Christy
We’d done it. I wouldn’t lie and say that I wasn’t extremely happy that my plan had worked like I thought it would, because I was. I was ecstatic. I had my money tucked safely into the back pocket of my jeans, and King had information about where his crew was. Even better, we’d left Rossi tied up on a chair in his own office, probably without a chance of getting loose for at least several hours.
Perhaps that made us bad people, but I was coming to find that, in this life, bad was a subjective term. We were doing what it took to survive and to live a life without being weighed down by the wrongful actions of others. We couldn’t possibly hope to right all the wrongs done to us without playing a little dirty.
Yes, I was happy with our efforts, and I knew King was as well, though he was a little more reserved than I was. In fact, he seemed to be getting more aggravated, the further we drove away from the club. I didn’t know if I was imagining it, but, by the look on his face, I was getting more concerned the further we drove.
“King?” I asked finally. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, unconvincingly and unsurprisingly.
Well, that was a load of garbage if there ever was one. If I knew King like I thought I did, then he was probably thinking about what was to come, about finding his crew, and getting even. There might also be a chance he was thinking about what we’d done to Rossi. It would be natural for either one of them to be distracting him, and I didn’t blame him for a second for being slightly preoccupied. I would be too, but I wished I knew what he seemed aggravated about. Was something wrong that I hadn’t thought of or anticipated?
“Is this about finding your crew?” I probed. That was the only explanation for his emotions. If my girls had betrayed me, then I would be feeling exactly the same. It was different for King, though. The way he was affected by his crew’s betrayal made me think that they weren’t so much his friends as they were his family. I could understand why he was upset, if they had betrayed him.
King nodded heavily to my question. “I have to. I have to do it. They betrayed me. My childhood friends, basically my family, just betrayed me like it was nothing. How can I let that go?”
I was right about what he was thinking, but I was still worried. King shouldn’t be dealing with it all on his own.
“Nobody expects you to let it go,” I said. “It’s okay to want vengeance.”
“But I don’t. I want revenge. I want them to pay for framing me, and for almost ruining my life.”
“King, you can’t let your emotions get the better of you. That’s what you’re always trying to tell me, right? I believe that you’ll do the right thing, but just make sure you think things through before we go find them.”
King locked his jaw and kept his eyes on the road.
“You’re not coming with me,” he said firmly. “I have to do this on my own.”
My mouth dropped open, but I found myself unable to say anything. I knew what he was saying, and I knew why he was saying it. I’d blackmailed him into doing my bidding, but I couldn’t keep controlling him.
I wasn’t ignorant enough to think that he’d just let me come along this time. No, this was something I knew he had to do on his own, and I wouldn’t try to get in the way. Not this time.
“Okay,” I agreed.
King released a breath and turned to me gratefully.
“No arguing?” he asked, the slightest trace of humor in his voice.
“No arguing,” I affirmed.
King had to find his own way, and if he didn’t want me around for that, then I wouldn’t be. As much as I wanted to go with him, to be with him, and support him, there were just some things that I would have to let him do on his own. We weren’t attached at the hip. We had our own lives to live and decisions to make. I’d have to accept that I couldn’t be part of every aspect of his life. I just had to trust him, and I would have to trust that he’d come back to me.
# # #
The next night, after King had left, the neighborhood had become silent, all the lights had gone out, and when I was at my most alone, I began doing a little thinking.
When I’d come to King with my plans for getting our lives back to normal, I’d told him that I had planned everything out so well and covered all the bases. In actuality, I hadn’t quite done that yet.
I hadn’t mentioned it to King, but I was still undecided on how I was planning to deal with the Romano situation. He’d given King an ultimatum—kill or be killed—and that was a difficult situation to get out of. I wouldn’t lie and say that it didn’t occur to me while we were interrogating Rossi that it would just be easier for everyone if we killed him. I wouldn’t lie and say the thought hadn’t crossed my mind, despite how terrible that might be. It wasn’t my fault that my loyalties lay with King, especially in an ultimatum like the one Romano had proposed.
An ultimatum like that wasn’t one to just be ignored. An ultimatum like that wasn’t one to just go away either. If we knew anything about Romano, it was the fact that we couldn’t underestimate him.
