Livia
My heart is pounding so loud I barely hear the gunshots. I’ve been aware of the life since I was a girl, I’ve been an integral part of the operation, but to see it, to be there right in the middle of it, to have bullets cracking off all around me—that’s something else entirely. When Aedan shoves us all into the tiny backroom, with the crates and the refrigerator, I feel as though I am a million miles away. I barely feel anything. I realize tears are sliding down my cheeks. Come on, I tell myself. You’re a Russo. Don’t forget what that means. And then: Aedan saved me. Despite everything he saved me. And then: But it’s not over yet. Not even close to over.
Aedan grabs the refrigerator, yanks it from the socket, and drags it across the room. He shoves it against the wall and then grabs a crate, lifting it as though it weighs nothing—just like he lifted me, just like he lifted me when his hands were firm and hot all over my body, when his cock was hard and pressing against my clit, when lust erupted between us, oh, God, this is so fucking messed up—and drops it onto the refrigerator.
Outside, the Mexicans gather.
The room seems small with so many Irishman in here, all backed against the wall. They’re big, tough men, and I can’t help but feel a note of pride as they all look to Aedan for leadership. It’s absurd, considering what I learned about him only around twenty minutes ago, but it does make me proud. I shake my head, trying to calm myself. My emotions refuse to do as I say, hopping from pride to fear and—as ridiculous as it is—to lust, as though seeing Aedan dispatch a dozen Mexicans in the space of a few seconds turns me on. That’s messed up, I know, and yet my body doesn’t give a damn.
“Little pigs!” Carlos calls. “Little piggies! Come out! Come out! Don’t be shy! I don’t want to get huffing and puffing.”
“The man’s insane,” one of the Irishman says, a young kid wearing a green jersey. “He’s crazy. Did you see what he did? To Patty... he killed...”
“Don’t talk about that,” Aedan says. “It’s—just don’t.”
They all stare at Aedan with awe. “You’re the boss’s son, Aedan,” a large man says, with a thick mane of ginger hair which flows down to his shoulders. “All this time, you’ve been the boss’s son. And he’s dead. I’m sorry, man.”
“Focus,” Aedan snaps. “There will be time to cry our goddamn hearts out later.”
The man flinches, and then nods.
“Oh, little piggy pig piggies!” Carlos cries, giggling.
Aedan approaches me, places his hands on my shoulders. I want to push him away, tell him I don’t want anything to do with him. He was going to kill my father. I should despise him. I do despise him, I tell myself, but I know it’s a lie. I could never despise Aedan. But I should! As soon as he lays his hands upon my shoulders, I begin to calm down, as though his very touch is some kind of medicine. I find myself reaching up and laying my hand upon his, running my finger along his knuckles. His features are etched with pain. He glances at the door, as though glancing right through to the bar, where his father lies dead. It’s good that Patty’s dead, for the Italians—for me and Dad and Mom—and yet when I look into Aedan’s eyes, I feel his pain.
I stand on my tiptoes and kiss him on the forehead, still hating him a little, still wanting him a little, a cacophony of conflicting emotions all vying for attention within my chest, all jostling against each other, all desperate to be heard. Push him away! Hold him close! Hate him! Want him! Spit on him! Kiss him!
I stand back, and all of us in the backroom listen as Carlos goes on and on and on.
“I think I shall cut up the bastard son first, yes, yes, yes. I was going to leave him until last, but he has been a very naughty boy. I cannot stand naughty boys. They’re so... naughty. I am going to get a nice big machete and cut him into little pieces and feed the little pieces to lots of nice little animals and watch as they chew him into even littler pieces and I will laugh.”
Aedan winces.
“What are we going to do?” I whisper.
He stares back at me with wide, blank eyes. “I have no idea,” he says, voice cracking a little.
All at once, I wish we were back in my bedroom, my head resting on his chest, listening to his breathing. Why did we ever leave? I ask myself. Why didn’t we just stay there forever? I could’ve waited until he was asleep and then reached down and grabbed his cock and rubbed, just rubbed up and down until he became hard in my hand, and then when he woke I’d sit on him, right on him until he pushed deep inside of me and I came, over and over, all over his cock, fingernails digging into his chest. Fuck... that would’ve been perfect. But then I remind myself of what he was going to do, and conflict once again takes hold of me. He’s bad for me; he’s good for me. I hate him; I want him. Focus, woman!
