Jax
When I wake up, I’m more than awake, I’m electrified. As soon as I realize that I’m conscious, I get up, get to work.
Breakfast is bacon and eggs that’s been warming in the oven. I told Betty not to come in this morning. I don’t want any distractions. I need to be on my A-game.
In the bathroom, I smile at myself. Now, today, finally, it’s the day. The past few days have been intolerable – waiting, planning and more waiting, getting the vans in order, dismissing Whitey’s stupid suggestions. Any longer and the next funeral would be mine.
After I brush my teeth, I whisper, “This one’s for you, Mama.”
Really, now that I know what the Russos pulled with Sarah – kidnapping my innocent sister – I have no more doubt that they were the ones who shot Momma. They’ve never admitted it, but really, I’ve known all along. Who else would it have been?
And now, finally, they are going to get what’s coming to them.
I put on my clothes slowly, leisurely: white Calvin Klein boxers, ivory Ralph Lauren jeans, snow Ted Baker button-up. I survey myself in the mirror with a satisfied smile. Something tells me that after today my clothes aren’t going to be so white anymore.
I go to my safe, put in the code and take it out. My white Glock. The White Lady. The boys are gonna just love this. It’s not every day that I bring my white gun into battle.
I step closer to the mirror and spread my arms. Let them shoot at me. There’s a good inch of bulletproof material underneath this white button-up, same goes for my white jeans. Even my white shoes are bulletproof. If the Russos wanna take me out, they’ll have to go for my head or not bother.
I put a small picture of Sarah in my pocket. In case there’s someone that needs to be questioned.
I put a knife in my other pocket, in case someone needs convincing.
I don’t like to waste bullets on convincing. Today, I may just need every last one.
I don’t check my phone.
I know Bella texted me, but I still don’t know what. I haven’t looked and I won’t. Not until this is over. I can’t have any distractions. I have to get Sarah out of there. I have to save my sister, or everything is pointless.
Downstairs, Whitey and Brax are in my black swivel chairs, spinning around. I didn’t call them, but I didn’t need to. I said, “My place at 10:00 am,” and it’s 10:00 am.
They whistle as I walk in. They’re in all black and seem to blend into the apartment, this pure black room: black marble floors and walls, black leather seats, black velvet curtains. As Sarah liked to say the “black on black on black” room. I’ve always loved the shock I made when I caught myself in a mirror, the gleaming white beacon amidst so much black.
“You ready?” I ask them.
“Fuck yes!” Whitey answers, leaping up. Even his spikes have been slicked back, as if knowing instinctively that today is the kind of day that destroys even hair spikes.
“Oh, am I ready,” Brax says, then gives me a significant look. “But is she ready?”
I pick my white leather jacket up off the coat and put it on.
I open the fridge. There, in the meat compartment, there she is. Our weapon of sweet, sweet vengeance.
“Medusa” is what Brax is calling her these days – the cords and switchboards that are the bombs we’re going to blow the Russos back to hell with. Medusa is a fitting name given the context: take out those Russo snakes with the Queen of Snakes.
Brax clasps his creation, Whitey grabs an apple, and we tuck it all in our wheeled suitcases, and we’re off.
The elevator is there before we are, and everyone we encounter, whose gazes follow us long as we pass, all of them know. Even the slick bald nod of a desk boy knows. There is no resisting. What we will do today is inevitable. Success isn’t a question of “if” but “when.”
Outside, the long line of vans forms a conspicuous brigade in front of my apartment building. Not regular Lionel boarders, that’s for sure. Not regular boarders at all. All white, the stereotypical white van that, in this case, are for purposes just as sketchy as they look.
The first seven vans have around fifty or so Renegade Devils tucked snuggly inside, the second-last van is where we pack Medusa.
Finally, as we approach our van, the last one, Whitey takes a bite of his apple. Whitey. Who’s still supposed to be in the hospital.
“What the hell are you doing here, eh?” I ask him, irritated with myself for just noticing now.
Mid-bite, he shrugs. “Was more interesting than sitting through one of those hospital check-ups.”
I shake my head. “No. No way. You get the hell out of here. You aren’t well enough to fight.”
My phone rings. It’s Trip.
“The Russos just arrived at the funeral, boss.”
“Great. See any guy that might be the honcho?”
“No, doesn’t look like it, but I don’t know if they’ve all arrived yet.”
“Ok, great, thanks, Trip. Keep me posted.”
“Will do, boss.”
I hang up and look on the long line of vans, my weapons of mass destruction, all waiting for my command. None of this seems real I’ve been waiting for it for so long.
