Consumed by the Mafia (De Salvo Family #5)

13. Opposite Worlds

thirteen

Opposite Worlds

Newark was fully behind them when Gerardo pulled onto a soft shoulder overlooking the Passaic River. He killed the engine but didn’t bother removing the keys from the ignition.

“Have you thought this part through, Ger?” Ryōma asked from the seat he’d since reclaimed.

Gerardo let his seatbelt slide away. “I have, asshole.”

Abigail spotted a tell-tale reflection just above his lap and her eyes blew wide. “Gun!” They were all armed, of course, but hers was tucked unhelpfully at her back. As she suspected Ryōma’s was. Gerardo’ s, however, was pointed almost perfectly in her direction.

Ryōma cursed and lurched forward as the first gunshot exploded in the suddenly too-small cab of the SUV.

Abigail threw herself as far to the side as she could, twisting her body and narrowly missing the bullet. She wrenched at the door handle, but it wouldn’t give. Seriously? Child locks?

Two more gunshots went off in quick succession, deafening her to the lower pitched sounds of the males who’d semi-literally fallen into a struggle.

Unable to get her door open, and assuming the glass to be bullet resistant, Abigail scooted forward and extracted her weapon. Her ears were still ringing, but she couldn’t have missed the visual of the fight that had spilled onto the center console in a fumbling mess of flailing limbs unless she were fully blind.

Ryōma appeared to have hauled Gerardo out of the driver’s seat and was alternating between wailing on and strangling the man. For his part, Gerardo was trying to beat Ryōma off. Every time Gerardo went to bring the gun between them, Ryōma managed to shove Gerardo’s entire arm up and to the side.

As she watched, another bullet shot wide, into the windshield.

They needed to get out of the SUV.

Abigail tore her gaze away from the men, knowing her involvement would only work against her endgame. If they wanted out, she was going to have to crawl behind Ryōma and across the seats, and do her best to stretch over to the driver’s side control panel. It was risky. But so was holding still and hoping the next stray bullet didn’t lodge in her chest.

Abigail tucked her gun away in order to free up her hands and moved back onto the seats. She wasn’t sure if the cursing and grunting got louder or if that was just her mind becoming hyper-focused on the unignorable sounds of the fight.

“G-get off!” Gerardo said with a grunt. “I’ll fuckin’ kill you both!”

“Funny,” Ryōma said, a mild strain in his voice. “I kinda had the impression that was Plan A.”

Abigail shimmied herself behind her lover’s awkwardly positioned legs, watching all the while as Gerardo seemed to renew his effort to take control of his gun. He squeezed the trigger again as she slipped her first foot back onto the floor and her heart leapt into her throat. But no pain followed, and Ryōma remained anchored in position. She pushed onward, flattening herself against the frame as best she could.

Ryōma grunted, his foot shifting on the floor mat, and Gerardo’s weaponless arm arched above the seatback before curving back down.

He couldn’t possibly reach her from where Ryōma had him pinned, so Abigail pressed herself into the back of the driver’s seat and stretched her arm out. She did her best not to listen to Gerardo’s cursing as her fingers fumbled over the buttons on the door panel, craned her neck in order to see, and finally depressed the one she needed. The cabin of the SUV echoed with the rear lock release.

“Out, Abby!” Ryōma said before she could find breath to tell him with words.

She wanted to hesitate, to argue, but there was no rationale behind the instinct. So she bit it back and hurriedly yanked on the door still partially holding her upright. Another gunshot went off behind her and she half threw herself outside, rolling across the dirt to put distance between herself and the threat. As she got her knees under her, she reached back and tugged out her gun again. “Ryōma, get out here, I’ll cover you!”

The SUV rocked and movement blurred beyond the one open door. A male cry sounded from inside that she was mostly sure was Gerardo. Seconds later, Ryōma kicked Gerardo out the door before jumping down himself.

Abigail shuffled back, finding her feet and adjusting the gun to keep it aimed at the man who’d essentially kidnapped them.

