Page 29 of Caged Bliss

Instead, anger simmers in me. I can still see Vito that night, his face brightened as he sucked on a cigarette, smirking at me and telling some dirty joke. Then the way he went all stiff when the warehouse doors banged open and those Serbians came in shooting, and he ran to take cover, and he didn’t stop running, while I got pinned down. Too much heat, too many bullets, and my guys didn’t stop to bail me out, and they sure as fuck didn’t come back when the sirens got closer and the Serbians made a break for it. No, they left me behind, hung my ass out to dry, and ever since then I keep thinking something. A question I need to ask.

Who ran first? One of them darted for the exit before the Serbians even showed up, like they knew who was coming. I don’t think it was Paulie; I remember him shouting something before the shooting started. Roc? Vito? Tommy?

The master bedroom is on the right and the door’s open a crack. I hear heavy breathing inside. My weapon goes in first, quiet as a hunting cat, and I’m right behind it. Carpet on the floor, dresser to the left, a pair of women’s shoes on the floor. Fucking high heels. Either Vito’s got a fetish he never mentioned or there’s definitely a lady. A big lump in the bed, and I keep going forward, slowly now, gun held out. The lump moves an inch and I pause, but the breathing’s still steady, nice and asleep.

I grab the sheets and pull.

She’s older. I’d bet in her forties. Shapely though, pretty, and her eyes are wide with terror as she stares at me in the night, and the breathing’s still going nice and steady, but it’s not coming from her.

It’s coming from a speaker on my right sitting on the bureau.

“Fuck,” I manage to say as I throw myself to the left.

A gun goes off behind me. It’s a shotgun, no doubt, one of those modern pump action guys. It sounds like a jet engine landing on my fucking head as a chunk of the headboard evaporates and the lady lump starts screaming her lungs bloody. I hit the floor and roll hard, firing at the darkness. No time to aim, and lucky I don’t hesitate, because another blast smashes to my left, close enough to scatter the dresser into a bunch of wooden shrapnel bits. They tear into my skin, a particularly long and nasty chunk driving into my left forearm.

I scramble back, shooting until my cylinder is empty and the hammer clicks on nothing. I reach the bathroom and roll into it, the woman sobbing and going hoarse with terror. I’m bloody and my fingers are slick as I try to reload, but it’s fucking impossible; I have to hold the gun in my off-hand and use my right, which is a goddamn mess. If Vito charges, I’m dead.

The bullets slip into their nests and the gun’s full again. I crack it shut and aim around the corner, but there’s nothing. No return fire, no movement, except for the girl. I wait, straining to hear, but she won’t shut the fuck up.

“Be quiet or I’m going to kill you,” I snarl and it’s like she just realizes I’m six feet away. She hurls herself off the bed, but at least she’s only sobbing now and not making that god-awful screeching.

More silence. No shooting. I’m fucked in the eye socket. My left arm’s a bloody wreck and I have no clue where Vito’s at. He could be waiting for me to make a break for it, or he could be long gone, and I can’t stick around here forever to find out. Someone heard the shooting and they definitely heard the fucking screaming.

I retreat into the bathroom. The sinks are both messy. I grab a towel, wrap it up into a loose ball, and chuck it into the bedroom. I wait a beat then dive out after it, hit the bed, roll hard, and land on the far side with my gun up pointing at the doorway.

Nothing. No movement.

Except for the woman. She’s curled up on the floor, sobbing into her hands. I shove the gun against her head and lean in close. “Listen to me. You want to survive this? Who do you live with?”

“Vito,” she says, hiccupping. “Just Vito. Nobody else.”

“Why were you alone in the bed? Why was there a speaker playing snoring?”

“Trap,” she says, shaking so hard my gun rattles against her head. “He made me. Said it’d be fine, he’d finish you off and then it would all be over. Said once Paulie went down, it was him next.”

Fucking hell. I knew Paulie would spook them, but I had no clue Vito was this paranoid.

“I need you to get up. I need you to walk ahead of me out into the hall. Can you do that?”

“Please,” she says, shaking her head. She’s got dark brown eyes and I feel bad for her.

“Your boyfriend’s a fucking asshole.” I drag her to her feet. She’s barely over five-foot and weighs nothing. It’s easy to get her going. She makes a terrible human shield but I’m hoping Vito will hesitate if he’s still waiting. The guy was always sentimental.

“Please don’t kill me,” she says, and I can’t tell if she’s talking to me. I steer her into the hall, the gun held out in front of us, aiming into the darkness. My body’s on high alert, adrenaline going haywire.

“Keep moving.” I shove her to the steps. Nobody shoots. She goes first and I watch our back. Vito never appears. “Don’t stop until you get to the kitchen.”

“Please,” she keeps saying, over and over, and waving her arms in the air like she’s trying to ward off danger.

Nothing happens. Dead silence. Then the roar of an engine from the driveway and the lady sprints away from me, screaming like a maniac for the back door.

I let her go and peer through the windows. Vito’s car kicks into gear, spins out, flies away from the driveway in reverse, barely misses a tree, hits the street, bounces, flips to drive, and peels out. He’s gone in a spin of rubber smoke.

Damn.

I limp out the front door. There’s a nosy fucking neighbor nearby, some poofy-white-haired woman with a droopy face, probably calling the cops. I cradle my wrecked arm, get into my truck, and start driving.

That went like shit.

---