Chapter 36 (Alyssa)
“Ford, it's me again. I need you to call me back, please. It's important,” I say before I hang up.
I never thought I'd find myself in this position again. However, I know it's the only way. We can't beat DeLuca on our own and he's the only resource I have.
Despite how much of an asshole he is, I know that Ford wants to nail DeLuca. And now that I know for a fact that it's his club...I'm going to help him come up with a plan to do it.
I'm going to have him use me as bait like he originally intended. Then, Ford will take care of him and Jackson and I will be free.
Well, that's what I'm hoping will happen, but Ford has yet to call me back.
It's been almost a week since I first reached out to him. It's strange that he still hasn't contacted me.
I was hoping to see him and finalize a plan before Jackson has to fight again tomorrow night. There's no telling what will happen in that cage after Tyrone's last fight.
Since Jackson's currently at the hospital visiting Tyrone, I'm taking the opportunity to slip out and go to Ford's house myself.
It's too close to Jackson's fight and I can't take the chance of him getting hurt, I'll do whatever I have to in order to protect him.
The cab ride to Ford's is over an hour away, so I take the time to formulate the start of a good plan. I know that going to the club won't work since DeLuca never shows up there himself. Not to mention, setting up some kind of meeting there would harbor too many witnesses. There's no way Ford would take him out with that many people around.
I have to find a way to get DeLuca secluded and completely alone, but I don't know how to go about that.
My mind's on the verge of figuring out a way to do it, but every time I get closer, I hit a mental block and I can't work my way around it.
The cab finally pulls up to Ford's house and what I see causes me to freak the hell out.
There's a red Mustang parked in his driveway.
Ricardo's here.
What the hell is Ricardo doing here?
“Miss, are you getting out or not?” the cab driver grumbles. “Not,” I tell him. “Take me back home.”
With a curse, he starts to drive away.
I'm more confused than ever now. It's obvious that Ford and Ricardo are doing business together, but what?
I sit up straight in my seat when I realize. They've got to be trying to take down DeLuca? That's the only tie those two have to one another.
My cell phone starts ringing and I almost want to ignore it because I don't want Shane to ask me to work tomorrow night. My life is hectic right now and there's no way I'm going to be able to focus on working at the bar while Jackson could be getting killed in the cage.
I rub my temples and answer the phone anyway. “Hey, Shane.”
“Do you have a twin?”
Okay, that’s not what I was expecting him to say.
“No, I'm an only child,” I say, pushing down sad memories.
“I was joking, Alyssa.” He laughs. “Besides, the chick I'm staring at is hot but she looks like an older, more sophisticated version of you, no offense.”
“None taken.” Then it dawns on me. “Does she have blonde hair?”
“Yup. And she just asked to speak to you. Hold on.”
Why is Penelope sitting at Finnley's right now?
“Hey, Penelope. Is everything okay?”
“I don't know. You tell me?” she replies in a snarky tone.
“Um...you're the one sitting at my job. What's going on?”
“I thought you learned your lesson when it came to Ford?”
Shit...she must still be checking his phone records.
“I did. I only reached out to Ford because I'm having a personal problem that I need to involve the police with. I figured calling him would speed things along, but he still hasn't called me back.”
I can practically smell the wood burning from her thinking so hard on the other line.
“Don't lie to me, Alyssa. Look, I'm not jealous. I don't want him back, but I am concerned about you going back to him because you and your current boyfriend are having problems.”
I blow out a breath, trying my hardest not to go off on her for sticking her nose in my business. “Penelope, I'm never going back to Ford. I'm in love with Jackson.”
“Then why the hell did I find plane tickets and passports with both your names on it?”
Say what?
“I'm sorry. I think I misheard you.”
“No, you didn't. I went there to pick up my mail yesterday—since the asshole insisted on keeping the house that he bought in the settlement. He wasn't home so I used my key and out on the coffee table were two tickets to Mexico along with two passports. One for you and one for him.”