When I come to, I check my phone: already five minutes have passed since I talked to Trip, five minutes that I’ve been standing here, reveling in what’s to come. This plan won’t be real if I keep on standing here thinking about it. It’s time to act.
I go to the first van and give it a thumbs-up. As it takes off, I do the same to the next, then the next. Until only the final van and Brax, Whitey and I are left.
Brax gets in the driver’s seat, and I get in the passenger’s seat. As Whitey goes to open the back door, I press the lock button. He yanks the handle uselessly, then turns to the front with a dismayed face.
Through the door, we can just make out his moan, “Boss, c’mon, please.”
I open the window a crack, shake my head, smile, and wave. “Bye, Whitey. We’ll send you pics.”
As Brax pulls away from the curb and down the street, Whitey stays stock-still, his face a drooping mask of dismay.
“Kinda harsh,” Brax comments, with a glance in the rearview mirror at Whitey’s rapidly diminishing form.
“I’ve put him in enough danger already. Not this time,” I say.
The traffic is much worse than expected. With each passing minute, I can see the vein in Brax’s temple throbbing more.
“We’ll get there in time,” I tell him, though I’m not sure who I’m saying it for. I feel like getting out of the car and striding across the tops of these cars, this hood to bumper line of cars. Or just driving over them, crushing over them like tanks. We don’t have time for this.
“Boss, how’s it going?” Trip asks me over the headset I put on a few minutes ago.
I grin. I was starting to worry it wasn’t working. Thank God for Bluetooth. “Traffic, we’re almost there.”
When we finally pull up to the house, we’re fifteen minutes later than we should be.
“The boys are already setting up the explosives,” Trip tells me. “You just have to find Sarah.”
“Ok, thanks, Trip,” I say.
As Brax pulls up to the house I now know all too well, I take out the small photograph of Sarah. “Don’t worry, sis. I’ll see you soon.” I tuck it back in my pocket, take out the White Lady and get out of our van.
Brax swears when he lays eyes on my gun. “Jesus it’s a thing of beauty.”
“You ready?” I ask.
He nods. “Wait a sec.” He goes to the back of the car, opens the truck and laughs. “That fucker Whitey texted me to check the trunk for extra guns.”
“And?”
“Come over and have a look.”
I go over there and, seeing them, have to laugh myself. Laid out there, in a neat line of three, are the masks: three ugly-as-sin droops of old man masks, the same as the one Whitey showed me. Seeing them there, all set up neat and expectant, I almost feel bad for the guy.
“What do you think, boss?” Brax asks.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake… Fine.”
He puts one on and then I do the same.
“Get over here,” I say, and I take a picture of us. “Maybe Whitey will take it a little less hard now,” I add, though I doubt it.
Eyes scanning all around, we make our way to the front gate, past pesticide green grass and along the no-longer electrified fence. The front gate is already open. That’s what the first van was for, bashing the wrought-iron things open. Trip had already disabled the electricity; the rest was easy. You don’t make your gates all that hard to bash through when they’re electric in the first place.
Striding up the smooth sidewalk to the Tudor-style mansion feels surreal. This is where the head Russo was, Emilio was – maybe even Sarah was. And today – it’s going to be all over. Today is going to change everything. The Russos are going to be sorry they ever messed with the Renegade Devils.
At the door, I turn to Brax. “Wait here.”
He cocks his head. “Huh?”
“I have no idea what we’re walking into here. Let me check it out first. You can cover my back. I’ll call for you when I want you.” Brax gapes at me like I just asked him to remove all his tattoos in one go. “Brax. This way we won’t be walking into a trap.”
Brax closes his eyes, his black lids making him look terrifyingly similar to an actual skeleton. When he opens them, he cocks his gun. “Okay, boss. But if I don’t get any word from you in ten, I’m going in.”
I nod and turn to the door.
If I can’t give Brax word in ten minutes, then we’ve got bigger problems.
###
The door is locked, of course. I don’t knock, I kick. There’s no alarm because the alarm was the fence and the fence is dead. It takes a few kicks before the ornately carved thing topples.
Inside is a museum of a home; all gold paisley wallpaper and pottery that looks fragile. There’s no Russos or their men – yet.
How about we encourage some to come on out and play?
I shove a Grecian looking vase to the floor. It explodes into a hundred pieces, and I smile. Looks like it really was fragile.
A shot.
The next second a bullet buries itself in the wall where my shoulder was a second ago. I duck, looking around furiously.
Another bullet flies out, and I see it. A flick of a hand by an open door down the hallway off to the side. The shooter’s in the basement. Where Sarah is. Of course.
As I creep ahead, eyes locked on the doorway, I yell, “There’s lots of us! If you surrender, we won’t kill you! This place is gonna blow!”