“Watch yourself, Abby,” Ryōma said, his gaze flicking up to her and then past. “He parked on a fucking cliff.”

Her eyes widened and she spared a glance behind her. She had about a foot to spare before she’d be stepping on open air and discovering first-hand that gravity doesn’t work in the real world quite the way it does in the old cartoons. That explains why he picked this spot. Gerardo had probably wanted to use the Passaic for an easy body dump.

“You … fucking … traitor,” Gerardo said on a groan. He pushed up to his knees and elbows and Abigail realized he’d dropped his gun.

“You’re the traitor, jackass,” Ryōma said. He pulled a knife from beneath his pantleg, took a single step to the side, and stabbed the blade into the nearest tire. “Maybe I leave you stranded here for a cleanup crew to pick up, let the boss remind you what happens to idiots who openly defy orders. ”

Gerardo snarled, lunged for his gun, and Abigail squeezed her trigger. She made sure to aim for his hand, nothing fatal and hopefully effectively disarming him. Also effectively capturing his attention.

She ignored the predictable, pain-laden insult he hurled at her and held his glare. “The next one drops you,” she said, tone firm. “Don’t make me shoot again.”

Gerardo’s lips curled as he cradled his bleeding hand and pushed to his feet. “I hope you’re still awake when you drown, you fuckin’ cun—” His words died on his tongue as blood spilled past his lips. Sickly wet, incoherent sputtering became the only sounds that escaped him. More blood squirted from his throat, running quickly down his chest, as Ryōma extracted his dagger.

Abigail’s eyes widened and she lowered her arms, unable to look away.

Ryōma had plunged his blade into the back of Gerardo’s throat until the tip of it poked through the front. She hadn’t even seen him move. But she saw clearly as he withdrew his blade and let Gerardo’s fresh corpse drop. He glared down at the man who had been his colleague, letting the still bright red, glistening blood drip onto Gerardo’s form and the ground beside him from the lowered weapon.

Abigail sucked in a breath. She told herself she’d already realized this was probably coming down to a kill-or-be-killed thing. The argument did little to lessen the shock of what she’d witnessed. And it wasn’t merely that Ryōma had killed Gerardo. It was the silent efficiency, the apparent ease, the lack of warning or hesitation .

They really did come from opposite worlds.

Ryōma set the dagger down on top of Gerardo’s body, straightened, and turned toward the SUV. “Could you do me a favor and call Mikey?” He asked as he walked toward the trunk. “Tell him Gerardo decided to ice us and I did what I had to, and now we need a crew. You should tell him about those recordings you grabbed, too. He’ll want something to convince him I’m not the double-cross.”

Shit. Abigail swallowed and tucked away her gun. “Yeah.” She dug out her phone, checked the battery, and pulled up her contacts. “He’s got access to the stuff on my device, right? So I don’t have to try texting these files?” They probably wouldn’t text, and using something like an online file share was too vulnerable.

“That’s what he said.” She could hear him rifling through something, but she couldn’t see him properly enough to have any idea what.

Abigail cut a nervous glance to the road, grateful it at least wasn’t a main interstate, and dialed.

“Tell him we won’t be waiting for a ride, either,” Ryōma added as the phone rang in her ear. “Too risky.” He walked back into sight, disposable gloves on his hands and holding a towel.

She watched, listening to the ringing, as he lifted the weapon he’d used on Gerardo and proceeded to wipe the tell-tale blood away. She almost didn’t hear the line connect.

“You went an odd direction,” Mikey said, almost sounding bored .

Abigail frowned. “Your driver kidnapped us and tried to throw us over a cliff.”

Ryōma sighed.

There was a beat of hesitation, and when Mikey spoke again, his tone was sharper. He almost sounded like his brother, in fact. At least to Abigail’s ears. “The fuck? You’re accusing one of my men of—”

“There are three audio recordings on my phone,” she said, cutting him off for the sake of time and her sanity. “Feel free to dive in and listen to them. Gerardo had no interest in following orders. Sounded to me like he didn’t trust his employer’s judgment. We tried getting away when the vehicle parked, but he had his gun ready and long story short Ryōma said to tell you we need a crew.”

