AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Hector paces for a few steps, looking confused over whether or not to believe Vari’s claim, but in the end he buys it. “You’re much more valuable to me than the girl anyway,” he scoffs. “And you’re a fool if you don’t think I won’t still try to find another way to take her out later when you won’t be able to do a damn thing to stop me.”
Hector turns to his men and motions for them to let me go, but I dig my feet into the ground. “I’m not leaving without Vari,” I say, as if I’m in any position to make demands. “Vari, don’t do this. This doesn’t make any sense.” But Vari stands there staring at me with nothing more than a slightly saddened expression resting on his mouth, as Hector’s goons shove me out of the room and toward the street.
I’m beside myself, crying and screaming and dragging my heels on the ground to make it harder for them to push me out. I refuse to leave Vari behind. God only knows what Hector will do to him. The thought of Vari there completely unprotected amidst the hive of Irish mobsters is sickening. I can’t bear the thought of him sacrificing himself for me.
But there’s nothing I can do to stop Hector’s men from dragging me out of the building and tossing me out into the dark street. As soon as I turn back around and try to get back into the door, it’s locked tight, and I’m barred from re-entering. And there’s nothing I can do from out here except scream into the night at the fact that I have to leave Vari inside.
14
VARI
I didn’t really think this through very well. Finding Dahlia proved to be easier than I thought. As soon as I went back to the theatre to see if I could find any clues as to where she might have run off to, one of the crew members mentioned how Hector was making a run out to the theatre’s archival warehouse in Queens to drop off some old costumes, and that they saw Dahlia getting in the car with him. But as soon as I got there and realized Dahlia was behind the door, I didn’t stop to think or come up with a plan. Instead, I just acted out of impulse, bursting through the door without any back-up at all.
I watch as Hector’s men drag Dahlia out of the room kicking and screaming and digging her heels into the ground. The last thing I wanted to do was make her even more upset, but I have no choice. I need to get her as far away from Hector as possible. Hopefully she’ll be smart enough to find her way back to my place, where she’ll be protected with her mom and Lucas while Hector’s busy killing me here.
But he surprises me by saying, “You know, with you as my prisoner, I might get even more leverage.” His men watch him in wait. Hector’s a fool to think he can try to play both sides of this. He’s most likely going to wind up getting himself killed. That said, I see an opening to use this whole thing to my advantage by playing into his overzealous ambitions. If he ends up screwing himself, all the better. It’ll buy me more time to stay alive and possibly even find a way out of here myself.
“That’s true,” I say. Now I can see the gears behind his eyes start to turn. But while I wait for him to think it over and decide my fate, it dawns on me that there’s something else that doesn’t make sense to me. “So why did you kill the male lead of your play if your goal was to put the show on to begin with?” I ask. “That seems counterintuitive.”
“That arsehole was on to my plot. Dumb kid didn’t seem to miss a beat, and was always overhearing my private conversations. I needed to get rid of him before he ruined the job, and it just so happened to lend itself perfectly as a way to frame you.”
I chuckle because of how haphazard Hector’s plans seem to be. He truly seems to be flying by the seat of his pants. I understand now how wrong I was not to listen to Brutus and the other syndicate higher-ups I thought were against me. They’d been right the whole time. Hector leaves the room to go initiate his next steps, and I am left alone with a few of his henchmen. I don’t even try to ask them anything because I know they won’t answer honestly. So instead, I try to make small talk to pass the time and ease my mounting worrying over whether Dahlia did indeed make it back somewhere safe. If we both end up making it out of all this alive, I’m going to finally tell her that I love her and that I never wanted to leave her.
But first, Hector needs to be put down. Men like him disgust me. At least the Irish Mob has a code of ethics, like the mafia does too. Men like Hector look out for no one but themselves. That makes them not only despicable in my book, but also extremely dangerous.
15
DAHLIA
After a moment or two of standing paralyzed with indecision on the street outside the warehouse building, I force my feet to start walking in a direction, even though it kills me to leave Vari behind here. For a second, I consider continuing on my initial path to my mother’s apartment, but then I realize that if Hector intends to simply recapture me, that’s probably the first place he’ll look. I remember listing her name and address as my emergency contact when Hector hired me for the starring role So, thinking about what the safest location might be and where I can get some help to return for Vari, I decide to go to his place instead.
As soon as I get back to his building, I approach the doorman and the two guards standing at the perimeter, all of whom recognize me from my time here. I open my mouth to try and explain what’s happened, but all that comes out are a garbled cluster of traumatized words that aren’t making any sense. One of the guards calls Vari’s brother, and after a few more minutes of waiting, the doorman escorts me up to the upper penthouse. I’m shocked to see my mother open the door. “Thank God you’re alright,” she says as she reaches out to grab me into a hug before pulling me inside the space and slamming the door closed.
I can see Lucas standing closely behind her. “Where’s my dad?” he asks anxiously.
“He’s—” I stop after the single word because I don’t know how to tell him the truth without scaring him. Instead, I reach out and pull Lucas into a hug against me and start to cry. “Everything’s going to be okay,” I say as I instinctively hold onto the small child. “I’m going to make sure you get your dad back, okay?”
He utters a small and nervous “okay,” but Lucas is clearly upset and worried. In truth, so am I. I have absolutely no idea how to get Vari back.
“Back from where?” my mother asks. I look up at her with a tear-stricken face and her face tells me that she instantly knows what I can’t say in words right now.
There’s a sharp knock at the door and it makes both of us jump. My mother peers through the peephole before opening the door to reveal Alessio and Petre standing there.
“What’s happened?” Alessio asks as he strides straight inside without even a moment of hesitation. Petre greets my mother before walking past her. Before I can say anything, my mom takes Lucas upstairs to play. It’s not an appropriate conversation for him to hear, especially when his father’s fate hangs in the balance. As soon as they’re far enough away not to hear me, I explain everything that happened to Vari’s brothers, including the part about Hector being behind it all. As soon as I’m finished, the two men start talking between themselves and bouncing ideas off each other.
Just as I’m about to ask a question, Alessio’s phone rings. I can tell by the way he grimaces at the phone screen that it’s Hector. He puts it on speakerphone and we all hear him say in his snide voice, “I think I have something of yours that you might want to get back. It’s simple—if you want Vari back alive, then the show will continue to perform up until its final curtain call and Dahlia will continue as the lead actress. I assure you that there will be no further threats to her or your brother as long as there’s no retaliation against me or the show by you or any of the other mafia families. I want protection.”
Alessio mutes the phone and Petre mumbles, “Talk about wanting to have your cake and eat it too. We’d be crazy to accept this deal. Vari won’t like it if we agree to let Dahlia return and the rest of the mafia will come after us for letting the show continue even after Vari’s disappearance. It all reeks of turmoil and turf war.”
“I’ll do it,” I plead urgently. “Please let me do this for Vari. Now that we know what Hector is up to, Vari can make sure that I’m safe.”
“I don’t disagree,” Alessio nods. “We can’t just let our brother sit in the clutches of this prick. And imagine if word got out that ourcapo’s missing. It would make our business dealings ripe for the taking by some of our biggest adversaries. We can’t risk that. We stand a better chance dealing with whatever fallout there is after we manage to get Vari returned to us.”
Petre nods in agreement but says, “Vari’s not going to like the part about Dahlia going back there.”
“He can give us hell about it once we get him back alive,” Alessio quips.
They give Hector their answer. I’m afraid of what will happen next but at least I know that Vari will be coming safely back to us.
