Trapped in his End Game (Series)

It can’t be true. I don’t believe it.

I’m stuck in a fog as they drop me back on campus, just in time to make my 1:30pm class. My phone buzzes like a hive of angry bees, but I ignore it. I walk away from campus, intent on getting the truth. The elusive fucking truth.

It explains everything-why my mom was always so paranoid and why she needed all those payments to pay off loan sharks harassing her. Then why didn’t I ever see them?

Heading downstairs, I jump for the first train towards Brooklyn. It’ll be a long while until I get there. Plenty of time to think. The Feds gave me a card, which I hold in my fingers. They implored me to call if I changed my mind.

Amazed, I watch as people enter and leave the subway car without a care in the world. They have no idea what’s going on around them.

I feel like I’m being watched.

The paranoia swells inside me again. My neck cricks as I glance around, my chest tightening. I twist the ring around my finger ceaselessly. My eyes follow every person who boards the subway. Could they be one of Vincent’s? Following me?

What if they saw me being picked up by the FBI?

My body sways on the seat at the thought of what that would look like to Giacomo Vittorio, and then I’m fervently glad that he’s currently in the hospital.

The journey to Brooklyn is entirely too quick. I clamber up the steps on tired legs, my eyes seeking out my mother’s brownstone, which is only a few blocks away. My heart beats with a mounting sense of dread as I approach the house.

Please let it not be true.

My fist hammers on the door and I gasp when the door opens immediately, as if she was waiting for someone. My mother is dressed in normal clothes, for once. A faint tinge of color on her lips tells me that she even used lipstick.

“Oh, it’s you,” she says in a disappointed tone. “If you’re not going to help me, just go away.”

“We need to talk.”

She closes the door, but I elbow my way in.

“Adriana, how dare you?”

“Mom, we need to talk!”

The edge in my voice makes her walk backwards into the shitty house. She closes the door behind me and that familiar sense of skin-crawling fear descends on me.

“Mom, who really killed Dad?”

Mom’s eyes widen and she absentmindedly picks at a spot on her face. “What are you talking about?”

“Did he get mixed up with the wrong people?”

Her mouth trembles as she ignores my question, walking into the living room to pick up a lighter on the coffee table. Her tortured face lights up periodically in the flame’s light.

“We owed them a lot of money. Sal should have never done it, he shouldn’t have taken money from those animals.”

Her voice drops, sounding more raw than I’ve heard it in years.

I’m too stunned to move a muscle. “I thought you said he gambled it away!”

The cigarette glows a bright red. “What was I supposed to tell you? He did like to gamble, but your dad took money from a loan shark to start his auto shop business. Well, it was a failure. Your daddy didn’t know how to manage a business.”

The smoke rises from the cigarette in a lazy spiral.

“Then they wanted their money back,” she inhales suddenly. It’s a sharp, painful sound. “He kept failing to make payments, so they c-came and they took him by the throat.”

And then I came out of the bedroom and startled them. Yeah, I remember that part.

“They weren’t supposed to kill him.”

I can’t fucking believe this.

“Who is they?”

“I don’t know who they are, Adriana.” Her eyes look cagey as she avoids everywhere but me. “I wanted to keep you out of it to protect you.”

“That ended the moment you took a loan in my name.” My voice rises in pitch. “Was it the Vittorios?”

The living room is a murky sea, blotched out by my tears. A peach colored blob moves in front of me. Then I blink and Mom sharpens into focus. Her heavily wrinkled lips press into a firm line.

“I won’t tell you.”Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“You have to!”

“For over ten years I’ve kept their secret. Do you have any idea what they’ll do to me if you go to the police?”

Oh my God.

It is them. Vince must have known, and he let me cry in his arms all those times I talked about my father and never said a word.

I feel sick.

“How could you lie to me for all those years? All this time you knew who killed him, and you never bothered to tell me.”

“I didn’t want you to grow up with all of that on your shoulders.”

“I did! All these years I worked for you like a slave, giving you every last penny to keep you from crying on my shoulder or calling me names, and never, ever giving myself a reward for working so hard.”

She cries as she reaches for me, tears slipping down in fat drops. “Adriana, please. You’re my baby. Don’t go.”

“You’re not my mother. You’re nothing.”

I spin around before she can plead and worm her way inside my heart again and burst through the door. My sneakers take me down the streets and I run past the subway station, not knowing where the hell I should go. The Brooklyn Bridge rises in the distance, shining in the sun like a beacon, so I walk towards it.

Where else can I go?

My phone rings incessantly, and I contemplate throwing it through the bars of the bridge. The wind howls over the bridge, chilling me to the bone as I walk past hordes of tourists bundled up in clothes. I’m not really dressed to be outside and my backpack’s shoulder straps dig into my flesh. The weight of all the books drag me down. Every so often, I stop to lean on the wooden rails etched with so many love notes and I stare down at the cars quietly rumbling underneath the bridge.

