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THREE
“My mother always told me,
no monsters lived beneath my bed,
but she had failed to warn me,
it laid on top of it instead.
~ Poet E.h
DONATELLA - 22 DAYS AGO
I was sore.
And I wasn’t sure if it was from the sex or the fight before the sex… I had a feeling it was a bit both, but mostly the fight.
I wanted to spend the day soaking in the bath to stop the bruises from getting bad. However, at five in the morning, I found myself in the Contemporary Art section of The Art Institute of Chicago, staring at a massive abstract painting of a woman sinking underwater, her skin cracking; above her was an eagle with a crushed butterfly in its claws and below her, in the water, was the tail-end of a shark disappearing behind the rocks.
“You’re late,” I said, hearing the footsteps behind me. I didn’t bother turning around. She walked up beside me, standing at exactly my height, looking up at the painting as well. Turning to her, as she turned to me, and had anyone else had seen her, they would have flinched; her face was covered in deep, jagged-edged scars. They cut across the nose, cheek, and mouth…but none of them were as bad as the one she hid under her scarf, the one that ran right over her vocal cords. “You’re never late, Jackal, what happened?”
She didn’t answer. Not because she wouldn’t, but because she couldn’t. Not vocally, at least.
Reaching into her large tote bag, she handed me a thick yellow file.
Turning away from her completely, I walked to the bench within the exhibit and sat down.
“This is a lot of information on one kid.”
When I looked back at her, she simply shook her head.
Furrowing my eyebrows together, I tried to read her expression, but she was keeping it blank on purpose.
“I’ll just read then,” I replied, opening the page. The very first thing I saw was an imagine of Toby and Savino from last Christmas. “What is this?” I asked, knowing she couldn’t speak…but I’m sure she knew I was asking myself, not her.
The photo looked innocent enough, like Savino had accidentally bumped into him. In the back of my mind, I remembered that party. Savino had gotten drunk and started singing to the embarrassment of his daughter…something that was typical of him…and yet, in the image I could clearly see him slipping something into Toby’s hand. Turning the page, I saw another photo, this time of the same alley Toby had shown me, where he’d said Declan had killed Marco…however…he shouldn’t have been there, in that alley. Nor should he have been chasing down Declan.
Hearing her footsteps, I looked up at Jackal as she pointed to the photo of Toby.
“He killed Marco.” I wasn’t asking. I just knew. It was the only thing that made sense, and yet, seeing her nod made me inhale sharply. Swallowing the pool of saliva in my mouth, I looked down at my papers and photos again. On them, several of our suppliers…all of them from different regions of Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela…all of whom had come short for this shipment. I remembered an old conversation Ethan had had with one of our uncles about a power struggle after the death of one of our point men.
“Toby is working with Savino,” I whispered, nodding to myself, all the pieces coming together perfectly in my mind. “The drug lords and cartels in South have been changing. The new bloods, the second generation, has no respect for us… Savino wants control of the Italians…what better way to do that than restarting the blood feuds with the Irish, over the death of a proud Italian boy. Thus, cutting off the power of the Callahan’s, especially now that Ethan’s trying to reign in Boston.”
Jackal snapped her fingers in front of my face, and when I looked back at her she held up a photo of Toby, confusion clearly on her face.
“Why would he betray us for Savino?” I asked her question and she nodded, putting the photo back down in my lap. I wish I didn’t know that answer…but I did. “Me. He did it for me.”
The fucking idiot.
“He’ll kill Savino the moment he can. Then he’ll be the Don of the Italian mafia. He’ll go to my brothers and try to broker a truce…if I marry him. The Callahan’s still have an in with the Italians; he’s my equal and Ethan’s equal. He gets everything he wants. He loves me, but he hates being under me. He hates being under my family. He’s not working for Savino, he’s working for himself. For his own ambitions.”
It was brilliant; he was close enough that we trusted him and he was already respected by association from everyone we knew. On top of that, he knew how to run the business. If it failed… He could pin it all on Savino and wait to strike again.
Jackal crouched down to her knees in front of me and she lifted up the photo of Savino and Toby again. Pointing from Savino to Toby then to me.
“Take their plan?” I asked and she nodded again.
&nb
