfazed by James’s lack of participation. “I don’t make it a habit of loaning out money to sixteen year old girls, so I had to find out for myself.” He wagged the book at James until he had no choice but to take it. “I couldn’t find an Annie Crow, but I do remember a John Crow, which is remarkable considering the number of people I deal with. But I remember John.” He paused until James looked up at him. “He was a good man. There aren’t a lot of people who come to me for money to pay for their daughter’s heart.”

James motioned at the book, the book he had yet to glance at. “What is this?”

De Marco tapped the page with one finger. “Roman has always been a bit of a ... perfectionist, especially when it comes to his ledgers. Every man and woman who has ever borrowed money from me is in these books, along with payments. Fifteen years ago, Roman hired a man to handle John Crow’s debt. That man went to your father, hoping to get blood from stone, and when that didn’t happen...”

He trailed off, and James had never been so relieved.

“I wish I could say that I was blameless in this,” De Marco went on. “I gave Roman the power to garner back pay in whatever means he deemed appropriate. I gave him that leeway. I allowed him to take matters into his own hands without my consent. That’s on me. He was one of mine and I take responsibility for what happened to your sister.”

James gritted his jaw. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I may be a monster and I may have more blood on my hands than you can possibly imagine, but I’m also a father. I have a daughter who means the world to me. I have a wife whose very existence is my reason for living. I would never have allowed such a thing to happen to anyone, let alone a child.”

James closed the book without reading it.

He knew he couldn’t.

There were some aspects he couldn’t stomach, not without losing his mind.

“So, what now? What is this?” He motioned to the bound and gagged men.

“This is my apology.” He looked over the men staring back at him with wide, glassy eyes. “It won’t bring your family back. It won’t undo what happened to your sister, but I’m a believer of blood for blood.”

“And Endrizzi? I thought you killed him.”

De Marco shrugged with a lazy grin. “That’s part of a much grander plan.” He took several steps closer and stopped next to his money manager’s chair. The man flinched and whimpered around the bit of fabric wedged between his teeth when De Marco set a hand on his shoulder. “Roman was originally helping me catch the mole. He and the others were supposed to play dead until the mole was caught, then make a miraculous resurrection. That was until I learned about his involvement with what happened to you.”

James frowned. “That was before I told you about the mole.”

The other man threw his head back and laughed, a deep, rumbling sound. “My dear boy, I’ve been at this a damn long time. Do you honestly think you told me something I didn’t already know?”

“So, the other members of the clan that you allegedly killed...?”

“Alive. Probably home with their families right now. I just needed the mole to think he was the only person I trusted.”

James shook his head. “Who was it?”

De Marco squinted at him. “Haven’t figured it out, Crow?”

He didn’t give James a chance to answer when lifting a single finger and pointing towards the rafters.

James allowed his chin to lift, to follow the finger up into the shadows overhead. At first sweep, there was nothing but an intertwined web of chains, but as he looked harder, he saw it, saw the dangling feet.

“Lower him.”

The unexpected command had James’s attention dropping down once more. From the dark puddle in the corner, a figure shifted. Pale robes glimmered in the dull light and parted into two.

James blinked several times before he could fully make out the two men huddled silently off to one side.

One pushed a button on a remote and mechanical gears whirred to life. Chains rattled with the vibration. Spools spun, lifting and lowering ropes at will. It also brought the limp body down straight over the bucket of bubbling chemicals.

Sylvester De Marco, beaten, strapped in chains, and naked from the waist up. A bandana was stuffed into his mouth, the blue fabric stained red. One good eye bore down on them from his high perch. The other was swollen shut.

“Jesus...” James breathed. “What are you doing?”

“Shocking, isn’t it?” De Marco came to stand next to him. “I suppose not all brothers are like you, Captain. Mine has been plotting against me for years, feeding Lionel information on how to destroy me. All because he wanted my seat.”

“He’s the mole?”

“And the man Roman hired to go after your family,” De Marco added fluidly. “He’s the one who gave Elise the necklace for Christmas. She thought it was endearing, him thinking of her as a sister. Funny how he’s the cause of both our pain and the reason we stand here today.”

“He’s your brother,” James rationalized, not sure he was fully grasping what was going on.

De Marco nodded slowly, gaze never wavering from the dangling man above them. “He was, right up until the moment he allowed a group of pirates to kidnap my daughter.”

James would have been insulted, but he understood the man’s anger. Had it been anyone else, Cora wouldn’t have survived a single night. They would have torn her to shreds.

“I’m sorry, I’m having a hard time processing this. Why would he betray you?”

De Marco moved away from the vat to where the two men in the shadows lurked. One handed him a piece of metal that glinted in the light before it was tucked behind De Marco’s back as he made his way back.

