Tommy
I woke up to a tickle of Tia tracing the ink lines on my arm feather-light and then tracing the letters of her name on my chest. She did it, looking lost in thought, like she wasn’t even aware that she was doing it.
Immediately after feeling grateful I’d been able to get to her last night, the first thought I had was of Johnny.
Just before we left Fete, I’d seen the last body pulled out before they found the third bomb, which had been planted by the fire exit.
I didn’t know at the time but it was the body of Kate Lewis. Thirty-four years old, mother of six. Beautiful, vibrant, happy. John’s wife’s body was crushed when some of the ceiling fell and she and others were underneath. Being the tiny thing she was, she was under two other people, crushed by not just the debris, but them as well.
She, along with six other people, not including the fucker I’d shot, were dead. Some of them had their faces blown off. Ten other people had been hospitalized, a few critically, and Dex was one of the injured, although not the worst of the bunch. He had three broken ribs, a broken arm, a concussion, and a collapsed lung.
Johnny had a bad head injury and some severe bruising, but things were looking good for a full recovery, physically anyway. The guy had been my buddy for years. He was probably my closest friend. He’d been married to Kate for 14 years and was now the sole parent for their six kids. I was numb after getting that news but then started feeling a whole lot of shit.
I didn’t have it in me to tell Tia about it when I came to bed. I’d done what I needed to do to rid earth of that piece of scum before coming back to the hotel, finding out about Kate when I’d checked on things, and then I’d come to bed and fucked my girl. Twice. I nearly went back for a third time, feeling the need to keep that life-affirming connection with her, but she was exhausted after the first time.
I’d needed to hold her, feel her, make her moan for me. Because yeah, things were a bit fucked but I could’ve lost her. I could’ve lost her to the explosion or because that asshole that dragged her into that supply closet had taken her out of the building to deliver her to Leo. Who knew what he’d do to her?
My gut churned. I wanted to slit his throat all over again. He took my sister and fucked her over and I didn’t know if she’d ever be the same after that.
He could’ve taken my pregnant wife. And then he could’ve taken me, my wife, and my sister out. He’d have a price on his head for costing us money and costing Fete some bad PR if that’s all he’d done and no one had died. There was no way on earth he wasn’t getting dead for doing what he’d done.
I was relieved that she hadn’t rejected me when I needed her last night. It occurred to me that she might, being upset and seeing all she saw, not want one thing to do with me or my cock.
It wouldn’t have gone well if she had pushed me away. I needed her. Badly. And thank fuck she seemed to sense that. Thank fuck she seemed to need me, too.
I had her there at that warehouse for two reasons. One, I couldn’t bear to think of her being out of range of my protection.
Two, she needed to know.
She needed to know that if anyone fucked with my family, they would pay. She had some sort of malfunction because of being in Vegas with all the shit swirling, but she needed to get a handle on it and come to terms with the fact that the man she was tied to for the rest of her life was not a white hat wearing guy. I was who I was and she needed to get to terms with it so we could move the fuck on.
No, I didn’t want to wear the shoes my father left for me to fill but Pop make it pretty near impossible for me and Dare to escape this life unscathed. The men he was associated with would put out a hit on me and Dare if they thought he or I was anything but likeminded.
But also, it just wasn’t me. In my core, I was who I was. Maybe because of my life thus far and yeah, I wanted to be better for her, for our future kids, but when it all boiled down to it, she now knew I would put a knife to a throat, a bullet in a face, and order that someone get sodomized with a rusty pipe for fucking with what was mine or what was under my protection.
Anyone who knowingly fucked with me needed to be taken down.
“Hi,” she said.
I kissed her.
“Any word on Dex?” she asked, her face showing her worry.
“If nothing went wrong overnight, we’ll pick him up on the way to the airport. If they need to keep him, we’ll have Will stay with him.”
“Wh… what happened while I was in the car? What about the third bomb?” She scrubbed the stubble at my jaw with her fingertips.
“They found it and disabled it. Denarda had the three detonators on him so Nino had kept them aside. We still have them. Nino’s dropping them off to a friend in the police department.”
She traced my arm some more.
“People died, Tia.”
Her eyes moved to me; her lips parted, her finger stopped moving.
“I was afraid of that. How many?”
“Seven people. Including Kate Lewis.”
Her eyes bugged out and her mouth dropped open.
“How?”