He’d carry out his promise, and that was a fact. We couldn’t just put it off and hope that maybe he’d forget about it, or change his mind. No. Andres Romano was a serious man, and if he gave the order for King to be killed, then I had no doubt it would happen.
The thing was, I wasn’t exactly sure how we were supposed to work our way out of this one. It didn’t matter that I got my money back from Rossi, or that King was out there getting vengeance on his crew. None of that mattered if King was just going to be killed. We had to do something to convince Romano that keeping King alive was in his best interests.
It didn’t slip my attention that I was still thinking, ‘we,’ and, ‘us,’ despite King not even there. I knew what it meant, and I knew how I felt.
King and I had long ago passed the fucking stage, and we both knew it. We weren’t even friends at the beginning, but our entire relationship had changed. We were both out, risking our lives and doing what we could for the other. Maybe he didn’t consider us in a relationship, but that’s definitely what we were. Either that, or we’d somehow moved into the strange zone of best friends who have sex.
I wouldn’t need a lot of convincing to enter a relationship with King. Hadn’t we been through hell together already? Surely every argument we would ever have would pale in comparison to what we had gone through. At that moment, I didn’t even know if we’d both come out the other end alive.
Romano was the main variable in the equation. We didn’t know enough about him to know how he would react to certain things, what deals he would make, and how he’d enforce them. All we really knew about him was that he was a serious businessman who didn’t mess around. Maybe that was all we really needed to know about him.
Regardless, Romano expected either Rossi or King to turn up dead in a few days, and, I knew King wouldn’t be killing anyone. He’d had the opportunity back at the club, and he hadn’t taken it. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to do it in front of me, or maybe he had wanted to come back after he’d taken care of his crew, but, for some reason, I had a very strong feeling that King wouldn’t be going after Rossi again. That only left the option of Rossi killing King, but, again, I didn’t think he would let that happen either.
If I knew King like I thought I did, then somewhere in that strange brain of his was the idea that he would still be leaving town after all of this, so that he wouldn’t become a murderer, and so that he would live. It was exactly the kind of thing King would do, and he probably wouldn’t even tell me until it was too late to stop him.
Maybe I was overreacting or thinking too hard, but King was definitely a Plan C kind of man, and, unless he had another idea that he hadn’t told me about, I didn’t know what would be happening to him.
An image of King’s cold, lifeless body flashed before my eyes, and I let out an involuntary shudder. No, I wouldn’t let King be killed, and especially not by Rossi.
But what could I do about it?
There was only one way to change Romano’s mind. I wasn’t sure if it was ridiculous, or just plain stupid, but it was the only option I had at that moment, and I was just crazy enough to follow through with it.
I wasn’t entirely certain, but I thought that Romano had a bit of a soft spot for me. Maybe I could use that to my advantage and offer my life for King’s. It was a crazy idea, but I was willing to do it.
If sacrificing my life for King’s was what it took to keep him alive, then it wasn’t even a question. Of course, I would do it.
My only problem, then, was wondering if Romano would go for it. He seemed like a reasonable man, and one that would understand loyalty. He would understand why I would want to offer my life, if it would mean that King’s would be spared. I knew he would understand it, and respect it even. It was my decision, and, for once, I was glad that King wasn’t here to talk me out of it.
If King were here, he would definitely give me the whole talk about impulsiveness and doing things that I didn’t need to do. It wouldn’t matter, though, even if he were here. This was something I had to do, and nobody would be able to change my mind about it. It wasn’t as if I was walking to my death, because I had an inkling that Romano liked me a little too much to kill me. King wouldn’t understand that, but he wasn’t here right now, and my mind was already made up.
Surely, considering how King had wanted to leave town to spare me, as well as his generally noble and chivalrous attitude, I didn’t think it was too far a stretch for him to understand. Maybe he wouldn’t like it, but he would definitely understand. He would understand that I cared about him enough that I wanted nothing more than to protect him.
King would surely come back and be angrier than I’d ever seen him before. That wouldn’t come as a shock. But I wouldn’t change my mind. This was just something I had to do. I could only hope one day that he’d forgive me, regardless of the outcome, because I knew I sure as hell wasn’t going to get permission.