“When I left Italy, it was because my father disowned me. I refused to bend to his will and I disrespected him. I left with the intention of starting my own clan. Sal left with me. I thought it was because we were brothers. It turns out, he thought I was weaker than our father. He thought that once I had gained enough power, he could slip in and take it all for himself.” He stopped next to James once more. His chin tipped up towards his brother. “He could have stayed in Italy. Our father was old and Sal was second in line. He could have had the empire there, but no one would have followed him. He’d always been a disappointment. A roach that slithered out at night, spineless and filthy. Spoiled,” he spat the word as if it tasted toxic in his mouth. “He thought he could overthrow me with the help of my enemies and take my place. But I knew.” He shook his head slowly, glower venomous. “You didn’t think I was onto you, but I have known for months what you were doing. I just needed to be sure and last night, I had my proof.”

“What proof?” James hedged.

“I told him about the ten minutes delay between guard change, a window when the back gates would be unsupervised. He was the only person who knew.”

James recoiled. “You knew we were going to be attacked last night? You knew all those people would get shot ... that Cora could have gotten shot? Why the hell would you do that?”

De Marco never flinched. “Just to see him slip.”

“You could have gotten Cora killed!” James roared. “Or Elise! Are you fucking insane? Was he worth it?”

De Marco chuckled. “Watching him now ... yes, it was worth it.”

It took all his restraint not to punch the guy again.

“Will you calm down.” De Marco’s smirk vanished into a frown of annoyance. “We caught Lionel and we caught the mole.”

“People got shot!” James exploded. “People died.”

De Marco scoffed. “Getting shot and dying are facts of life in this world.”

“Not when you set people up for it! Jesus Christ, you fucking lunatic!”

“I didn’t see you get all choked up when Lionel threatened to shoot them, and did,” De Marco countered.

“They’re not my family. They mean nothing to me. What really pisses me off is that you put my wife in danger.”

“I’ll make it up to her.” De Marco put a hand up.

James had no idea how he planned on doing that, but he never got a chance to ask when the object behind De Marco’s back was revealed.

A Glock.

“We’re running out of time. What will it be?”

James had never shied away from putting a bullet in a man. He’d done his fair share of killing, but accepting that gun and ending fifteen years of nightmares was a step he faltered to take, because once he did, that would be it.

It would be over.

Annie would be avenged.

His parents could finally be at peace.

He could finally sleep.

He almost didn’t know what to do with himself afterwards.

But he accepted the gun. He relished in its weight resting in his palm.

His gaze shifted of their own accord to the two men in the distance, not really seeing them, but realizing there were two strangers just hovering in the background.

“Ignore them,” De Marco said. “They’re here for the cleanup.”

Of course.

Someone had to do it.

He turned to the men placed like ducks in a neat row. He took in their faces, the fear in their eyes, and felt the contents of his stomach sour.

What had Annie felt when they attacked her?

Had they taken turns holding her down while she screamed and begged them to stop?

Blinding, murderous rage coiled up his limbs.

It roared in his head.

He barely noticed when he took aim and fired.

One by one.

Seven unfaltering bangs.

Seven cries of agony as metal ripped through flesh.

Seven holes in the abdomen where the pain was excruciating and death took the longest.

Just one bullet each.

De Marco said nothing when James lowered the gun at last.

He moved to the shadows and took the remote from the man. He brought it to James, but James shook his head.

“He’s yours.”

De Marco inclined his head and hit the switch. Then twisted the dial to slow.

Neither moved as death filled the room around them, as thick and palpable as the toxic fumes. Screams followed until silence descended with serrated claws.

When it was over.

When the last man finished his last twitch.

When the chains holding Sylvester De Marco came out of the vat of chemicals clean.

De Marco pulled his coat on, and together, they exited the hole and the two men in the shadows moved forward.

“Will you return to the manor?” De Marco asked as they made their way out of the rancid warehouse that now lingered with death.

James shook his head. “She’s better off without me. I’ll only hurt her more than I already have.”

He didn’t mention that their debt had been settled. He hadn’t killed her family and she no longer needed to protect him. There was no longer any reason why she needed to suffer more.

“I won’t stop you.” De Marco turned to him. “I fully agree that Cora is better off, but she won’t be so easily convinced. She will try and find you.”

James paused to consider that. “No, she won’t. I’m setting sail when I reach my ship. I’ll be halfway across the Atlantic before she realizes I’m gone. She won’t ever have to worry about me again.”

De Marco nodded. “Safe travels, Captain. I hope we never cross paths again.”

James snorted. “Here’s hoping.”

He started to give the gun back. Part of him had wanted to hang on to it; it held his fingerprints and was now the key weapon in seven homicides. But something stopped him. He stared at the light lancing off the barrel with a new deliberation.

Without giving himself time to think, James lifted the gun and fired. The air burst with the smell of gunpowder, metal, and blood as the bullet sliced through De Marco’s upper thigh. It was no more than a deep graze that would need stitches and would ultimately cause mild discomfort while it healed, but it sent the man to his knees with a snarl.

“Are you crazy?”

James smirked. “That’s for setting Cora’s apartment on fire and for using her special night as one of your setups, asshole.” He pitched the gun into the water and started for the Lincoln. “I’m borrowing your car. You can pick it up at the loading docks.”

Leaving the man roaring after him, James climbed in behind the wheel and sped out of the parking lot.