Chapter Twenty-Two

Gabriel

 

I’ve been in some bad spots in my life, but this is something else. I press my back against the door, forcing it into the frame, and then frantically scan the room for any possible escape route. There are no windows, and the walls look solid; there is ventilation, but it’s just a small hole, the size of a fist, the fan buzzing quietly. Colleen stands next to me, pressing her back against the door as well. At least we’re together; at least I can finally feel her next to me, the heat of her. But it won’t mean shit if they put me in the ground.

 

Men crowd around the room outside, all of them talking to each other, but I can hardly make out the words. It’s even worse because Samuel’s corpse is just across the room, reeking of death.

 

“Are we in bad trouble?” Colleen whispers.

 

“Yes,” I admit. I can’t lie to her now, not after everything we’ve been through.

 

“Are we fucked?” she asks, even quieter.

 

“I don’t know,” I answer.

 

She moves closer to me, her arm pressing against me. Maybe that gives her some reassurance. I don’t know. I hope it does.

 

“Gabriel?” Lorenzo snaps. “Are you in there? Fucking hell, kid. Are you in there with the Irish girl?”

 

“I’m in here, skip,” I tell him, the sound of his voice surging anger through me. The man who betrayed me, tried to kill me, is on the other side of that door. He should be dead, just like his pet Samuel. “I guess you’ve got a pretty decent arsenal out there, eh?”

 

“We’re tooled up,” Lorenzo agrees. “And I guess you wouldn’t believe me if I told you that if you come out here peacefully, we can end this peacefully. You’ve done a bad thing, though, Gabriel. A very bad thing. This was a peaceful meeting. You hurt Matteo when you pushed him to the floor. I know Matteo’s a drunk and a fool. But he is still my man.”

 

“Colleen?” Shane O’Rourke barks. “Colleen, are you in there with him, girl? Are you with that Italian dog? Has he kidnapped you again?”

 

“I’m here!” she screams with sudden fierceness, like a lioness. “But he hasn’t kidnapped me! I want to be in here! I want to be with Gabriel! I’m in here by choice! He hasn’t kidnapped me! He never kidnapped me! I just want to be with him!” She turns to me, panting, face twisted in too many emotions to count.

 

“Don’t be stupid!” her mother snaps, her clipping heels a backdrop to her words. “Get out here this instance! You are being a fool! You are embarrassing the Family, girl. Don’t you have any shame? Why would you do something like this? Do you have any respect for me and your father? I do not want them to hurt you, but what choice have you left me? We cannot leave you in there with that criminal.”

 

“Criminal,” I mutter, and then laugh loudly. “Sorry, Mrs. O’Rourke. Maybe in a different life I’d shake your hand and politely ask for your daughter, but the chips’ve fallen and there’s nothing much we can do about that now. But we’re all criminals here, Mrs. O’Rourke. I don’t know if that label means much at all.”

 

“Colleen,” she snarls, ignoring me. “Will you please come out from there? If he is not holding you hostage, as you claim, then, fine, he should let you go. Will he not let you go? Come out here!”

 

She goes stiff for a moment. I sense that a war is playing out within her, the same war that has been playing out this entire time. She looks up at me with trembling lips and a blood-flecked face. Her hair is plastered to her forehead with it.

 

“Me and you against the world,” she says, grabbing onto my hand. “Right?”

 

I squeeze her hand, interlacing my fingers with her. “I never thought I’d feel about anybody, goddamn anybody, the way I feel about you. Yeah, Colleen, it’s me and you against the world. But right now it’s me and you against these bastards.”

 

“You know you’re not getting out of there alive,” Lorenzo says. “So don’t be stupid. Your only chance is to come out here with your hands up and hope that we take mercy on you.”

 

“Fuck you!” I snap, his lecturing tone like acid in my ears. “Talk to me about mercy, skip! Where was your mercy when you stabbed me in the fucking back? Where was your mercy when your dog Samuel sent men to kill me and this woman? Those men weren’t just gunning for me; they lit the whole damn place up. A stray could’ve caught her easily, but they didn’t care. You hear that, Shane? This man was gunning for your daughter and now he’s licking your ass. That’s some fucking coward shit right there!”

 

“What?” Shane mutters. “What is he talking about, Lorenzo?”

 

“He’s a madman,” Lorenzo replies. “He has taken your daughter hostage once and now he has done it again. We can’t listen to the ramblings of a madman. He has no honor. He has no respect. He never has.” Lorenzo pauses, and then raises his voice in that way I know well. It’s not often that he loses his composure, but when he does, it comes suddenly. “And his mother was a fucking whore!” he roars. “She fucked every man I knew, shit out this little fuck, and then went running when she couldn’t stand the fucking sight of him! His mother was a whore and his father was a coward who got himself killed on a job a fucking rookie could handle! Do you hear that, Gabriel, you fucking son-of-a-bitch? Do you hear that? Your mother was a fucking—” He catches himself, going on in a calmer tone. But his voice is quivering like he’s only just holding back the shouting. “If you don’t come out here, I’m gonna order the boys to knock that door down, girl or no girl.”

