Trapped in his End Game (Series)

JOE

I’ve read about this thing that happens to kidnapped victims. It’s called “Stockholm Syndrome.” It’s a phenomenon where victims start to express feelings of sympathy and empathy for their captors. Is there such a thing for something happening in the reverse?

I feel sorry for her.

It was bad enough seeing her face all fucked up at her apartment. My heart broke when she cried, her small hands cradling her mangled head. I couldn’t stand to watch her get so upset, so I left. Now that I know who did it, my mind has been obsessed-consumed with thoughts of violent reprisal. I already killed one of the pricks, but the rest will have to go.

I walk into the living room to see Marisa sitting on the couch, watching the Disney channel. Christ, I didn’t even know that I have it. The moment she sees me, she swallows hard and shuts the TV off. She balls her fists at her sides and cringes when I walk closer.

“Sorry.”

The tense tone she uses and her darting eyes fill me with searing guilt. She’s back to being afraid of me.

“You can watch TV if you want.”

“Thanks,” she says tersely, but makes no move to turn it back on.

I frown. I didn’t like rejecting her. Hell, I felt like an asshole when her face fell apart. Of course, I lied out of my ass. The truth is that just hanging around her makes me happier than I’ve been in months. If things weren’t such a fucking mess and if I’d met her under different circumstances, it would be a different story. I just don’t think it’s wise to have her as anything more than a comare. Jack wouldn’t like it, and when Jack doesn’t like you, he gets rid of you.

That’s the reality.

It was a nice game to play with her, but it has got to end. I have to end it.

If only the suffocating feeling in my chest would disappear.

I sit down next to her and absorb her silence, the way her chest rises and falls, the careful manner in which she places her hands on her thighs. Her face looks a lot better. Almost healed, really, except for a faint yellow shadow on the side of her head.

“How are you feeling?”

Oh, I’m sure she’s fucking feeling great after you shot her down. Stupid question.

“Okay.”

“Listen,” I begin in a low voice, “about yesterday-”

Marisa suddenly grabs my bicep and a rush of dizziness makes me forget the rest of my sentence when she climbs onto my lap like it’s the most normal thing in the world. I have to appreciate the gall of this woman. Did I say she could do that?

But then she straddles my waist and my mouth is suddenly dry. Blonde hair falls around my hands as I touch her small face, which is wretched with sadness. Her hair tickles my face as she leans into me, and her lips fall on mine, my mouth open in surprise.

What is she doing? I told her yesterday-

Dude, shut up.

My heart pounds a bit faster and I wrap my arms around her back, playing with the seam of her t-shirt. I pull her closer to me, feeling lost in the sensation of her tongue playing with my lips. Both of us are fucked in the head. She’s in over her head, and I’ve completely lost mine. I realize that.

No strings!

It’s a feeble shout in the wind, swallowed up almost immediately when she sits up and tears her own shirt off her body. Her naked body. Two perfect tits stare at my face and I feel my jeans tighten around my cock. My hand slides up her silky skin and grabs her tits. She leans forward, pressing herself against my palm. Her breath tickles my ear.

“You know, this isn’t so bad. No work. Just relaxing with you.”

My fingers dig into her sides. She has no idea what the fuck she’s saying, has no idea of the danger she’s in. I’m such a fucking asshole. If I cared about this girl at all, I would give her the two grand I have stashed here and tell her to run. Get out of New York.

She’s relaxed, but I spend the days wanting to claw out of my skin. If they want her dead, they’ll expect me to do it-and I can’t! I can’t do this hit for them. Vince was right, I have gone soft.Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

Fuck!

Her hands freeze on my chest. “Are you okay? You look a little tense.”

No, sweetheart. I definitely am not okay by any stretch of the imagination.

“I’m all right.” Then I shake my head, realizing how that sounds. “I’m more than all right. You are beautiful.”

I bury my face in her chest, trying to get lost in the feeling of her tits in my hands. They’re warm and soft, and for some reason they make my cock hard enough to gouge holes through my jeans.

At the back of my mind, I’m worried about the guy I killed. Sooner or later, they’re going to come after me. They probably already suspect what happened. I don’t know if he was made or not, but if he was that will have serious repercussions for me. Jack might be working out a deal with them right now, and I would have no idea. I won’t know until it happens-you never know. One minute, you’re going out to eat with friends, and the next your head is wrapped by a plastic bag, and they sink two bullets in your head.

I wouldn’t see it coming.

Fuck the half naked girl in your hands.