Silence, then, “Jax?”
I freeze. No, there’s no way. That voice. No. It can’t be…
“Bella?”
She inches out of the door, gun in hand. The same gun from before. Head to toe, black, wide black-jeaned hips, thin black-shirted waist. My Bella… She’s a Russo? No jobs, no questions, no meeting in public. Of course. It all makes sense now.
I take off my mask, but don’t lower my gun. She doesn’t lower hers. She looks as dismayed as I feel. Bella, my Bella.
“You knew…” is all I can come out with, faced with the horror before me.
She can’t even look at me; the words seem to jerk out of her against her will. “I’m sorry… I wanted to tell you… I just—My family—” She shakes her head, her eyes desperate. “I never wanted this.”
I cock the rifle. “Where’s Sarah?”
She stares at me as if I’ve shot her already. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play dumb. I know about her and Emilio – how you sick people tricked my sister and took her, how she’s in the basement, going to be sent out with the latest shipment of girls.”
Bella shakes her head, her eyes still wild. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I stride up to Bella, the liar, the bitch, and put the muzzle on her forehead. “Don’t lie to me!”
She’s still holding her own gun, but she seems unaware of it. She gapes at me. “I’m sorry, Jax.”
“Give me the gun,” I demand.
She hands it over without a word.
I tuck hers in my back pocket, lower my gun and grab her arm. “Take me there. To the basement.”
She nods, and we descend the staircase. It’s strange, this same acquiescence in this entirely different context. I watch Bella carefully. Who knows what other tricks she has up her sleeve, this liar I thought I knew.
But this shell of a woman slumps down the stairs in clumsy resigned steps with her head hung. At the bottom, she sweeps out her arm. “Here’s the den. I don’t know what they told you, but here it is.”
A greyhound leaps up and runs at me, barking.
“Hey, Muffin,” Bella says.
I aim the gun at the growling thing.
Bella steps in front of it. “Jax, not Muffin, please.”
I look away. This is a distraction. I don’t have time for this.
“Hey, Trip,” I say into my headset, “any reading on the house – where Sarah is?”
“No, but I can get one. Hang on a sec, boss,” he replies.
While I wait, I turn my attention to Bella, who’s still regarding me with a cowed expression. “If anything’s happened to my sister, I swear…”
“Boss, she’s in a back room. It’s attached to the basement, but it doesn’t look like there’s a door. The room is attached to the back wall.”
I look around the room. Back wall, back wall… “Which one is the back wall?” I ask Bella. I don’t have time to figure out which wall is facing what.
Bella gestures to the far one, where there’s an armchair and a desk. I stride up to it and strike it. It’s hollow. There’s something on the other side. I scan the wooden walls furiously, for a hidden door, a lever, anything. But there’s only a stupid ugly armchair and a rickety side table. I can’t shoot through the wall; I could hurt Sarah.
Maybe there’s a back way in, but do I have time to find it?
“Is there a back way to the room behind here?” I ask Bella.
She just shakes her head. “What room?”
“Shit.”
I kick the armchair, and it shifts. There’s a line on the wall behind it, a groove. Oh yes. I shove the armchair over more, and soon a low door is revealed. It’s like one of those pet doors, with a flap, except this one is big enough for humans. I crouch down, stick my head through the flap and my heart freezes in my chest.
Sarah. My sister. There she is, in the corner of this hidden room, curled up in a ball on the cement floor.
I crawl in.
“Don’t follow me. Don’t move,” I tell Bella.
I run to Sarah. Her bruised eyes are closed, her cracked lips are parted – but she’s breathing. She’s alive. I carry her to the doorway flap, push her through, then crawl in after her.
Bella’s looking at Sarah like she’s a ghost. “Jax, I had no idea, I…”
“Shut up,” I say, then, to my headset, “Hey, Trip, you there?”
“Yup, boss.”
“I got Sarah. Tell the boys they can let her blow in five minutes.”
“Okay, boss.”
When I turn to Bella, she’s sitting in the armchair, eyeing me placidly.
I point the gun at her. “What are you doing? Get up.”
She shakes her head. “I won’t let you. This is my home, my life. If you’re going to blow it up, then I’ll get blown up with it.”
I scan her face, the set parallel of her mouth and eyes. She’s dead serious.
“Did you ever consider that now that I know who you really are and just what you’re capable of that I may be entirely fine with that?”
She meets my glare with one of her own. “So, do it then. Go. Leave me here to die.”
The certainty in her voice enrages me. I pick up her struggling form with one hand, then Sarah’s limp one in the other. But Bella is thrashing so much that she falls to the ground.
Splayed there, she grins over what I’ve just realized now too. “You can't take both of us.”