“Oh my god. That's crazy.”
“Exactly—” she starts to say.
“I'm not leaving the country with Ford. I have no idea what's going on or what he's planning. But I need you to promise me that you won't mention a word of this to him. Don't tell him that you know me and please don't tell him that we had this conversation, okay?”
“Shit, what's going on, Alyssa?”
“I don't know,” I answer, before I hang up.
I breathe a sigh of relief when I look out the window and see city buildings.
I quickly take into account all the things I just found out—Ricardo and Ford have some kind of dealings going on together. My guess, is that it involves DeLuca. The only thing that doesn't make sense— is why the hell Ford's planning on whisking me off to freaking Mexico.
The only thing I can think of, is that Ford probably doesn't know that I'm with Jackson because we haven't had contact for months. He knows I've never kept boyfriends in the past and he probably just assumed I'm single.
On the plus side, Ricardo and Ford must be gearing up to take DeLuca down. And if my suspicions about Ricardo are correct, who better than him to help do it?
On the negative side, Ford's going to attempt to woo me and take me on vacation. Clearly he has another thing coming, but I'll gladly accept him getting rid of DeLuca for me and Jackson.
What I don't understand is why the heck he never picked up his phone for me if he's planning on doing all this? But then again, it's Ford. He's about as predictable as a tidal wave.
I pay the cab driver and walk into the apartment. Now that Jackson gave me a key, I don't have to knock on the door anymore.
“Hey,” a deep voice says.
I turn around and practically have a heart attack when I see Ricardo standing before me.
How the hell did he make it back here so fast? Then again, he does drive a mustang.
He looks at me and makes a face. “Look, you've been acting a little strange around me ever since that fight. I hope you know that I really didn't mean to punch you. You don't have to be scared of me, Alyssa.”
“Yeah,” I squeak.
He scratches the back of his neck and it's only then that I notice he's wearing a sweat stained t-shirt and a pair of shorts. His hair is wet and his skin is glistening. He looks like he just finished working out, not driving back from Long Island.
“Where did you just come from?”
“The gym. Why?”
“Are you sure?”
He leans in and gives me a peculiar look. If he wasn't so fucking intimidating, he'd be ridiculously good looking. “Am I sure I got back from the gym?” He smirks. “Yeah, I'm positive. So, I'll ask you again. Why?”
“No r-reason.” I turn around and attempt to get my key in the door as he walks across the hall to his own apartment.
Then it occurs to me. He could have let someone else borrow his car. Or, maybe it wasn't Ricardo's car in the driveway after all?
There's only one way to find out. “Hey, Ricardo? I was wondering if you would mind giving me a ride.”
“I would, but I don't have my car.”
Before I can question him further he says, “But you should already know that Jackson's borrowing my car until tomorrow morning because he's going to Boston.” He shrugs. “Kind of surprised you didn't go with him actually.”
“Going to Boston?” I whisper.
Jackson definitely never mentioned going to Boston this morning.
No. This can't be fucking happening.
I open my mouth to cover my fumble but Ricardo says,“He's going to Boston to visit Lilly's grave. Today's her birthday.”
He takes a step forward and gives me an odd look. “Did he not tell you?”
“Of course, he did.” I laugh nervously. “I just forgot is all.” I give him a big smile. “I am naturally a blonde...we do have our moments.”
He cocks an eyebrow. “Yeah. Okay, then. I'm gonna take a shower. Talk to you later.”
I give him a wave before closing and locking the door behind me. Then I start hyperventilating.
Now it makes sense. It's not Ricardo and Ford working together. It's Jackson and Ford.
Which means that Ford does know I'm with Jackson.
But those plane tickets and passports...they can only mean one thing.
Ford is setting Jackson up to kill DeLuca and Jackson has no idea.
I wish he didn't shut me out when I tried to tell him everything that happened between Ford and I. Then he would already know not to trust him.
