Page 55 of Caesar DeLuca
I’ve already made up my mind about what I want to do to Rocky, but that’s not what I’m thinking about. My thoughts have wandered to Ariana again only seconds after I chastised myself for thinking about her in the first place.
She lives only a few miles away from Lake Kittatinny. It’s how she found me that night.
This is the closest I’ve been to her in months. If we drove forty-five minutes down the road, we’d encounter her hidden-away home. She’d be there, probably reading a book or playing another card game.
If I showed up at her doorstep, would she invite me inside?
You’ve got to be fucking around. Stop thinking about her!
I clear my throat and motion for Vasco to grab our supplies out of the car. He returns seconds later carrying a duffle bag of weapons and a steel baseball bat that rests against his shoulder. I opt for the bat.
“You must know what’s coming, Rocky,” I say, winding the bat at my side. After playing softball as a young boy and then baseball when I got older, I’m more than comfortable handling a bat. “You were delusional to believe you could betray me and make it out alive.”
“Caesar, it was blackmail. Alfredo left me no choice!”
“There’s always a choice, Rocky. You should have known you’re expected to die being loyal rather than to live being a traitor. You chose the latter because your new boss sold you a lie you’d get away with it. I’d be dead, right?”
Rocky shakes his head side to side, sweat shining on his skin. His clothes are soaked through, deep sweat stains darkening the fabric. Add the blood spots from his injuries and the dirt from being dragged around like a sack of potatoes, and Rocky’s seen better days.
“He… he made me, Caesar,” he mumbles. “I never wanted to do what I did.”
“Men who beg and cry are weak links. I don’t know why you believe appealing for mercy in this way will win me over,” I say, irritation clenching my scowl further. “As if I could find you any more pathetic. I partially blame myself for not seeing it sooner. I’m more discerning than that.”
“We’ve known each other si-since we were kids… you can’t!”
I circle him, still practicing my swing. The steel bat winds up in my grasp as I come to a slow halt directly in front of him.
“Maybe you’re right. Because I had known you since we were twelve, I overlooked some signs,” I ponder aloud. The bat spins in my hand as I rotate my wrist. “But it’s a good thing you showed yourself for the treacherous coward that you are. Better late than never.”
Rocky opens his mouth to scream as the steel slams into his face and then cracks his skull. He loses consciousness almost immediately, though the rest of his body jerks as it flops to the ground. I take another swing, and then a third after that for good measure.
By the time I’m through, Rocky Toretto is lying on the ground, his head bashed in and deflated like a ball that’s lost its air. The bloodied steel bat slips out of my hands, and my men move in at once to begin cleaning up the scene.
I’m breathing hard, pacing between the gory mess and where the cars have been parked. A rush of adrenaline shot through me as I hit Rocky and got my revenge for what he tried to pull. It feels like an end to a chapter to be able to make him pay.
He brought it on himself for betraying me. Next up, Alfredo Carisi.
But before that I must do it—I’ve got to give into a spur of the moment urge, a whim that’s driving me, for once.
I snatch the car keys from Vasco and stride toward the driver’s side door. He calls after me, asking what I am up to? Where am I going?
I shout from over my shoulder. “For a quick drive. I’ll be back within the hour. Clean this mess up, dispose of him in the lake using the cinder blocks. Then wait for further instruction.”
The rubber on the tires screeches as I slam on the gas and speed off. I barely know where I’m going, operating off memory as I cut through a backwoods road that’s so close to the mountains, it feels like they’re looming over you.
Just a peek. Just a basic drive by. Just a quick glance to make sure…
The imagery of her bundled up in her den as she sips on hot tea materializes in my head. It makes me almost visualize myself present. Right there in the room with her.
My mind races. My fingers are tight and decisive on the wheel as I turn down another long road and then spot the sloped roof of her home. I brake coming up on the familiar house from the road that leads to her driveway.
Unease clenches my stomach muscles. My eyes narrow staring at the house.
The lights are off. Even the porch light Ariana always leaves on is off. I check the time and discover it’s minutes after nine. It’s possible she went to bed early.
Yet, as I sit and watch her home from the road, the unease deepens. My gut tells me she didn’t go to bed early because she’s not home.
“Ariana,” I mutter under my breath, “where did you go?”
