King
It was crazy how the course of my life seemed to have changed in a few short hours.
I had been ready to leave and spend my life on the run.
I’d been ready to hunt down my old crew and get revenge for my betrayal, no matter how long it took to find them.
I was ready to leave behind Rossi, Romano, and the club.
I couldn’t say that I was ready to leave Christy behind, but I’d accepted it.
Christy had had another agenda, of course. I didn’t know if I was even surprised by now, but some part of me was almost expecting her to storm into my room as she’d done. If anyone else had tried to blackmail me, I was sure that I wouldn’t have taken it as well as I did, but, with Christy, I knew that she just cared about me.
So, as we sat there, staring into each other’s eyes, I found myself releasing a long sigh and mentally preparing myself to say yes.
“Okay,” I conceded.
Christy’s reaction was so immediate and excited that she almost knocked me over with the sheer force of her excitement. She jumped at me.
“Thank you, thank you!”
She may have been happy in that moment, but we both knew there was a long way to go before we would even be close to reaching our goal.
Since I knew there would be no shaking Christy, something that I probably had known from the very beginning, if I was being truly honest with myself, I decided to go all in. What was there to lose, anyway? Either option led to me losing in some way, so I might as well risk everything to fix my life and make Christy happy in the process.
It didn’t take long to finalize our plans to break into Diamond Castle. We both knew that we had as little time to waste as possible, so it would have to be tonight. There wasn’t any point in holding off anyway. We knew exactly when the place closed, when nobody was going to be in there, and the best time to catch Rossi unawares.
We also knew that the place wasn’t completely locked down until Rossi, himself, left, and that was a whole half an hour after everyone else had already gone home. Everything fell into place easily after that, since Christy and I both non-verbally agreed that we would wing it once we were inside.
Rossi wasn’t a big guy and definitely not a big fighter. I wasn’t surprised that he’d had to hire people to do his dirty work and fighting for him.
Christy had been adamant that we use force to interrogate him, but I had a feeling that it might not even be necessary. Rossi was a coward. It was as simple as that. I was betting that. as soon as he found himself alone and outnumbered, he would tell us anything we needed to know.
It hadn’t escaped my mind that I could just kill him tonight and go to Romano, who would probably help clear my name. The only problem with that was that I didn’t know if he would want anything in return for helping me with my problem with the law. Also, I wouldn’t be able to track down my old crew. There was no way I was going to let their betrayal go without a fight.
I didn’t completely trust Romano either, and I was reluctant to use him for anything. The fact that he wanted me to kill a man was enough for me to know that I shouldn’t be dealing with him at any time. The best-case scenario would be a situation where I found a way to hand Rossi off to the police, or at least get him out of the way, and clear my name at the same time. Then, no murders would take place. I wouldn’t be on the wrong side of the law, and I would be able to sleep easier at night.
That was too good to be true, though. I doubted that everything would be wrapped up as smoothly, especially knowing the bad luck that had haunted me my entire life. Perhaps the best-case scenario was more along the lines of just getting out alive.
That would be enough for me—ending things without the police on my tail and with Christy by my side.
I hadn’t admitted it to her earlier, but her plan wasn’t an altogether bad one. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t expected her to come up with something, but it shocked me that she’d covered all her bases, planning out how to take care of Rossi, Romano, my old crew, and the cops.
Yes, Christy’s plan might just work, but it had so many variables that I was trying my hardest not to get my hopes up.
Christy had joked earlier that she was too stubborn to let the plan fail, and though it was undeniably true, there were just too many things to control in the situation. I supposed we wouldn’t know for sure how it would turn out for another few hours.
“Are you ready?” Christy called out, interrupting my thoughts.
“Yeah, I am.”
The drive to Diamond Castle wasn’t as tense as I thought it would be. Christy found a way to put a lighter spin on everything, even if I wasn’t in the mood for it. I wondered what life would be like after we were free of all our burdens and had the chance to do what we wanted.
Christy would follow her dream and open up her club, but what would I do? If the cops weren’t after me, then at least my options would expand, though not by much. I’d spent half my life partaking in illegal activities; breaking and entering, theft, and fraud, just to name a few. It would be a wonder if I’d even have much of a life after all this was over.
Would Christy and I even be together, without the looming threat of danger hanging over us? Were we even together at the moment? To be completely honest I had no idea what we were doing. It had started out as just fucking whenever we were together, but, despite us still getting in bed often enough, things had definitely changed between us. We were even friends at times. After all, she was putting herself in all sorts of danger for me, and if that didn’t spell friendship, then I didn’t know what would.