I pick up my phone and dial Jackson but it goes straight to voicemail. I leave the longest message I've ever left detailing everything that Ford did to me, including what happened that day in his office.
I also dial Ford, it rings a few times before going to voicemail. I close my eyes. In the back of my mind, I always knew this day would come. I used to be ashamed that I was so terrified about my date with DeLuca.
I mean, who doesn't want vengeance for the death of their father?
I thought I would cry and fall apart when it happened. But surprisingly, I feel like I'm finally thinking rationally.
It's time to have my dance with the Devil.
It's time to protect the man I love and inflict retribution on DeLuca for the one that I lost. Even if it's the last thing I do.
I walk into the bedroom and start going through the boxes that I moved in over the past week.
Covered in a pile of old clothes I find my lock box. I take it out, punch in the combination and open it. I eye my revolver and my semi-automatic pistol. The one good thing that came out of my relationship with Ford was him teaching me how to shoot a gun and taking me to the firing range when I was younger.
I make sure they're both loaded and ready to go before throwing a sweatshirt on and tucking both guns into the waistband of my jeans.
It's funny how a plan formulates itself when you find out the person you love is in danger.
I knock on Lou-Lou's door and wait for her to answer. I know her and Ricardo have some major problems and still haven't worked any of their shit out.
But quite frankly, I don't really give a fuck at this point. I just need someone to use as leverage against Ricardo and that someone is Lou-Lou.
She answers the door and although she looks surprised to see me, she invites me in.
As soon as the door is closed, I take out the revolver and put it to her head. “You crazy bitch!” she screams. “I thought we were friends now? What the fuck are you doing?”
“We are. This is nothing personal, Lou-Lou. I just need a hostage.”
I pull her hair and position her in front of me. Given she's so tiny, it's easy to push her around. “However, feel free to think of this as payback for being such a bitch to me.”
She starts screaming, but I dig the gun into her head. “Scream and I'll kill you. Trust me, you don't want to fuck with me right now.”
She takes a deep breath. “Can you at least tell me why you're doing this?”
“Jackson's in trouble with a certain mob boss.”
“Bruno,” she whispers.
“Ah, I see you're on a first-name basis with the asshole. Good to know, that might come in handy.” I shove her in front of me. “Now open the door and start walking down the hall to Ricardo's. If you run...I swear I'll kill him.”
She opens the door with shaky hands and starts walking. She knocks on his door but he doesn't answer. That’s when I remember. “Shit, he's in the shower.”
“I have a key,” Lou-Lou offers. “It's in my back pocket.”
“I'm not falling for that.”
“Then you can get it,” she insists.
I dig the gun into her temple as I get her keys out of her back pocket and hand them to her. “You attack me with those and I'll shoot.”
“I know.”
Part of me is wondering why she's being so cooperative, but I don't have the time to question it.
We walk into Ricardo's apartment and I walk us to the bathroom, with Lou-Lou as my hostage.
Since there's no point in knocking on his bathroom door. I have Lou-Lou open it.
The look on Ricardo's face when he see's that I'm holding a gun up to Lou-Lou's head is one for the record books.
He reaches for a towel and quickly wraps it around his waist before he steps out of the shower.
That's when I silently pat myself on the back because the fact that he's naked as the day he was born means that he has no weapons on him.
However, what bewilders me is why he isn't more freaked out about this. I know he's worried about Lou-Lou, that's more than evident by the way he looks at her. But the fact that he's not puzzled by his current predicament is unnerving.
“How did you find out?” he says, his tone solemn.
I open my mouth, but Lou-Lou cuts me off by screaming, “I didn't tell this bitch shit, Ricky.”
I whack her head with the gun. “No talking.” I look at Ricardo. “You have his eyes. I'll never forget his eyes. They haunt me in my dreams.”
He closes his eyes. “I'm not like my father, Alyssa.”