“Piggies! Piggies! Piggies!”
“Do any of you have your guns?” Aedan asks, turning to the Irishman.
They all shake their heads. “The Mexicans took them,” one man says. “Goddamn them.”
“Should’ve looked under the bar for fresh shells,” Aedan muses. “But it doesn’t matter now.”
“I don’t like being kept waiting, my little precious babies!”
“I wish he’d shut up,” I growl, surprised by the anger and the fire in my voice.
It’s like the voice of a different woman. I realize the tears have dried on my cheeks and I’ve stopped shaking. My heartbeat, whilst not calm, is not as frantic and mad as it was a few minutes ago. Aedan calmed me, I think. Aedan really calmed me. But how is that possible when I hate him, when all I want is for him to get out of my life? He was going to kill Dad... but, but... I realize, right now standing here with Carlos’ voice ringing around us like the most annoying siren in the world, I do not understand how I feel about Aedan. Good or bad, my feelings dance out of my reach. I want to return to bed with him, go back in time and make it so none of this ever happened, and I want to shove him away.
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and tell myself there are more important things to worry about right now, like the psychotic Mexican murderer just beyond the barricaded door.
When the first bullet thuds into the refrigerator, the entire room jumps. Aedan, seemingly without thinking twice, launches himself at me, dives on top of me and covers me with his body. I hug close to him.
“I can’t let anything happen to you,” he whispers, as another two bullets smash through the door and into the crate, sending bits of wood flying. Covering me with his massive, muscled body, he leads me to the other side of the room. “Ever.”
“We need to do something,” I say, when all of us are huddled in the corner, bullet after bullet smashing through the door.
“I know,” Aedan says. “But for the first fuckin’ time in my life, Livia, I have no damn clue what that something should be. Seriously, no damn clue.” He turns to the other hitmen. “Any ideas, fellas?”
For a moment, they look like kids in class who’ve been called on by the teacher, shrugging and looking at the ground.
I glance around the room, and then my eyes come to rest on a crate which has a few ketchup packets poking from the top.
I smile to myself, because it’s ridiculous, but then I remind myself that Carlos is mad and for madmen, ridiculous rarely means anything.
“I have an idea,” I say.
“What?” Aedan asks, and I can tell by his tone of voice he isn’t filled with hope.
Don’t doubt me, Aedan, I think. I may not be the run-and-gun type, but I’ve lived this life. Sure, maybe behind my Mont Blanc pen, maybe in ledgers and logistics, but I’ve still lived it.
I tell him my idea. Aedan’s face goes white, along with the other Irishmen, who turn in a moment from schoolboys to ghosts.
“No, Livia—”
“Let me try,” I say, “and be ready.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
He makes to put his hand on my shoulder. Suddenly angry, I bat it away. “You don’t tell me what to do,” I say. “You never tell me what to do. That’s gone; don’t forget what you were going to do, Aedan.” At the wounded look on his face—the man’s father has just died, after all—I feel guilty. Again, I remind myself that emotions are rarely a one-lane affair. Instead, there are cars flying up and down a hundred lanes, all too fast for me to fully comprehend.
“Let me do this,” I say. “I mean, don’t stand in my way.” It’s not his place to let you do anything.
Aedan sighs, and then glances at the hitmen. “Be ready,” he says. “If she’s going to try this shit, be ready.”
The men nod, clenching their fists. Some of them go to the shelves and take down cutlery, knives and forks, and wield them as weapons. They look ridiculous when the men outside have heavy machine guns and shotguns, but a fork is better than nothing. I go to the crate with the ketchup packets, pierce a few, and then rub ketchup all over my neck. Who would’ve thought the sheltered Russo princess would one day massage ketchup into her light brown skin? I could almost laugh, if Carlos were not even now screaming and raving outside the door.
I clear my throat, getting ready for my acting role, and approach the door.
“Carlos!” I squeal, my voice high-pitched, as though fear courses through me. No, not as though. Fear does course through me.
“Carlos!”
