Trapped in his End Game (Series)

TOMMY

Oil rigs pull in the distance like seesaws and I stand on a hill, oblivious to the freezing wind blasting my face. I allow it to roar through my shirt, chilling my skin until I can’t feel my hands. Still, I don’t move. The agonizing, biting cold seeps through my muscles. My hope is that it’ll freeze my heart.

The quiet rumble of a car down the road makes me stick my hand in my jacket pocket to grasp the piece, but I recognize the shock of white hair on the driver and know it’s just Jack. My hand falls from my jacket and I blink, eyelids sliding over cool marbles.

He shudders as he parks the car and wraps his beige coat around himself. Jack grabs my face and kisses both cheeks.

“Did you leave someone to watch over the girl?”

I shake my head, heart clenching at the mention of her. “No, there’s no need anymore. She won’t do anything that’ll upset me.”

He gives me a strangled laugh, pounding my back. “I can’t fucking believe how talented you are, Tommy. When does she meet with the feds?”

“Tomorrow,” I say, my heart beating in my chest hollowly. “Her testimony will be retracted tomorrow.”

“Good.” He nods, looking at me with heat broiling in his eyes. “Listen, Tommy. I want to be there when you do it. Looking across the table at dinner into that cunt’s eyes was hard enough-”

“I told you and Vince many times why she had to be there,” I say, my voice louder than ever. A small twitch of rage flashes over me like a sudden burst of flame. She’s not a cunt.

“I know. I trust you, Tommy.”

His heavy hand claps the back of my shoulders, and another burst of anger spreads over my chest. He makes me feel guilty for not wanting to kill this girl.

“I want to see her beg. Her body will be a message to everyone else-”

“No,” I say in a soft voice.

Suddenly the image of her lifeless corpse fills me with panic.

“No?” he says in a dangerous voice.

The deadly look on his face makes me envision a cloud of icy wind wrapping around my body.

“It’s going to be quick and clean.”

“Why?”

“She’s a fuckin’ woman, that’s why. I have limits.”

His face dissolves into laughter until tears shake from his eyes. “You have limits. What is this, a fucking joke? Are you fucking kidding me? Do I need to describe to you what you did to the last guy?”

Laugh it up.

“I don’t hit women, Jack. I don’t care what she’s done.”

He grins at me. “Fine. Have it your way.”

Sickened, I turn away from him. “I’ll call you when it’s done.”

“We’ll do the ceremony right after I see her body.”

The ceremony? Oh God. His promise. Being made.

I forgot about it. What’s wrong with me?

“Yeah.”

Jack gives me a strange look before he turns back to his car and drives away. I walk stiffly toward mine, settling inside the warmth of the car.

All I feel is the weight bearing over my shoulders, the complete lack of interest in committing to what I set out to do, the despair rattling my bones.

For the first time in a long time, I feel. I hurt.

I used that girl callously, lying through my teeth about every promise I made her. I never expected it to hurt so much. I never thought that her tears would knock me down to my knees and make me want to beg for her forgiveness. I just wanted to fool around with her. It wasn’t supposed to get this far, but somewhere along the line I got attached to her, too. Of all the things in my life, this is the worst thing I’ve ever done. Making a girl fall for me, only to kill her anyway.

It’s cruel.

And I’ve just made the biggest mistake in my life.

* * *

My life is basically a case study in hedonism. I deny myself nothing. Through force or sheer tenacity, I always get what I want. That’s why the life always appealed to me. Want something? Go steal it. Someone giving you a hard time? Break his legs. Nothing’s off limits.

So imagine my frustration when I find myself wanting someone I can’t have. Not because she’s not interested. Because Jack wants her dead.

Resentment slowly builds up at the bottom of my stomach like caustic acid. The problem is that I can’t just tell the boss of the family to go fuck himself and expect to leave this place in one piece.

A low moan groans through the duct-taped mouth of the man I’m supposed to be working on. I vaguely recognize him as a fellow associate belonging to Nicky’s crew. I wonder what excuse he gave Jack to whack him, and why the fuck he isn’t here, watching me take care of his shit.

He’s half-Italian, just like me. Widened brown eyes stare at me, his nose making terrified, sniffing sounds. I grasp his shoulder, feeling nothing but the hollow beat of my heart.

“I don’t know what the fuck to do anymore.”

A series of muffled words bulge under the duct tape. He’s probably trying to convince me not to kill him, but I’m not having a crisis of conscience over that.

I want her.

“Even this has lost its fun.”

I sink the blade under his flesh, waiting for that beautiful, red color to spill from his wound. He screams into the tape and I feel my chest shake.

This is how far I’ve fallen. Spilling my guts to a man I’m about to kill.