I’m about to rip off her pants, when a flashing screen fills my body with dread. The small cell-phone to the right of my head plays a merry tone. I look at it. Jack.

“Fuck! I’m sorry, Marisa. I have to take this.”

She slides off my lap and I watch her pick up her t-shirt, feeling deep regret inside my throat.

I have to answer it.

“Yeah?” I clear my throat.

“Joe! How are you holding up there?”

I still have a huge boner. I tug my jeans painfully, and will it to go down. “Can’t complain. What’s going on?”

“I’m going to be sending someone down to watch the girl. I’ve organized a sit-down with Carmine’s underboss. I want you to come with us.”

The breath catches in my chest as the air suddenly turns ice-cold. The phone almost slips from my hand.

“That sounds like a trap.”

“Are you worried about that guy? Vince and I have no love for the Lucchesi outfit, you know that.”

“All the same, I wasn’t born yesterday.”

This is always how it is. How many times have I watched him trick guys into meeting with him?

If he wants me, he’ll get me. There’s no hiding from Giacomo Vittorio.

“Joe, stop being an idiot. We’re meeting them on our turf, and I need you there to help me calm Vincent. You know how he is.”

Briefly, an image of Vince hurling a beer bottle in my living room flashes through my mind. “Yeah, I do.”

“Meet me at the deli.”

* * *

It’s a breezy night and the sand under my feet reminds me of running on the beach with Marisa on Coney Island. My heart flutters at the memory, filling me with painful regret. My hand keeps patting my gun as I walk down with the others.

Nicky walks behind me, his little sour face twisted into a smile I’ve never been able to trust. We’re meeting Carmine’s crew under Brooklyn Bridge. Vincent and the others walk ahead of me, talking. The diseased water laps gently on the ruined shore. I step aside and stop walking.

I can’t fucking take this anymore.

My limbs shake as Nicky stops beside me with raised eyebrows.

“Walk ahead of me.”

He somehow takes it as an insult. He always takes everything badly. “What the fuck is your problem?”

Vince twists his head around and gives me a brilliant smile. “He thinks he’s here to get clipped. Not today, Joey.” Then he laughs as if he said something hilarious and continues down.

Not fucking funny.

“This is no place for a sit-down. It’s more of a place to lure someone so that they can get fucking killed.”

To my surprise, Nicky’s face cracks with a smile. “Oh, so you care about dying now? I told you all you needed was to get laid.” He slaps my arm affectionately, and I absorb the blow stiffly.

The short man walks ahead of me and I allow myself to exhale a little. It’s hard. My lungs feel like boulders. I walk down the shore and turn around to see Jack, Vince, and Nicky surrounding a man I recognize as Jamie Tucci. A man with the reputation of a snake. He wears a neat pinstripe suit, his gray hair delicately swept back. His long face stretches into a taut leer when he sees me.

“Ah, Mr. DiFiore. You wouldn’t happen to know where my associate is, would you?”

My face is a mask of cool when I walk between Jack and Vince, shrugging my shoulders. “Who?”

His face tightens. “Frank Costa. My enforcer. He went to Worlds Casino to collect a payment, and never came back.”

I bristle under the heat of his gaze. This guy has the fucking balls to get angry at me, when that moron shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Beside me, I feel Vince’s heat. He was never good at controlling his anger, and it’s close to boiling over. I’m not surprised to see a look of deep loathing on his face.

“You’ll never see him again. I had my associates chop him up.”

Jamie hisses through his teeth, an inhuman sound that reminds me of a serpent. “Well, that’s unfortunate because he was a made man. Carmine will want justice, of course.”

His eyes narrow over mine, and I stare right back.

Go ahead, asshole. Try it.

“Listen, asshole. The less you mention Carmine, the better this will go.”

He merely looks at Jack, adopting an oily tone as he watches both of them. “We know all about the hit you ordered on Carmine. It’s not going to happen. He has a lot of allies in the joint and people fear him after what he did to the Rizzos. No one’s going to fuck with him.”

The man beside me steps forward violently, but I grab one of his arms and yank him back. Nicky shoves Vince’s chest and forces him backwards, but his face is red with rage. “I don’t see Carmine anywhere. What the fuck is stopping anyone from gunning you down right here, right now?”

Jack continues in a louder voice. “Let me make this clear. The purpose of this sit-down was to give you a warning. Frank’s death will be the first of many, unless you back off. I have allowed you to exist because I was hoping for better leadership than Tony Rizzo or Carmine Lucchesi, and I’m not yet convinced by some of the other outfits in Jersey, but if this disrespectful behavior continues, we will hunt you down.”