Ryōma dropped the bloodied towel onto Gerardo’s corpse after sheathing his carefully wiped blade, stripped off the gloves, and stepped over to her. He held out his hand, so Abigail handed over the phone as Mikey started speaking again. “I know it sounds sketchy,” he said, probably also talking over his employer. “I’d have left Gerardo breathing if he hadn’t been so insistent on seeing us dead. Given the choices, I figured surviving and pushing forward with the boss’s plan was priority.”

Abigail shifted her weight as she listened, feeling suddenly hyper aware of everything about their surroundings. The softened dirt behind her feet, the sound of rushing water she’d somehow been tuning out up to then, and the presence of a not-so-small roadway close enough that she could sporadically identify passing vehicles through the foliage of trees a ways ahead. It was fortunate for them that Gerardo hadn’t wanted witnesses, so he’d found a sideroad for his task that curved away from the main interstate. But that didn’t guarantee no one would come by.

“I understand that,” Ryōma said. His tone was a bit tight, drawing Abigail’s attention, but he didn’t appear any more alarmed than before. “No, we’re gonna get some distance. The area’s too exposed.”

Her eyes widened. She wholly agreed, but she was surprised she wasn’t going to have to argue for that.

Ryōma nodded. “We aren’t planning on disappearing.” His stare settled back on her. “Back toward the city?”

It took her a second to realize the question was for her, because she got to have a say in where they searched. Abigail drew a breath and nodded. She hadn’t intended to take her search beyond the city, not considering that her new focus was themselves actively targeting a local group.

Ryōma reconfirmed their goal, disconnected, and handed back her phone. “We need to move. Let’s cut across the road and stay in the trees for a bit before we slip up to the road on the other side. We’ll be an odd pair of hitchhikers, but that happens. We’ll make do.”

“You want to hitchhike ?”

“I’d rather call a cab, but if we can’t find a rest stop or other landmark to do that from, we’ll have to deal.” He held out his hand.

Abigail cut her eyes to the SUV. “Can we really afford to abandon that?” She wanted to get going, she didn’t know why she was hesitating .

“Absolutely. It’s not in either of our names, I’m guessing your prints aren’t even linked to your real identity, and Mikey’s already aware of the risk. Right now, what we need most is distance. The cleaners will be here in a few minutes to do the rest.”

The part of her that was FBI and had been struggling for months to attach anything of substance to the De Salvo name had the powerful urge to sit right there and wait for these magical cleaners. These people who could make murder scenes either disappear or lose all evidentiary viability. But she knew that was unreasonable. More than unreasonable, it was stupid. So Abigail nodded, mostly for herself, and took his hand. “Okay. Let’s go.”

They jogged across the street and Ryōma opted to backtrack into the thicker brush of the trees until they found a trail they could follow out toward the interstate. He wasn’t sure how far from anywhere Gerardo might have taken them, so he remained firmly unoptimistic as to their chances at finding a good place to pause and call up a cab. Not that cabs were ever the first choice, but under certain circumstances they could be useful.

He was sure Abby was as surprised as he was at the sight of the small gas station tucked alongside the road, almost directly across from where they emerged. And there was a yellow cab parked off to the side of the lot.

Abby held tighter to his hand. “We have to cross the interstate, don’t we?”

He grinned down at her. “At least this is the narrower section.” He encouraged her to start walking, keeping himself between her and the racing traffic. It was shortly after the morning rush, for what that was worth, but traffic was never nonexistent on major roads. “We’ll just run. If someone flashes blue lights at us, we flip the script and you whip out that badge of yours.”

“That’s a terrible plan,” Abby said as another vehicle whizzed by.

She wasn’t wrong. But getting busted by a cop eager to score favors with their new protective crew by hauling in one of the Dragon’s heavies was worse.

Ryōma took a few seconds to scan traffic, his head swiveling from side to side. They were outside of town, but not by as much as he’d initially thought. The flow of traffic was still somewhat impacted by the previous intersection, and that was helpful. “Get ready,” he said as he spotted a gap in the oncoming lane.

