“Chase?” I shook my head. “What the hell does Chase have to do with anything?”
“He has everything to do with it. Every damn thing goes back to your family. The Abandonatos. How many people do you think… died to protect the secret? Hmm? Your father took it to his grave; your mother, bless her heart, never got a chance to tell you the truth; and now the one person who knows…”—he chuckled and winked—“won’t tell a soul.”
“How do I know what you’re saying is even true? And why the hell would someone be stupid enough to tell you?”
“I wasn’t told. I overheard.”
“From?”
“Nope,” Phoenix laughed. “Does it kill you that I know something you don’t? That your family’s dirty little laundry is going to die right along with me? Maybe that’s a good thing. We don’t want to mess with the way the family does things.”
“I’ll kill them all,” I said softly. “Every last one of your family members. I’ll kill them.”
“Do it. I dare you.”
“You shouldn’t encourage me. I’m teetering on the edge of insanity right now.”
Phoenix shrugged. “First, the Nicolosi family would find out you’ve been offing my family members. Second, it’s almost impossible to find all of them, unless you plan on hacking our accounts and seeing where we send payments in order to buy silence. You see, in our family, money talks… probably because it’s scarce.”
I grinned and stuffed the knife back in my pocket. “Thanks, Phoenix. Great doing business with you.”
His smile fell.
“I’ll send Tex over to throw a bucket of water onto your face so you can clean up a bit. Wouldn’t want any of those cuts getting infected.”
“I could die and you’d probably smile while performing my eulogy.” Phoenix spat.
I paused, my back to him as I sighed. “You’re wrong. You were one of my best friends. When my dad beat me, you told me not to cry. When I told you I wanted to kill him, you said you’d get me a gun. When Trace was taken from me, you told me she’d come back. And now? Now all I see is my ex-best friend.” I turned around and faced him. “You look like the Phoenix I grew up with, you sound like him; hell, you’ve always walked around like the world owed you something. I just don’t know how the hell we got from there to here. I never wanted this. I would have never chosen this for either of us.”
Phoenix closed his eyes, and when he opened them it was almost as if there was a chasm between us. His choices, my loyalty to Trace, our past demons—there may as well have been a lifetime of separation from the door to the chair.
“I didn’t want it. But I was given no choice. He took it from me the minute I found out the truth.”
My heartbeat picked up. “Who? Who told you?”
“I know I’m an ass.” Phoenix licked his dry lips and broke eye contact. “And I know what I did to Trace was unforgiveable. Jealousy’s a bitch and all that, but honestly, the only way I can atone for my many sins is to keep you the hell away from him, away from the truth. I’m taking it to my grave not because death sounds like a really fun idea, but because the second I tell you anything, I damn you and the rest of your family along with me. He’ll stop at nothing.”
“But—”
“Just say thank you.” Phoenix laughed bitterly. “For saving your sorry life.”
I swallowed. “That’s just the thing. It was never supposed to be at your expense.”
“Better mine than yours,” Phoenix growled. “Leave me alone, Nixon. Go home to your perfect life, your beautiful girlfriend and loads of money. Go home, and if you come back, you better be prepared to shoot me in the head.”
I closed my eyes. I couldn’t look at him when I promised… “I’ll discuss it with the rest of the Elect.”
“Not good enough!” Phoenix shouted, his voice hoarse with emotion. “When we made our little club, we promised. If any of us got into deep shit, if any of us were putting someone else in danger, we’d shoot them. Do me the favor. Drown me, for all I care. But shoot me before they get the information because I don’t know if I’m strong enough, man. I don’t know if I’m selfless enough. Damn, I know I’m not selfless enough to crack even though I know I’ll still die. So, when you come back, bring your gun and some prayer beads.”
“All right.” I slammed the door before I could go back on my word.
We’d made that contract, the Elect contract, when we were teenagers. We knew the family business, saw lots of our uncles and friends die for information or die because they were rats.
We knew what happened to them when they were tortured.
One night, Phoenix had walked in. Blood caked his fifteen-year-old hands.
“I killed him.”
“What?” I grabbed some old clothes from the floor. “What do you mean, you killed him?”
“Uncle John.” Phoenix sniffled. “I killed him. Dad said it was time to break me.”
“Break you?” I repeated. “As in—”
“Time to learn the business.” Shaking, Phoenix fell to his knees in front of me, tears streaming down his pale face. “I didn’t want to hurt him, but Dad said we had to silence him for what he did.”
“What did he do?”
Phoenix shook his head. “I don’t know.” He wiped his sleeve across his nose and sniffed, “It must have been really bad, though.”
“I’m sorry, Phoenix. What can I do?” I put my arm awkwardly around his shoulders and sighed.
“What if that’s us?” he whispered. “That could be us. What if I trust the wrong person and get killed? What if I do something to piss my dad off, or worse, your dad?”
I cringed, because I’d thought of that exact same thing over and over again until I could no longer sleep at night.
“I don’t want to die that way, Nixon.”
“What do you mean—?”
“They beat him!” Phoenix’s lower lip quivered. “They beat him in front of my aunt and then… I beat him because they told me to and she…” He began to hyperventilate. “She told me it was okay. She handed me the gun and—”
“It’s okay.” I patted his shoulder. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
“It’s not like TV, Nixon. It’s not.” He began rocking back and forth. “There’s so much blood and it’s quiet, Nixon. It’s so damn quiet when someone dies. It’s just like, all of a sudden, their eyes have no life and there’s blood, and people started talking about the game last night as if someone didn’t just die.”
He looked up at me. “Promise me something…”
Tex walked into the room with Chase; both of them looked from Phoenix to me then back to Phoenix.
“Anything.” I knelt down on the ground and faced him.
“We make a pact. The four of us.” Phoenix looked up, his eyes glassy from crying. “If any of us get into deep shit, regardless of if it’s our fault or not, we do the person the favor of killing them. I don’t want to die a rat. I don’t want to die like that, Nixon.”
I glanced at Chase. He nodded once and pulled out his knife, slicing open his palm and then handing the blade to Tex.
“We promise,” I said, slicing my own hand and shaking each one of their bloody hands before wiping my own blood onto my jeans. “A quick death.”
“In the head,” Tex agreed.
“It’s done.”