 

“Now wait a second …” It’s easy to imagine Shane standing up straighter and looking the don in the eye. Whatever people say about Shane O’Rourke, nobody would ever call him a coward. “We won’t be doing anything until my daughter is out here. She’s my … property.” He hesitates on the word.

 

Colleen stiffens even more. “So he’s finally said it,” she whispers. “I just want you, Gabriel. I only want you. I … We need to get out of here. I want that life we talked about.”

 

“Yeah.” I laugh darkly. “Me too. But the fuck …” I shrug. “Maybe it’d be for the best if you gave yourself up. You don’t have to go down with me.”

 

“She’s always been disobedient,” Alma says loudly, really talking to Colleen but pretending to be talking to the people outside. “She has never understood what it means to be a true Family woman. She has always been weak. She was a slow child, far behind the other children. For a long time we thought there was something wrong with her.”

 

“Let us out and nobody else has to die!” Colleen screams, exploding with rage. “I’ll fucking scratch your eyes out, you evil witch! You evil—you nothing! You never loved me!”

 

“Nobody else?” Lorenzo snaps. “Nobody else? Wait … where is Samuel? Where is my goddamn nephew? Samuel! Samuel! Is he in there with you? You bitch! You cunt! Is he in there?”

 

“Steady now,” Shane warns. “That’s still my daughter you’re talking to, Lorenzo. You need to watch your fucking mouth!”

 

“Where is he?” Lorenzo barks. “Gabriel, if he’s dead …”

 

I swallow, a pit opening in my belly. I force away the feeling, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. It’s the feeling a man gets when he’s close to death, one I’ve felt many times. But usually I have at least a fighting chance; I’m tooled up with more’n a pistol; I have backup with me. I’m not facing down the entire Irish and Italian mob combined.

 

“I think I see a way out of this,” Colleen says, close to my ear.

 

“Yeah? How’s that? Right now I’m not seeing it.”

 

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. When she opens her eyes, she is noticeably calmer.

 

“Samuel held a knife to my throat and tried to rape me, so I grabbed the knife and stabbed him to death. He’s in here, lying in the corner. He’s covered in blood. He’s soiled himself as well. He’s dead, Lorenzo.”

 

I gape at her. The fuck is she doing? How is that going to help anything? But she nods at me and pleads with her eyes to go along with it. I don’t have any other options, so I just keep myself pressed against the door. I trust her, I realize in shock, which is a damn fool mistake. Trusting a civilian to carry out Family business is never a good idea. The fuck else am I going to do, though?

 

“You killed my nephew?” Lorenzo’s voice rises in pitch. There’s a rustle of fabric and metal as the men outside prepare for a fight. “You killed my blood? You stupid Irish whore. You fucking Irish slut. What is the matter with you?”

 

“I won’t warn you again,” Shane growls. “I won’t stand here and have my daughter insulted. You need to watch your fucking mouth.”

 

“That Irish whore killed my nephew!” Lorenzo roars. A loud bang; stamping his feet, maybe? “Boys, I don’t give a fuck anymore. Break in there and drag them both out by their hair. I want them at my feet. I want them begging for mercy. These fucks. My nephew … I raised that boy. I knew him from when he was a baby, and now this fucking whore …”

 

“I’ve already warned you!” Shane snaps. “You’re pushing your luck.”

 

Colleen inclines her head, nods, and I get the message: this is what we need. The Irish and the Italians angry at each other instead of us.

 

“What’d you think he’ll do to her if he gets in here, Mr. O’Rourke?” I shout. “He’ll kill her, just like he tried to kill her before. Your deal is bullshit. Any promises he made to you are bullshit. He’s a fucking liar and he always has been.”

 

“Kick that fucking door down!”

 

“Boys!” Shane snarls. “Boys, if any of these Italian pricks make one move for that door, you fucking end them.”

 

“Get down,” I mutter to Colleen. “On the floor, down there in the corner. Cover your ears.”

 

She does as I say, crouching down and putting her head between her legs in the brace position. I swallow, knowing that, any second, a slug could smash through this door and my spine in one blast. But also knowing that if I let the door go, shit gets just as bad.

 

“Now hold on,” Lorenzo says. “She’s killed one of my own. This isn’t your business anymore, Irishman!”

 

“The fuck it is!” Shane roars. “That’s the fucking Family in there! She has my name! You won’t insult my name like this, you Italian fuck!”

 

There’s always a moment before all hell breaks loose. It can be a small moment or a big moment, a pause, that calm before the storm that everybody’s always talking about. It’s real, and I feel it now. The moment stretches silently. Then the first gun is drawn, and the second, and the third. Metal rustles and more men shout, more and more, until everybody is shouting over each other.

 

Then a gunshot, a scream, and war is upon us.