Page 102 of Total Obsession

"You've heard the name Johnny Maldonado, yes?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Right. Pretty much everyone has. He's the head, former head I guess, of the northeast division of the Italian Mob. He got ratted out on drug charges and is currently sitting in federal prison on tax evasion charges. That's always how they get the higher-ups.

"He's got four sons and they don't all get along. He wanted to change that, or at least make it so that their infighting didn't cost the family their position in the criminal world while he was behind bars. So, he called me in. I was roughly the same age as his sons growing up, so while there wasn't necessarily a friendship there, there was a familiarity."

"What did he ask you to do, Axe?"

"Set up the firstborn so that he'd get arrested. He didn't want him in charge. Implicate the third son so that he'd have no choice but to go along with the family business. He never liked crime. Was always trying to get the family out of it. Johnny worried he'd eventually rat everyone out."

"And, what about the other two?"

"He wanted the second son to take over, but Tino's been a little slow on that front. I haven't heard from him recently."

"And, the fourth son?"

Axe smiled. "He just asked me to keep Teddy busy. He was never a concern. But Primo got wind of the whole thing and tried to have me assassinated. Couldn't believe or wouldn't believe your choice, that his father wanted him out of the picture, at least temporarily.

"My old partner, Beau, and him set the whole thing up. I guess they offered Will a lot of money to flip sides. Had to be that or some sort of blackmail on him. I knew that kid. Brought him up from someone with absolutely no future to-"

I interrupted him. "There's no future in crime, Axe," I said. "You still didn't give him a future."

Axe opened his eyes and turned to look at me. "Maybe you're right, Zoey. Maybe all this time I've been operating off this false paradigm that if I could just get enough money or get rid of enough people, I could live a quiet life. Maybe that was always just some dream."

"You don't need a lot of money or to kill a lot of people to live a quiet life," I said. "You just need a job. Anormaljob."

"You always were my conscience," he said. "The day I lost you I lost everything."

His words hung heavy between us. I didn't know what to say to his confession.

"Zoey," he finally said, still leaning back with his eyes closed.

"Yeah?"

"There's got to be some way I can win you back. Please tell me how."

"I--" I hesitated. "I don't know if that's going to be possible," I admitted.

"Then, please tell me you'll at least let me try."

thirty-two

ZOEY

I really wasn’t sure that I wanted to have anything to do with Axe. My emotions were a mess, and I was trying to hide that fact the best I could. I knew that if Axe knew I was struggling, he would do everything in his power to fix it.

Except, right now, I didn’t want him to do anything for me.

I needed space to work out how I felt about the whole situation, about everything he’d told me, and about him.

Unfortunately, space was really hard to come by in a 400 square foot motel room.

I guess I could have just left, but Axe had made it clear that I would be a target for the people who were after him. I hated that he’d trapped me in this prison, and I was making him pay the price for it.

Was it nice?

No.

---