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CHAPTER 20 - MARCUS
The sun was nearly up as I was almost finished digging the hole. Finally it occurred to me that I was only digging one big hole. “Can I ask one more thing?”
“What?” Paulo asked.
“Let me dig another hole. I can't bear thinking I'll be buried with him,” I said, pointing to Carlo, the dead man. He didn’t shut up in the car ride, chattering away the whole time. “It was me who smacked that old lady.” And “it was me slapped your girl too.” Laughing and chattering.
When he handed me a shovel and told me to dig, I slammed him with the shovel before he even thought about firing his gun. When his face was caved in, I started digging a hole.
Paulo looked at me and laughed, “That's what you're concerned about right before you die? The balls on you.”
“I die, and pretty soon it looks like, but I still don’t want to be near that piece of shit. If I could kill him again I would.”
“Keep digging, pretty soon you won't care, neither will he.”
I kept digging, I knew there was no way out. Maybe I would use the shovel and take a swing at him, die with some dignity at least. But he had pistol on me the whole time, he never let down his guard, never came within the circumference of where I could swing the shovel. He just stood there. A good man that I wouldn’t mind working for me if he wasn’t about to kill me. I couldn't get to him, but I could rush at him, maybe mark him for the rest of his life, remind him of me whenever he looked in the mirror.
“That's enough.” he told me. I took a deep breath, the cool air filled my lungs, and my only regret was Anna, not telling her I loved. Not knowing I loved her. But she would be fine. Safe.
I knelt down, but still held the shovel, Paulo started walking towards me, I gripped the shovel, ready to swing it as my last act, the shot rang out and splintered my shovel.
“You don’t need that anymore.” Paulo told me. And went over to Carlo and tried to kick him in the hole. “You push him in, I’ll cover him.”
“What?”
“Throw him in the hole and get out of it yourself, unless you want to stay there.”
I jumped out of the hole, he turned his back to me even though I still had the splintered shovel handle, but he just passed up his shot at me. “Why?”
“Because you were going to hit me with the shovel. I saw your knuckles white, I saw the look in your eyes. I never felt good about this one. I'm a soldier, so I follow orders but killing the Don don't sit right with me. They told me you weren't fit to lead, a pampered rich boy, but killing Carlo, and taking this like a man. I've seen better men than me beg and cry, but you didn't do any of that. I'm loyal to the family, and you're the family now. I know I might have just signed my death certificate, but it just didn't feel right.”
I absorbed what he said and had nothing to say to him. I moved over and rolled Carlo in with my foot. I must have jumped three feet when the gun went off again, but it was in Carlo again, not me.
“As for him, I never like the bastard.”
“Where's Anna?” I asked him, remembering for the first time.
“She's in the trunk of the car. That's why you dug a big hole. Carlo wasn't supposed to die here, but you were and so was she. They gave her something to knock her out, but she should be fine in there. I had a guy in that trunk two days and he was angry as hell at me when I let him out. It's a good trunk.”
I ran over and opened the trunk to see her, bound and gagged but breathing and sleeping or passed out, nestled between two big bags of lime.
I carried her out and she stretched and yawned and opened her eyes for a second, then went back to sleep. I kissed her forehead and held her.
I placed her in the backseat and Paulo was still near the hole. With the gun. I thought of driving off, I had everything I wanted, but went back in the brush slowly. He was shoveling dirt onto the hole with what was left of the shovel, and the gun was on the ground.
“If you kill me here, you'll have to dig another hole, with this,” he held up the half- shovel.
I grabbed the gun, and answered, “A really big one too.”
Anna slept in the backseat of the car while I drove us out of the electric red desert dawn.
Paulo sat next to me, “I don’t think your Uncle was involved in this at all, I think it was all Jackie.”
I had my thoughts on that too, but I couldn't be sure. Whoever was responsible was going to pay. My instincts said I could trust Paulo, but it was hard to trust anyone now, I had just missed dying that morning, and whoever was responsible was going to suffer for that, and make sure it didn't happen again.
“Why do you say that?”
“He's loyal. If nothing else loyalty is important to him.”
“So how's he going to take what you did?”
“I don't know, he won't like it, but at the same time, it was the right thing to do.”
I didn’t know if Paulo was telling the truth or not. I didn’t care. My men would find out once I got him back. He saved my life, but he couldn’t be trusted yet.
The only thing I did know was I was thankful I didn’t lose Anna. Even in the hole, I could face my own death knowing she was safe, believing that made me at peace with death.
But while I was here, I was vulnerable because of her. She was in danger because of me. Something had to be done so that I could focus on getting my house in order.
And making Jackie pay.
And my brother.
And my uncle.