Abby threaded her fingers with his and he felt her draw a breath. “This is still crazy.”

He tried not to grin. She hadn’t said a word about him slicing through a man’s spinal cord, but crossing the interstate on foot she balked at. “Three.”

Her exhale carried over the roar of a passing truck .

“Two,” he said, watching the point he had his eye on open up. “One!”

They sprinted forward as soon as the closer vehicle was past, hurrying through the lane nearest them with the smaller opening and across the raised divider of mostly dead vegetation. Then it was into and quickly through the second lane. Never once did Abby’s hand slip from his. Never once did her steps falter. They hit the graveled edge of the of pit stop driveway at the same time and Ryōma released a silent breath.

The tension of their gripping hands eased to something more relaxed, but Abby made no effort to withdraw from his hold.

Side-by-side, they walked into the parking lot. Ryōma swept his gaze around, noting the open pair of gas pumps, the three other parked vehicles, and what looked like a camera tucked up over the door to the convenience store. Only the cab was parked off to the side, out of the way, almost as if it didn’t want to be seen. He angled them toward it and as soon as they were close enough for him to spot the seated figure on the cab’s other side, he understood why.

Ryōma let his lip curl. “Yo, you supposed to be smokin’ that shit when you’re driving this thing?” He dropped the knuckles of his free hand on the cab’s trunk for emphasis.

The too-skinny male with the frail looking brown hair jumped to his feet, red-rimmed pale green eyes blown wide and a blunt dangling from his fingers. Smoke wafted from his gaping mouth as he stared at Ryōma like he couldn’t believe someone had spotted him lighting up in broad daylight. “I-I’m on break, man. ”

Ryōma tilted his head. “Uh-huh. How high are you right now?” They needed to get away from the area, but fuck if he was letting some stoner get behind the wheel.

The other man coughed and held up his weed. “It’s my first one!” He seemed with it enough to recognize the disbelief on Ryōma’s face, because he glanced down at the object he still held and more quietly added, “Since my shift started, I mean. I swear.”

Ryōma mulled the words, and the overall tone of the response, over in his mind. In all honesty, he’d probably taken worse risks. “Well, snuff that out. We need a ride.”

The man frowned, scrunching up his face as even more lines appeared on his skin. “Fuck. At least let me take my break, man. Gimme ten more minutes.”

As he spoke, Abby’s grip on Ryōma’s hand tightened again and she leaned into him. The fingers of her free hand dug into the skin of his exposed arm. He even thought he heard her drag in a hard breath.

Ryōma felt a scowl bend his lips and turned his focus to her. No one else had approached them, he didn’t understand what she was reacting to. He needed to know. He’d looked away from the pot-head in front of them, so he missed whatever expression crossed the man’s face before the man spoke again.

“Oh, shit. It’s you.”

Abby was shaking, but mounting rage was all Ryōma could see on her face. “Corey Wells,” she said, speaking barely above a whisper. “This— this is what you’re doing with the life you were allowed to keep?” Her voice escalated with the intensity of each word, until she was nearly yelling .

The cabbie swung his arm forward, pointing his blunt at her. “You psycho, stalking bitch! I did my time!”

Understanding slammed into Ryōma a heartbeat before Abby released his arm, and his hand, and took a half-step forward. The cabbie with the bad habits he’d thought to press for an off-the-books ride was, by some unfathomable stroke of questionable luck, the driver responsible for Abby’s parents’ homicide. She had said she’d lost track of him, but damn. Wonder who was really stalking who?

Abby used his moment of realization to draw her gun. “Four years doesn’t come anywhere near balancing the scale, you bastard. Do you think they only had four years left? Do you think I stopped mourning them after four years? Do you think my grandparents stopped mourning their daughter after four years?” Her finger curled around the trigger as he backed up, the blunt falling from his hand. “I was still a child when you were set free from your so-called punishment, and you think you got what you deserved?”