He steps back and raises his hands.

“Jack, we meant no disrespect, but we had an arrangement with Mr. Toffoli before he passed, and the girl has missed several payments. It’s unacceptable.”

I wondered when her name would crop up. Jamie’s face is filled with carefully restrained rage.

“You’ll take the ten grand we got from the girl, and that’s it.”

The smirk is back on his face. “All I can do is deliver the message.”

The meeting over, I breathe a sigh of relief as they turn around and we walk back to our cars. I got a slimy feeling from that Jamie Tucci. I doubt he’ll hold up his end of the bargain, particularly where I’m concerned.

“That fucking bitch caused a lot of problems for us,” Vince snarls at me as if it’s my fault.

The insult worms its way under my skin. I know that his rage isn’t directed towards me, but I still feel nettled. She doesn’t deserve this bullshit.

“It’s not her fault that her old man made a bunch of bad decisions.”

“She’s just as much to blame. If we would have known this earlier-”

“What?” I snap. “What would have been different?”

His head turns around at my tone and I get up in his face, heart pounding in my chest. The guys around us exclaim excitedly.

For a moment, he looks like he wants to knee me in the balls, but the tense moment breaks and he lets out a little laugh. He backs up, leaning against his arms on the roof of his car as he gives me that sarcastic grin that I can’t fucking stand.

“Jesus Christ. You’re falling for this girl, aren’t you?”

A sudden sensation runs through me like missing a stair on a staircase. “I’m not falling for her, but she’s my comare, so shut the fuck up.”

Nicky and the others laugh their asses off, the sound making the hair on my arms singe. Vince’s long legs shift as he sits up slightly, crossing his arms, a glare forming over his face.

My raised voice attracts Jack’s attention, who looks at us curiously. “What’s going on?”

Vince opens his stupid fucking mouth before I can. “Joey here is in love with that Toffoli broad.”

Jack raises his eyebrows at me and I roll my eyes, pretending to be annoyed rather than filled with violent rage. Laughter shakes from Vince’s broad chest, his dark hair falling into his eyes. “Look at how angry he is,” he tells Jack.

That’s it.

Red rage flashes over my vision. His laughing, sneering face seems to echo around me, and suddenly my hands are wrapped around his throat and I’m slamming his head into his car hood. He shoves me off his chest, screaming, and my fist smashes against the side of his face and his jaw whips to the side. At least three guys slam into my chest, pulling me back before I can get another shot at him. Vince steps back, momentarily dazed. He touches his face and looks shocked to see blood shining on his fingers.

Jack shoves my chest. “Who the fuck do you think you are? What’s wrong with you?”

I lunge for Vince again, who looks at me as if he’s never seen me before. I can’t explain the violent tornado of emotions inside my chest.

“I’m fucking sick of being disrespected by you!”

He sneers at that, wiping the line of blood at the edge of his mouth. “Respect is for those who deserve it, not for those who demand it.”

“Fuck you!”

Nicky hisses in my ear. “Watch your fucking mouth!”

“All this for that fucking whore?”

Vince was always an asshole, but he’s never been nasty to me. Everyone’s shouts rise to the stars as whore falls from his lips. It’s not just an insult against her, it’s one against me. I don’t fuck whores. Never have, never will.

Piece of shit.

The thin band of restraint snaps inside me. I wrench my arms out of Nicky’s grasp and tackle Vince. His back slams into the concrete and I slam my fists into his face, crunching against bone and muscle. He snarls at me and his head launches forward. He strikes the bridge of my nose, which sears with pain. I grab it and he shoves me over. A ruthless kick to my side sends a deep pain through my body, the sharpness of his shoe jutting into my skin.

“Stop it! Vince-enough!”

Only the boss’ voice reins him in. His feet scrape the pavement as he moves away from my body.

“Fucking asshole.”

No one laughs when I drag myself to my feet, glaring at Vince with a corrosive hatred so strong I can almost smell it. Jack’s whitened face blocks Vincent’s from mine. He clasps my shoulder and shakes it slightly. “Joey, what the hell’s gotten into you? The girl is none of your concern-”

“-I know, Goddamn it.”

I just snapped at the boss. Fuck’s sake, do I want a death wish?

Jack’s fingers painfully grip the back of my neck and shove me towards my car. “Go home and sleep this off.”

Vince’s high voice stabs the back of my head. “You better watch your fucking back!”

What the fuck have I just done?