“Doesn't matter. Your father took the most important person in my life from me and he's about to do it again. I want him to feel what it's like to lose the most important thing to him.”
He sucks in a breath and glances at Lou-Lou. “Yeah. I get that, Alyssa.”
His expression quickly changes to nervousness. “Wait, what do you mean he's about to do it again? Where the fuck is Jackson right now?”
“He's working with an FBI agent. An FBI agent that's going to set him up for the murder of your father. I have to get to him before that happens.”
“Shit. Can't you just call him and warn him?” Lou-Lou asks, her voice cracking.
“He's not picking up his phone.”
“Fuck. No. Oh, my god. Shit,” she sputters, her breathing erratic.
I yank her hair. “As touched as I am about your sentiments regarding my boyfriend's current circumstance, can you kindly shut up so we can get on with the program.”
She shakes her head. “I swear, I didn't mean to. I didn't know it was Jackson. Oh, my god,” she squeaks.
Suffice it to say, she has both Ricardo's and my attention at this point.
I pull the other gun out of my waistband and put them both up to her head. “You better start making sense, Lou-Lou...or your brains are gonna be all over the carpet. What the fuck did you do?”
“There was this guy. This FBI agent. He started talking to me, you know flirting, all that.”
“You talked to the fucking Feds?” Ricardo screams at the same time I scream, “Was his name Ford?”
“H-how did you know?”
“Cut to the chase, Lou-Lou. I know how Ford pulls the females in. Tell me what he wanted you to do. And how Jackson is involved.”
“That's the thing. This Ford, guy. He seemed to know everything about me. Things that no one knows.”
Ricardo lets out a curse and I scratch my head with one of my guns. “And you didn't find that a little suspicious? You can't be that dumb.”
“I'm not dumb. Of course, I did. But then he offered me a deal.”
“Goddammit, Lucianna! He's a fucking double agent. He's not legit, he works for us!” Ricardo screams at the same time I scream, “What kind of deal!”
I aim one of the guns for Ricardo's head and gasp. “What? What the actual fuck did you just say?”
It feels like all the air just got sucked out of the room. The only reason I'm not collapsing right now is because I still have to save Jackson.
Ricardo runs a hand down his face. “Shit,” he says. “Look, Alyssa. Trust me when I say that you're better off not knowing the truth. I don't think you can take it and I'm not going to be the one to tell you.”
I shoot the wall beside his head. “Tell me. Tell me the fucking truth.”
“No. You can shoot me dead, but I will not be responsible for putting the same soul-crushing look on your face that my father did the day he killed your dad!” he roars. “My father's eyes haunt you in your dreams? Well, yours fucking haunt mine!”
“You—” I pause because my voice is wavering. “You were there that day? The day my father was killed?”
I look at him in disbelief. He's only 5 years older than Jackson. The only young people I remember seeing that day were the teenage gang members.
“I was 18,” he says. “In fact, it was my 18th birthday. The day I officially became a man. My father wanted to celebrate by showing me what you do to rats. Or specifically, what you do when you find out that one of your men is an undercover agent.”
His face contorts in agony. “You weren't the only one locked in a car that day, Alyssa,” he says gruffly before his tone turns somber. “I'm so sorry. I liked your dad. We did some runs together and became close. I looked up to him. Wanted to be like him. He used to talk about how much he loved his little goblin— ”
I shoot the wall beside his head again, much closer this time. “Shut the fuck up. You didn't know shit about my dad, you piece of shit! Your father killed him! He killed him and I watched every second of it and I saw the look in DeLuca's eyes when he did it. So don't you fucking try and stand there and offer me your condolences or sympathy. Like this is some kind of hallmark moment...when you're literally the spawn of fucking Satan himself!”
His eyes become glassy. “I didn't want to be. That day changed me. You have no idea what that day did to me.”
“It will never compare to what it did to me.”
“I know,” he whispers.
In front of me, Lou-Lou's trembling and I hear her sobbing. “You're the little girl. The little girl in his nightmares.”