Ryōma laid a hand on her shoulder, squeezing just enough to get her attention. Hopefully to keep her from dropping a body right there in the parking lot. He kept his glare on Wells. “Here’s what’s gonna happen, pal. You’re gonna take your keys out of your pocket, slowly, and toss ‘em to me. We’re going to ride in the backseat while Abby here does the driving. You’ll hand over your phone and any other electronic, signal-producing device you have on you voluntarily because you don’t want me to start slicing. I’m very good at drawing out the pain. Do you understand? ”

Wells’s eyes went wide again, darting between them wildly. “F-fuck…”

“Refuse, or try to run, and I’ll just shoot you,” Abby said. “And I’ll sleep so damn good.”

Ryōma struggled to keep his mean face on as a combination of pride and lust surged through him. It was probably for the best that Wells admitted defeat and dipped one hand into his front pants pocket.

“Okay, okay. Christ. Just don’t kill me, you fucking lunatics…” He pulled a set of keys from the pocket, held them up for emphasis, then tossed them weakly through the air. They clanged onto the surface of the cab and slid another foot, bringing them within Ryōma’s reach. “Can I at least finish my—”

“No,” Abby said firmly.

Ryōma snatched up the keys, walked around his girlfriend, and finally held them out to her. “I’ll keep him in line, baby girl.” He tapped the fob to unlock the car. “You get us back to the city.” Bringing in an unplanned, unaffiliated guest was not on anyone’s to-do list, and seeing as how he’d lost points recently, it wasn’t going to be the most welcome thing. But sometimes shit happened.

Abby nodded, accepted the keys, and lowered her gun.

Wells twisted as if to run.

Ryōma clothes-lined him at the throat and caught him roughly by the arm, just barely keeping the bastard from cracking his head. He stomped out the forgotten, half-smoked roach, then dragged the groaning felon into the backseat of the cab. By the time he had the weakly protesting male buckled in, Abby had opened and fished through the trunk and was returning to his side.

“Murdering asshole creep keeps duct tape in his trunk,” she said, holding a partially used roll of silver tape out in offering. “Might help.”

Ryōma didn’t fight the grin this time. “Baby girl, I’m so fucking proud of you.” He pecked her on the lips before letting her duck into the driver’s seat as he bent back in to wrap up the murdering asshole creep’s ankles. Her mumbled sounds of disgust as she took her seat only made him grin wider, and a part of him worried he really had finally cracked. Instead of thinking too hard on it, he yanked the bastard forward against the seatbelt, wrestled with the man’s arms, and managed to wind some tape around his wrists, too.

Only then did he round the car to take his own seat, in the back where he could easily wrangle Wells back under control if necessary. It also helped sell the ‘just another cab’ lie to passerby.

“You’re both psycho,” Wells declared as Abby put the car in motion. “Who even carries knives like that with them? You almost cut me!”

Ryōma shrugged and let the remaining tape fall to the floor at his feet. “You shouldn’t have struggled.”

“You—you won’t get away with this. I did my time. I’ll report you.”

Abby accelerated as she merged with the flow of traffic. “Pretty sure you’d get in trouble for that firearm I also found in the trunk,” she said. “And I bet the cops would love to lock you up for those three outstanding warrants. So go right ahead. Report us.”

Ryōma bit back a groan, his body responding very unhelpfully to the tone of her voice and sharp way she’d spoken. Might have to add a little role play to the list of future fantasies.

Wells scoffed. “You mouthy bitch. I always regretted you not catching one o’ those bullets that day.”

Ryōma let out a breath. “See, shit like that is why I have to hurt you, Corey.” He reached over, shoved a hand behind the man’s back, and snapped a finger. “You talk to my woman like that, you suffer. It’s real simple. I recommend shutting the fuck up.”

Wells’s shrieks settled slowly into whimpering and he tipped himself sideways, leaning against the glass and breathing hard. But he stopped talking.

“Ryōma,” Abby said, “I need to know where exactly I’m going. You have a destination in mind, right?”

He leaned forward to better see out the windshield, orienting himself. “I know the perfect place for our honored guest.” He pointed to a sign. “Take that exit.”