Blood slips down the blade and around my fingers. I yank it out of him and watch him bleed, expecting to feel something other than crushing despair. I have to make a choice-and soon.Content property of NôvelDra/ma.Org.

“She told me she wanted more,” I say to him with a small smile. “With me, of all people.”

Thinking about it like that makes me laugh, but I can’t forget the high I felt when she told me that. She dragged me into the bathroom at a charity gala ball so that I could fuck her brains out.

I can’t just let her go.

To be wanted by someone like her is a greater thrill than taking someone’s life. I’ve never felt it before.

“I’m not the type to second-guess myself. I don’t get attached to people, period, but this one-this one’s gotten deep under my skin.”

I clutch the broad kitchen knife, sighing when I catch my troubled expression on the flat of the blade. Then I look at his face, desperately seeking an answer from him, but all I see is terror and pain.

No, I can’t throw everything I’ve worked for away. She’s just a woman. I’ll find another one.

But it’s not just about finding another one anymore, it’s about the guilt poisoning my stomach and the joy I feel when I hold her to my chest. No one ever gave that to me-no one ever even came close. She told me that she wanted to be with me. Was it real, or is she too fucked up from her captivity to realize that I’m completely wrong for her?

Doesn’t fucking matter. I want her, and I’ll have her.

“I always get what I want. Maybe this is no different.”

The man screams into his duct tape and yanks against his restraints, tears leaking out of his eyes.

I’ve really lost it.

The blade thick in my hand, I reach out and quickly slice through his carotid artery. What the fuck ever. This is a complete waste of my time. I slam the blade on the table, not even waiting to watch him die as I storm out of the metal cage where I watched so many of them die, and laughed when they struggled. I reach out for the taps and wash the blood from my hands, gritting my teeth as I scour my flesh.

I need to commit to it.

The boss waits for me in the back of the room, his reading glasses propped on his nose as he examines some paperwork. He looks older with them on and not as threatening. It’s just the two of us, and somehow that makes it easier.

“Jack.”

He raises his head and peers at me, perhaps sensing some of my desperation. “What’s wrong, Tommy-boy?”

“I want her alive.”

A heavy sigh leaves his chest as he drops the glasses on the table and stands up, looking more and more like the boss who intimidated me as a child.

“Why?”

Because I need her.

My hands shake at my sides from suppressed rage. I can already tell what he thinks of my request, and I won’t be able to control my outburst.

“This isn’t enough for me anymore.” I swallow hard as I look into his lined face, which softens when he hears my response.

“Tommy, Tommy, Tommy.”

The fatherly tone in his voice suddenly burns my mouth with acid. “Don’t do that. Don’t fucking patronize me-”

He gives me a sharp look. “You know that I can’t let her live. What kind of example does it set if I just let her walk?”

I know, but I don’t care.

“She’ll never talk to anyone, Jack. I made sure of that. There’s no fucking need to kill her, and you know it.”

“If Vinny’s wife talked to the feds, what do you think would happen to her? I would expect him, and any one of my guys to follow through with the same orders. The famiglia matters more than our wives, even our children. It definitely matters more than some bitch who testified against us.”

Not to me it doesn’t. The realization of that makes me swallow hard.

Why should I kill her when the problem will resolve itself? Revenge? I don’t give a fuck about the other guys she ratted on.

“I need your word that nothing’s going to happen to her.”

“I won’t give you that,” he says in a gritty voice.

“Then we’re going to have a fucking problem.”

He stares at me incredulously for a moment and then laughs. “Of all the guys, I never would have expected you to do this.” He jabs me in the chest, snarling. “You never gave a fuck about any of the assholes you tortured in that room. You spend a couple weeks sinking your dick into a fucking rat, and you think that means something? You think that girl gives a shit about you? She’s just biding her time. She’s a cunt, Tommy. She deserves to die, and she will.”

A lightning bolt strikes directly into my chest, burning every surface of skin. My vision blurs and my hand suddenly reaches out, grabbing Jack’s collar.

Fuck. You.

“You made me like this, Jack. You put that knife in my hands, remember?”

Light-blue eyes harden like shards of ice. “Take your fucking hands off me. I’m the boss of this family-”

The grit rolling from my voice surprises me. “A boss without any captains facing at least twenty years in the can.”

“Is that a threat? I’ll fucking kill you, you half-mick mezzo-fanook.”

Somewhere behind my rage, my world comes crashing down as I stare into those perfectly indifferent blue eyes. I fought for him. Would have killed for him. The one favor I ask of him, he turns me down. Then he calls me a mick, as if I’m just any regular jerkoff.

“Touch her, and I’ll make her sing to the feds. She does whatever I tell her to. If anyone else has a problem with that, they know where I live.”

The eyes stare back at me defiantly and then his mouth pulls into a bitter smile.

Then I know I’ve won.