Tears are blown off my face in the wind and I try to remember the last time I felt so badly. Everything is so fucked up. It’s all gone. Dead.

When I descend the bridge, I find the nearest subway and enter its warm belly. I take it to Midtown and walk around Rockefeller Plaza, and then I go inside Bouchon. I’ve always salivated at the pastries inside that I could never afford. I order nearly forty dollars in pastries: huge, golden macarons, almond croissants, little cakes and tarts. The cashier stares at me as she takes my order. If I could reach through the glass to steal food, I would.

Sitting outside on the wooden table, I dip my hand inside the bag and grab one of the macarons. They’re impossibly soft and airy. The sweet almond flavor explodes over my tongue, the strawberry jam in the middle of the cookie sweetening my mouth.

I fish my phone out of my bag and feel a stir of disgust as I look at the screen. Six missed calls and voicemails from Vince. My mouth turns sweet into sour as everything I’ve learned floats to the surface again. The man I’m engaged to is one of them. He was always one of them. They destroy lives without second thought, and I’m one of their casualties.

The sun dips below the high rise buildings as I watch happy tourists snapping photos, skating on the ice rink below as I try to suppress my shivering. Cold and alone. There’s nowhere to go. Nowhere except right back to the man I’m trying to run from.

So I don’t move when a man slides into the bench opposite me and grabs my wrists. Vincent’s fingers wrap around me like handcuffs, biting my flesh. I look up into his handsome face filled with deadly calm.

“Don’t make a scene,” he says. “Don’t scream.”

I don’t know what I’m more repulsed by: him or my still present feelings of attraction.

“You’re coming with me now.”

He transfers his hold to my upper arm but I remain rooted to the spot.

I hate him.

He glares at me. “You’re coming with me now before I get fucking shot standing out here in the open.”

Miserably, I stand up with the bag of pastries around my wrist, Vincent leading me out of the square like I’m a hostage, and I suppose I am one. He walks quickly across the streets, almost dragging me in his haste to get into his car and drive the fuck out of there.

“Do you even realize how fucking worried I was?” he snaps, his fingers digging into my arm as he leads me towards his car. “You take off to your university and when I show up there, you’re nowhere to be found, and then you don’t answer your goddamn phone!”

Vincent continues his tirade after he shoves me in the car, when he slides into the driver’s seat.

“You’re my fiancee!” he bellows. “I expect you to answer your phone.”

The tires screech on the garage as Vince peels out of there. I sit still in the car seat and feel close to tears as we drive back to his apartment.

“Where the fuck were you, Adriana? Hey, I’m talking to you.”

I swallow a lump in my throat as he screams in my ear. What the hell am I supposed to say? The moment I tell him I was talking to federal agents, he’ll kill me.

It’s not like I have anything to live for.

Vincent’s face, black with rage, looks at me like he wants to wrap his long fingers around my throat and squeeze. He parks the car and gets out. I cringe as he walks around and yanks me by my elbow. I fall against his chest and flinch at the violence burning in his eyes.

“You are really pushing me, Adriana. When we get upstairs, I expect answers, or we’re going to have a fucking problem.”

I burst into tears once we enter the elevator, unable to stop myself any longer. Eyebrows raised, he leans against the wall and burns holes into my skin with his stare. I turn away from him and try to silence my sobs with my hand. I hate being out of control, unraveling in front of him. My shoulders shake and then he whispers a curse. His arms wrap around me and his lips find my head.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Did you know?”

“Did I know what?”

His puzzled face frowns at me.

I push him away from me roughly. “That your piece of shit family killed my Dad!”

“What are you talking about?” he says through his teeth.

“All this time, they were one of you. One of you bastards killed him and ruined my life.”

He grabs my shoulder, no longer gentle. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Shut the fuck up until we get inside.”

I stumble out the elevator as he drags me down the hall, terror electrifying my skin with painful pulses of my heart. He shoves me inside and slams the door behind them.

“Where the fuck do you get off on accusing us of that?”

“I know they were responsible.” I want to hit him for denying it. “You knew all along and never said anything to me.”

He gives me a look like I’m deranged. “You’re talking crazy. How the hell would I know about a hit that happened thirteen years ago?”

I step backwards from the force of his words. Fine, he didn’t know about it, but that doesn’t change the fact that they were responsible.

“How do you know this, anyway? Where the fuck were you?”

There’s a dangerous glint in his eyes as he hangs up his coat in the closet. I keep mine bundled around me, as if it can protect me from him.

He’ll kill me.

“I heard it from the FBI!” I finally shout.

He freezes, his face white with panic as he turns towards me. “What?”

“I-I left the house to go to school, but two federal agents picked me up. They knew about the card games. They knew we were at that restaurant. They offered me protection-”

“No,” he bellows like a wounded animal and grabs me by my collar. His face is white, shaking. “Tell me you didn’t, Adriana. Tell me you didn’t say anything!”