Zane
When Jake hung up the phone, I was shaking with anger and grief. I was still standing on the front porch of Lionel’s house, staring at the street and the other houses. It looked like a normal day: cold, chilly, no one outside. It looked completely innocuous. I had a hard time believing that just behind me lay two dead bodies.
I’d given myself a few minutes to wallow in the shame of having my father and his girlfriend killed by my supposed brother. Jake and I had grown up together, and this was how he’d repaid my family. He didn’t give a shit about my father. He didn’t give a shit about me. He only cared about himself, that rat-faced bastard.
“Jake, you are fuckin’ dead,” I mumbled under my breath. I could just see him now: conniving and sneaky, the same asshole he’d always been. Secretly, I should have known better. I should have seen this coming. I should have been able to tell his motives were far from pure.
But all I could think about was Isabella. Was she okay? Was she hurt? I shivered. Jake wasn’t good to women. He didn’t like them, and as evidenced by Terry, he didn’t give a shit for their dignity. I shuddered, remembering she’d been naked when I found her. Even though Terry loved parading around in skimpy outfits, I didn’t think she would have been naked when Jake found her. My mouth went dry as I thought about him raping her, hurting her until she couldn’t move, then stabbing her just like he’d stabbed my old man.
I didn’t want to think about it anymore, but I couldn’t help it. I imagined Jake slipping into the house. Terry would have been prancing around in a bikini or a short skirt, maybe planning something for Lionel’s lunch. Jake would have acted friendly, then attacked Terry when her guard was down. I shook with anger as I thought about the screams and cries she must have made.
Jake had killed Terry first. I just knew it instinctively. Terry was a relatively young, athletic girl. She easily could have run away if she smelled the faintest whiff of trouble. But she also wasn’t very bright. I easily saw her letting Jake in, making him a cocktail or some coffee, bantering with him about whatever. But then he killed her.
And Lionel must have heard everything. Lionel had been upstairs, warm in bed, cranky and waiting for lunch. And then the doorbell rang, and he probably yelled for Terry to hurry up, probably told her his blood sugar was low. As Lionel listened to Jake and Terry flirting downstairs, he probably got mad. He was probably shaking with anger, jealous and mad. When they went quiet, I bet he was thinking about Terry getting on her knees and sucking Jake off. I bet Lionel was even thinking it was getting to be time to replace Terry soon, that she’d been living off the goodness of his heart for a long time.
But Jake had struck first. He’d killed Terry and shoved her body in a cupboard. When he went upstairs to see the old man, I bet he did a great job of acting like nothing had happened.
I shook my head in disgust and rage. Whatever sadness I’d felt about my father’s death was slowly draining out of my body, leaving me angry and powerful. I wanted to find Jake and rip his head off, or put his feet in cement and force him off the end of a boat. I hated him.
Lionel had always told me that working in the family business meant working with people you couldn’t stand. It sounded naïve, but I’d never believed him until now. He’d always said we were different because we had to do “close” work together, like disposing of bodies and shit. Well, Jake and I had never done that together but I hated him just the same.
When Isabella had told me about her family, I’d wanted to laugh. It sounded ridiculous — a single mom taking care of a little Italian girl, clueless to her husband’s real identity. I’d always thought the way I’d grown up was best: spare time filled with Italian family get-togethers, lots of meetings in the basement. I’d always felt cool, at least I had ever since Lionel had included me that one fateful night. It sounded stupid, but I thought I was better than a lot of people. My family wasn’t like everyone else’s family. We didn’t pay taxes or hold stupid, shitty jobs that wore us down year after year.
But now I was almost envious. I wondered what it would have been like to grow up with a family who loved me, who wanted to take care of me. I wondered what it would have been like to have a father who came home and played action figures with me instead of a father who disappeared into the basement with a cigar and a fifth of brandy. I wondered what it would have been like to grow up without seeing a gun, or hearing someone shriek before they died, or having to scrub blood of my school uniforms.
“It probably woulda been real fuckin’ boring,” I said under my breath. Balling my hands into fists, I climbed behind the wheel of my Porsche and started towards home. I knew Jake and Isabella wouldn’t be there, but some part of me still thought this was a joke. Some part of me still felt like I was going to get there and Jake would jump out from behind a banner that read, Congrats, Zane, you schmuck! Isabella would jump on me and wrap her legs around me, press that full, generous mouth against mine. I shuddered. I couldn’t wait.
Snap out of it, I told myself. She ain’t gonna be there. He took her, and that’s that. But I couldn’t get the image out of my mind. Maybe this was all a joke, maybe everything was happening under guise of something else.
But then I remembered Lionel and Terry. The way Terry’s body had looked shoved into that cabinet. The way Lionel’s sheets had been gelled with blood, like it was ketchup or paint or something much thicker than the blood that flowed through our veins.
My hands tightened around the steering wheel. This was war, and I knew it.
My phone buzzed in my pocket again. I knew instinctively it was Jake. As much as I didn’t want to give him the time of day, I knew he was counting on me to answer. If I didn’t answer, he’d likely hurt Isabella. And I couldn’t deal with that now. I just couldn’t.
“Hello?”
Jake laughed. “Yo, Zane,” he said in a breathy voice. “Deal’s changed. That’s gonna be double the money. I just found out Blondie here is carrying a special load.”
I balled my hands into fists. Shit. She must have told them she was pregnant so they wouldn’t hurt her. It was a smart move, but one that had put me in even deeper shit. I couldn’t believe it. “And what else?” I said through gritted teeth. “I know there’s something else, Jake.”
I held my breath as Jake told me exactly what I hadn’t wanted to hear: the drug deal was off, and I wasn’t going to be able to move that coke. He confirmed my suspicions, telling me he thought things were going to end up this way anyway. That dog, I thought to myself. He always wanted to fuck me from day one, and he’s finally done it. Without even realizing what I was doing, I let loose a scream of anguish into the phone.
Jake laughed in response. “Oh, yeah, boy,” he said. Even though I couldn’t see his face, I knew he must be smirking. “That’s how it goes, son.”
“I know you killed Lionel,” I spat harshly. “I knew you would do that. He confessed, you know. He was still alive, right when I got there.”
Jake laughed. “And that’s a problem? You hated the old man!”
“That’s not the fucking point, Jackhole,” I sneered, using a nickname from when we were kids together. “You killed him. He was the fucking leader of the family business, and now he’s fuckin’ dead. You happy about that, asshole?”
Jake didn’t reply. “It doesn’t matter,” he said greedily. “That old man was a fucker. His bitch, too. She screamed and screamed when I killed her. The neighbors ten miles away probably heard her crying.” Jake’s voice sounded dangerous, pleased with himself.
“Fuck you,” I muttered. “I recorded Lionel’s last words, you know. The last words where he confessed it was you who’d killed him. He said your name, you know. You’re fucking dead, Jake. And if anyone else in the business hears about this, they’re gonna want you dead, too. How’s that gonna feel?” I smirked, forgetting somehow that Jake was the one with the power right now. “You’re gonna be on the run, without any money, without anyone to boss around. I bet it’s gonna feel pretty fucking bad, huh?”
Jake hung up without replying. I tightened my jaw and let out a long, low scream of displeasure. I was going to kill that fucker if it was the last thing I ever did, if it was the only thing I ever did.
I imagined Isabella and our baby, fatherless. She’d be sitting in the window, rocking the infant from side to side. He’d be named Zane. Isabella would say, “Baby Zane, your daddy died keeping you safe.”
It was a grim image, but it was just what I needed to keep going.