“Wait a second, friends,” Carlos says, and the bullets which thud into the refrigerator and the crate stop. I look down and see that the door of the fridge is pockmarked in dents where the bullets have pierced through the back and thudded into the front. A few minutes more, and the bullets would penetrate the lid and come ricocheting into the room. I swallow; so much is at stake here. “What is it? That is Livia, yes, little Ms. Russo?”
“Please, Carlos, get me out of here!” I wail like a stranded princess at the top of a tower, looking for my Prince Charming. “Please, help me!”
“Help... you? What do you mean?”
I imagine him tilting his head in interest, smiling at his friends, bemused but intrigued. Keep going.
“These Irish beasts, one of them has stabbed me! I’m... oh... ah... please, let me come out!”
“Boss,” one of the Mexicans says, “I don’t think—”
“I do not care what you think!” Carlos roars, his booming voice trembling the walls. Several empty glass salt-and-pepper containers lurch from the shelves and smash on the floor. If I’m a princess, this man is an ogre. “Why should I care if they stabbed you?”
“Boss, if they stabbed her, how is she—”
“Interrupt me again, bufón, and I will eat your guts and use your bones as toothpicks!”
“Are you bleeding?” Carlos asks, and I can hear the interest in his voice. I turn to Aedan, who swallows nervously, Adam’s apple shifting. He waves a hand at me, encouraging, but I can see in his dark hooded eyes that he’s desperate for this to be over and done with. He looks at the men, nodding, steeling them, getting them ready for the quick violence which is surely about to occur.
“Yes!” I squeal, turning my voice into a veritable damsel, hating the way it sounds. If there’s one thing I’ve never been, it’s the proverbial Damsel in Distress. “I’m... oh... I can’t... help... me...”
“We need her alive,” Carlos says, as though to himself. “At least, it would be good to have her alive. A real Italian trophy, something to be bartered with. And... oh, she is a very handsome lady. A real flor. Okay, I shall come to you, Italian lady. I shall come and I shall save you!”
“Boss—”
A gunshot goes off, and through the door I hear the sound of a man gurgling, walking in circles around the room, and then finally stumbling to the floor.
“I told you to be quiet,” Carlos says, and then I imagine him staring down the others in the room. “Does anybody else have any lovely suggestions?”
As Carlos approaches the door, the Irishmen creep as quietly as they can to either side of the door, pressed right up against the walls out of view. Carlos shoves the door, and the refrigerator shifts a little. Aedan stretches his leg across and pushes it with his boot; the crate tumbles down, breaks open, leaving the door free. Then Carlos pushes the door open, gun in one hand, the other stained with blood and holding something... the man’s tongue, his own man’s tongue. I fight back bile.
“Italian lady,” Carlos says, eyes glazed over in the visage of a true madman, a man who has really lost all his marbles and then some. “Oh, look, they have—”
Aedan and another Irishman jump at him and drag him from the doorway. The Irishmen fall on him like wolves, punching and kicking and spitting, stripping him of his weapons. I launch myself to the side, hands over my ears, as the Mexicans outside fire recklessly into the backroom, bullets smashing into the walls and sending plaster flying into the air like razor-sharp flakes of snow, one bullet cutting through the support of a shelf, a crate collapsing and tumbling; a thousand ketchup packets explode in a shower of red and at once it looks like the room is covered in blood.
But then the Irishmen have stripped Carlos of his weapons. Luckily, he’s one of those men who carry about a dozen: three hip holsters, two underarm holsters, two ankle holsters, and one back holster. I peep through my fingers as Aedan places his gun against Carlos’ head, holding him in place, and the Irishmen begin to peek around the doorway and return fire. Bullets ricochet all around me and a few of the Irishmen fall, but more fire back, and soon I hear the Mexicans screaming something in Spanish. The Irishmen spill from the room, firing over and over, until it’s just me, Carlos, and Aedan.
Aedan tilts his head at me. “Damn, Livia,” he says. “Can’t believe that worked.”
“You lying puta.” Carlos spits on the floor, a thick phlegmy globule. He doesn’t seem scared, only slightly sad that he’s been caught. He glances around with those skittish, glassy eyes, and I wonder if he’s on something, coke or speed.
“Come on,” Aedan says, pressing the barrel of the pistol firmly into Carlos’ ear. “Let’s rejoin the party.”
Wiping ketchup from my neck, I rise to my feet and follow Aedan into the bar.