“She was crushed. A few died from internal injuries, being too close to the bombs, faces blown off, or their skulls getting crushed. Johnny ain’t in great shape but he’ll live. The news’ll say eight people but one of them was Leo’s goon, that fuck posing as a waiter who tried to take you.”
Her eyes filled up with tears and her hand covered her mouth.
“Poor John. My God, they have six children. Oh Tommy,” she was crying into my chest. I put my arms around her and squeezed her tight.
***
Nino, Will, and the other guards watched the girls and the kids. I went to the hospital with another guard, just as a precaution, and stopped in and saw Dex, then John. Dex was banged up good but he’d live. He’d be off work a while but he could come home with us that day.
John was staring off at nothing when I walked into his hospital room. He glanced at me. No, not staring at nothing. He was staring at the stark reality in front of him. The man was utterly wrecked with the loss of his wife.
I leaned in, “The fucker whose fault this was felt a whole lot of hurt before he left the world and descended to hell.”
John barely blinked through that news. I squeezed his uninjured shoulder.
“What can I do? What do you need, Johnny?”
“It wasn’t fast?”
“Nope. Real slow.”
John swallowed.
“What can I do?” I asked again.
“You already did it. Thank you.”
“Can I get you anything, call someone?”
He shook his head. “My father’s on the way. He’ll help make… arrangements.”
He kept shaking his head and shrugged, eyes looking off into space.
I sat with him a while and then I told him I’d call him in a day or two but he should call me day or night if he needed anything. He barely nodded.
I met with Ben after that, at his condo. He and Olive weren’t overly hurt physically, just a few scrapes like me, but they were devastated. Neither looked like they’d slept.
The financial end wouldn’t sting too much; the place was well insured. Rebuilding of that end of the building could happen once the cops gave it the all clear, which might take some time due to their investigation. And then there would be a grand re-opening that would undoubtedly get good coverage from the press since the story had hit the national news.
Olive was worried people would be afraid to come. Ben told her he had a good PR firm. Olive excused herself to say she wanted to call John’s house to talk to his mother again, who was there with the kids. Olive wanted to get John’s Dad’s cell so she could go to the hospital and offer her help from here.
Ben and I talked and decided we’d reconvene in a few weeks, once John was ready to move forward. If he needed more time, I’d offer to be his proxy with the other partners, maybe. I’d do what I could to help him out.
John’s situation weighed on me. Felt like too much weight to even consider. I couldn’t begin to imagine what it was like to be him but I just wanted to take Tia and shield her, shield her from the fucked-up world around us so that no one could take her from me.
On my way out the door, I texted my brother again. I’d talked to him briefly on Skype a few hours earlier. He was in Thailand and I’d been vague but he knew the gist of what had gone down here. I was in the middle of sending the text when my phone rang. Zack Jacobs was calling.
“Yo,” I answered.
“Denarda?”
“Naw, man, this is Tommy. Wrong number.”
“Denarda? Status,” Zack had little patience.
I didn’t give a fuckin’ shit.
“What about him?”
“What happened to him? He dead?”
“I would know this information?”
“Investigation is done, Tommy. We’ve got enough to prosecute him for Tessa and for a whack of underage porn that’ll be found in his home once the warrant is executed. I’m sure it wouldn’t take much to pin the explosions on him, too.”
“Is that so?”
“Fuck,” Zack grunted, “He’s dead. Isn’t he?”
“Maybe if he is dead, he died knowing that the footnote about him will say he had a massive collection of kid porn. Maybe the guy that killed him whispered to the sick fuck what it’d say in the papers in his ear or somethin’. Not that I’d necessarily know about all that.”
Zack didn’t reply.
“Where are you?” I broke the long and loaded silence.
“You know where I am.”
He was in Thailand.
“All right, let’s stop asking questions we both know the answers to. You want something else from me?“
“Guess not at the moment.” Zack grumbled.
“We need to talk about Romero when we’re all back home. You told my brother you’d go the extra mile to help him find his sister-in-law.”
“And I did find her.” Zack said, “He won’t give her up and he’s untouchable.”
“We’ll see about that. Meantime, you need to make sure that things go well for my brother and his wife, Zack. We don’t want her to have to get on the stand and re-live her nightmare and we sure as fuck don’t wanna change names.”
“I’m doin’ what I can Tommy, but----”
“Do more. Including thinking on how to help my brother out with his sister-in-law problem.”
He was quiet.
“Gimme a really fuckin’ good reason to put you on a list of strategic relationships that I won’t feel the need to end, Zack.”
A beat of silence and then “Right.”
I ended the call.