“Three minutes, boss. You’re out of there, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, Trip, almost. One second.”
I take a step then check over my shoulder. Bella hasn’t budged.
“Bella, be reasonable.”
“I am being reasonable. What you are suggesting is to destroy my entire life. I may not agree with the way my family has done business or continues to, but they are just that – family. That’s something I thought at least you could sympathize with.”
She glances at Sarah’s slumped form, who flutters open one eye, “What…”
“Shhh...” I murmur, patting her head.
“Two minutes, boss.”
“Yeah, yeah okay,” I snap back.
“What are you suggesting?” I ask Bella.
“A compromise. You evacuate then blow up the two compounds, but leave the house, leave my family. Emilio is corrupt, but many of the others at the funeral coming here after for the reception are innocent.”
“One minute, boss.”
“Got it, Trip!” I snarl.
“You still want me to go through with it?” he asks.
“Yes – no! Wait a second, wait for my command.”
I advance so that I’m less than an inch from Bella, our glares boring into each other. “You realize what you’re asking me to do?”
“Please, Jax. I didn’t know anything about your sister. I’m in the process of changing the business now; we won’t be bothering you or interfering with your shipments any longer. I can get them to agree to this change when they see how profitable it can be. I know I can. Please. If you kill them, I’ll have no one left.”
I stand there and take her in: my Mexican princess – the woman who betrayed me, the lover who screwed me over in the worst way. Her face looks earnest, those black eyes are opaque, that big red lower lip is quivering. But how do I know that those black eyes aren’t opaque just to obscure what she’s really thinking, that she’s not just quivering her lower lip in time to her lies? How can I trust her now that I know she’s lied to me about everything?
“Boss? They’re ready now.” Trip’s voice just adds to the din.
My head and heart are yelling different things, each dead set in its own way, unable to compromise.
Kill her. End this.
What if she’s telling the truth?
Bella steps toward, her eyes pleading.
I turn away. “Ok, Trip. Blow the compounds but leave the house for now.”
I walk to the stairs, then look back, “You coming?”
She shakes her head. “I’m staying, Jax. I’m staying until you go.”
Now my head is screaming victory: Blow the house too. This is a trap. Why should I trust her if she doesn’t trust me? How do I know she won’t stab my back again as soon as I turn it?
Bella doesn’t react when I lift my gun. Instead, she stands there, her body facing me, open. Trembling, but not moving. As if she already knows what I’m going to do.
I raise the gun to her head, then turn and run up the stairs. I burst out of the house just as the two buildings behind it explode in a roar of flames.
“And Trip?”
“Yeah, boss?”
“Tell them the attack part is off. This is enough for today. The other part we can carry out when the Russos try to rebuild.”
“You sure, boss?”
“Yeah, Trip.”
As I walk out, a hideous old man runs up to me. Ah, Brax, the mask, of course.
“What the fuck man? Were there a lot of guards? I was about to go in after you.”
“I’ll explain later,” I say, “I’ve got to get her into the van, to a doctor.”
Now noticing Sarah in my arms, Brax gives me a relieved smile.
As we head for the van, Renegade Devils streaming around us to the other vans, I hear blasts behind us. We duck.
“Waoooo! It’s go time! You guys ready!”
It’s another hideous old man: Whitey wearing the mask, holding a gigantic bazooka.
“Whitey,” I say, but he doesn’t seem to hear me.
“I’m ready! I am so fucking ready and pumped and hyped and waooooo!”
“Whitey,” I say.
“We gonna make it rain with their blood, use their tongues to clean off our cars, ohhh it’s gonna be some… Yeah?”
“Mission’s over, we’re going home.”
Whitey’s maniacal grin disappears. “You’re kidding me?”
“Nope, not kidding. We blew the compounds, it’s over.”
He gapes at me. “But what about …?”
“Jax’s sister is in the back; she’s okay,” Brax says, going past me to climb into the driver’s seat.
Whitey nods glumly. He understands now. Sarah is all that matters.
I go to the back and sit down beside her. I check her arms and legs, her face, her scalp. She’s fine. Dirty and bruised, but fine.
Guess they didn’t want to harm their merchandise, I think, and my stomach twists.
As we drive away, Brax throws me a pleased look. “You know, boss, I didn’t want to admit it, but I reckoned your sister was toast.”
An icy silence; in which I contemplate blowing his head off.
“Thanks for keeping that to yourself,” I say quietly, and that shuts them both right up.
I spend the rest of the ride stroking Sarah’s head. She doesn’t open her eyes again, only tosses and turns with frowns and little sighs of exasperation.
I’d never admit it to the boys, but I was afraid of the exact same thing as Brax.