“Stop, Lou-Lou,” Ricardo warns.
Lou-Lou lifts her chin. “No. You need to know, Alyssa. He's not Bruno. Trust me, you don't know what Ricardo's been through. He's not the bad guy. Bruno is.”
“I guess it's time to find out then, huh?”
Ricardo's eyes meet mine. “What do you mean?”
“Call your father and find out where he is right now. If you don't, I'll kill her in front of you and give you another nightmare.”
Ricardo picks up his shorts off the floor but I click my tongue. “Are you armed?”
“Would it matter? I'm not going to kill you.”
“A leopard doesn't change its spots.”
“You know, bitch—you're not the only one who watched their parent get murdered by the hands of DeLuca.”
“DeLuca killed your parents?” I question.
“Probably,” she scoffs. “Who the fuck knows. However, I was referring to Ricardo.”
“He killed your mother?” I ask in his direction.
Ricardo closes his eyes and nods. “Yeah. After I told him that I wanted nothing to do with him and said I would never be like him. He tracked my mother down and taught me another lesson.”
This time, I see a tear fall down his face and I let mine fall with it. “How are you not more fucked up? How did you save yourself from becoming just like him?”
“Believe me, he's plenty fucked up,” Lou-Lou whispers.
Ricardo turns around and I read the large tattoo on his back scrawled in black ink. Sometimes there is absolutely no difference at all between salvation and damnation.
“It's from the Green Mile,” Lou-Lou offers.
I ignore her and wait for him to turn back around. “You going to call him?”
“I don't really have much of a choice. I'm not letting him kill Jackson.”
“I swear I didn't know it was him,” Lou-Lou whispers again.
I can't believe I almost forgot. “Lou-Lou finish telling me about your involvement with Ford.”
She clears her throat. “Like I said, he tried to get in my pants and he knew all this stuff.” Ricardo narrows his eyes and she quickly says, “Anyway, he offered me a deal. He said that he would set it up so that I could kill DeLuca. But seeing as he was FBI, he would make sure it wouldn't get pinned on me. He said there would be someone else there, someone with more motive than I had to take the fall. I didn't know it was going to be Jackson because he refused to tell me who this other person was. He said I wouldn't find out until I got there…but I didn't go through with it. I backed out at the last minute.”
Ricardo starts pacing. “Fuck, he was playing you both.”
I always knew Ford was manipulative, but even I didn't think he'd take it this far. “I guess that explains why he planned to take me to Mexico. There's really no doubt in my mind that he's setting Jackson up.”
When they both look at me I say, “Ford and me...our relationship is...was...complicated. It's really fucked up.”
Ricardo looks disgusted. “Trust me, sweetie. You really have no idea just how fucked up,” he whispers.
My stomach knots with those words but I don't have time to concentrate on that. “Ricardo, I need you to talk to DeLuca. Find out where he is right now. Tell him it's an emergency and you need him to meet you at the docks near Jersey.”
“You want to do this there?”
“Hell, yes.” Not only do I like my revenge served cold too but I need to get him as far away from Jackson as possible and still manage to kill him in the next few hours.
I look down at Lou-Lou. “And after that, I need you to call Ford. Tell him the fucking jig is up and I'm holding both you and Ricardo hostage. Tell him to meet me at the docks, but warn him that if he brings Jackson it will be the last thing that he does.”
Ricardo shakes his head. “That's not going to work. He's going to bring Jackson. Especially if he's already targeted him as the fall guy. Also, there's no telling what Jackson will do to Ford if he finds out he set him up. There could be a showdown between them.”
Crap, he's right.
“Well then get a hold of Jackson and tell him that something happened to me. Say whatever you have to say to throw him off the course. Don't tell him about Ford just make sure he leaves.”
“But you said he wasn't picking up his phone,” Ricardo argues.
I smirk. “I'm sure he has a special company phone that you can get a hold of him on.”