So, we were definitely friends. Friends who had sex? Had I unknowingly entered a relationship with her? Did it even matter? It was true that I hadn’t been looking for anything before, and that I wasn’t looking for anything now. But Christy was different. And, more importantly, I was different when I was with her.
It may not have happened in the traditional way, but I didn’t think I cared. Whatever was going on with Christy and I, and wherever it was going to go, I would be on board.
But, of course, that meant we had to get out of this whole thing unscathed first.
We finally pulled into Diamond Castle, the air feeling like a mixture of anxiety and foreboding tension.
“Is it okay to say that I’m scared?” Christy whispered from beside me.
“Yes. But it’s okay. It’s just Rossi.”
“I know, I know. I just want this to be over.”
I patted her reassuringly on the back as we nodded at each other and made the silent decision to move forward.
We were entering through the back door, not only because it was quieter and less suspicious, but also because, if there were any unexpected people inside, we could get out of there without being seen.
I swung the door open easily, relieved that it was unlocked like we’d thought and that Rossi hadn’t become infinitely more paranoid since Christy and I worked there. He was probably too arrogant to expect any more retaliation, and it angered me to think that, if it weren’t for Christy, he would’ve been right to be unworried.
Our footsteps were silent as we sneaked through the back of the club, keeping a careful eye out. We were only a few steps in, and I could already tell that the place was abandoned. The lights were all out, except for the one in Rossi’s office, and it was eerily silent. We couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.
Coming to his door, we waited for only a second before bursting in, taking Rossi completely by surprise.
“King? Christy?” he asked but didn’t have time to say anything else before I landed a punch straight to his jaw. He stumbled and fell back on his seat, wheeling himself backward and sitting there frozen in fear.
Maybe he knew that he would be no match for me when he was all alone or maybe he doubted that we’d do anything too unthinkable for him but he didn’t even attempt to fight back or move.
“Hi Jarren,” Christy said in a syrupy sweet voice that I recognized as one that covered an intense amount of anger and hatred. “How are you tonight?”
“What are you doing here?” he shouted, eyes darting between the two of us.
“Don’t worry, Jarrenny. We just have a few questions that we want to ask you.”
Christy turned around to lock the door behind her and leaned up against it.
“We want this to be easy on all of us, okay? Do we need to get out the rope, or will you behave?”
I was beginning to think that Christy was enjoying this much more than she’d let on earlier.
“I’m not telling you anything,” Rossi scoffed, moving to get up off his chair.
I was ready for him, though, throwing another punch, this time to his stomach, and watching as he bent over and released a cry of pain.
“Fine, rope it is.”
Pulling the rope from my pocket, I went to tie him firmly around the chair. He struggled like a madman, of course, but I hadn’t expected him to just sit still. It only took two more punches and a lot of thrashing before he was secured, arms tied behind the back of the chair and feet to the legs, for good measure.
“Now, where should we begin?”
# # #
It took about half an hour of Christy having what seemed to be the time of her life interrogating Rossi, while I beat the shit out of him. It actually took longer than I expected.
Rossi was sitting there, face bruised and bleeding, eyes swollen and unrecognizable, as he shouted the answers we wanted to know.
“I stole your money, you bitch!”
I gave him a punch for the insult, as well as a demand to keep talking.
“Andres thought he could teach me a lesson, attacking me behind the club because I mentioned that I wanted you. That fucking bastard thought that I’d keep my hands to myself, just because he and his men roughed me up a little. I did, but stealing your money was more than worth it.”
“Where is it?” she asked, deadly calm.
Rossi refused to open his mouth, glaring at her with as much hatred as he could manage.
“Where is it?” I repeated with a growl, and his eyes flicked up to mine.
“Behind the filing cabinet,” he muttered at last.
The envelope of cash was exactly where he said it would be, taped to the back of the filing cabinet, not a single note missing.
“And my crew? Where can I find them?”
At this, Rossi let out a cackle, as if he knew more than he was letting on.
“Want to get revenge on them? Be my guest. You’d be doing me a favor too.”
Once he’d given me the address and Christy had her money tucked into her back pocket, we had accomplished everything we’d come for.
“I know you won’t kill me,” he laughed. “You don’t have the balls.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I won’t kill you. But only because I don’t know if we’re done with you yet. I guess we’ll see.”
I turned and walked off, Christy following in my footsteps.
“At least untie me!” Rossi shouted after us.
Christy and I shared a look, and I couldn’t help the way my lips twitched in amusement. We had the information we needed, and we knew what to do next. It was a small victory for now, but a victory nonetheless. We would both take what we could get.