Target on Our Backs

  Holding out my left hand, I show him the ring on my finger. "I'm not Miss Reed anymore."

  I can see it in his face when it clicks, his cool demeanor dissolving. Reaching out, he snatches a hold of my hand, tilting it to get a better look at the ring. It's simple, relatively speaking… as simple as Naz gets, anyway. Just a gold band encrusted with a few small diamonds.

  It had been his mother's wedding ring.

  "You… you actually married him." His voice matches his expression. "When did that happen?"

  "A few weeks ago," I say quietly, pulling my hand away, not liking him touching me, and I know for a fact Naz wouldn't like it, either. He wouldn't like the guy even talking to me.

  "Well, then, Mrs. Vitale," he says, standing back up, his unruffled façade back as he towers over me once again. "I'd like to ask you a few quick questions, if you don't mind."

  "She does mind," a voice chimes in, butting into the small space around us. Giuseppe. The man's got a few inches on the detective. "Got any questions, you can ask me. She doesn't know anything. She was just here, eating. Innocent bystander."

  Jameson narrows his eyes at the intrusion. "If that's the case, I don't see why she can't just tell me that."

  "She's traumatized enough, having to have her lunch busted up by some schmuck," Giuseppe says, motioning behind him, toward my now flipped-over table, the food scattered all over the checkered floor. "Last thing she needs is some pushy no-good detective breathing down her neck about it, like she did something wrong."

  I still wouldn't call either man an asshole, but I definitely see where Naz gets his intensity. Whoa. Even the detective seems to balk for a moment, silently contemplating his next move. Before Jameson can say anything else, someone calls for him from outside the deli, and he excuses himself to go join whoever it is.

  Giuseppe watches the man walk out, shaking his head, before turning back to me. "You all right?"

  I nod. "Thank you."

  "Ah, it was nothing. If Ignazio gets mad at anybody for squawking, let it be me."

  I stand back up, grateful my legs seem more stable now. "I don't know why that guy's even here. He's a homicide detective. Nobody died, right?"

  Oh God, nobody did, did they? We were all fine inside, thanks to the windows, but out on the streets might've been a different story…

  "Nah, everyone's fine," Giuseppe says, brushing off my concern. "Shaken up, maybe, but no spilled blood today." He pauses, looking around. "Not here, anyway."

  "So why's he here then?"

  "Why do you think?" Giuseppe looks back at me, raising his eyebrows, his voice incredulous like I should probably know the answer to that question. And I do. The second our eyes meet, it clicks. He's here because of Naz. That's why he's anywhere. Doesn't matter if it's his jurisdiction or not… the man's got a personal vendetta against Naz. "Isn't the first time they've come sniffing around here and it won't be the last, not as long as Ignazio's out there, walking around scot-free. They come by with their questions, and I tell them the truth."

  "Which is?"

  "That I haven't seen him, and I don't intend to."

  Something strikes me then, something I hadn't really considered before. Giuseppe constantly keeps his son at an arm's length, and Naz figures it's because the man hates his guts. And not to say he likes the things Naz is involved with, but maybe, just maybe, part of Giuseppe does it so he can claim ignorance.

  So he can't be used to hurt his son in any way.

  Plausible deniability.

  It's selfless, in a sense, like he's sacrificing any sort of relationship with his son to do what he can to keep him safe, and while I don't know Giuseppe as well as I'd like to, it seems to me like something he just might do.

  "You should get out of here," Giuseppe says then, not looking at me, his eyes fixed through the fractured glass of his deli. "Use the back door, through the kitchen, so they don't try to stop you."

  I hesitate, but something about the tone of his voice tells me not to argue. I don't think Giuseppe is open to negotiation on these situations any more than Naz usually is. The cops are so busy collecting evidence along the street that nobody is bothering to cover the back of the deli. I slip into the alley easily, undetected, hugging my still-aching chest as I quickly make my way past the graffiti-ridden Dumpsters, away from the scene.

  A cab sits on the corner, parked along the street. I hail it as soon as I get close enough, grateful nobody else beat me to it.

  "Brooklyn, please," I tell the driver, rattling off our address, my voice strained. I settle in, snapping on my seatbelt, keeping my head down, afraid to look out, feeling almost like I'm running from the police. Please don't come after me. The driver's young, in his mid-twenties, maybe. He flashes a set of bright white teeth at me in the rearview mirror as he pulls out into traffic.

  If Naz has taught me anything in our time together, it's to always be aware of my surroundings, to watch and learn. More is caught than taught. He's told me that a few times. My eyes instinctively gloss over the cab driver's license pinned to the dashboard of the car. Abele Abate.

  Unfortunate name.

  Naz doesn't like me taking cabs. He doesn't trust others to keep me safe from harm. But given the situation, I imagine he wouldn't have much to say about it right now.

  My mind wanders during the drive, wondering where he might've run off to, what he might be doing right now.

  Part of me is afraid to know.

  It takes almost an hour to get home with traffic, and it costs sixty bucks for the trip. Ugh. I give the driver a hundred-dollar bill, telling him to keep the change. He seems surprised by the gesture, flashing me another smile and thanking me in a quiet voice.

  He didn't try to talk to me the whole way here.

  I appreciate it.

  The house seems still, almost creepily so. I don't like being here much anymore, especially alone. The place is haunted by memories, a lot of them not-so-good… memories of times we fought, the time I drugged Naz's food… memories of the time he considered taking my life, the time I realized there was a monster inside of him. We both almost died in the foyer on separate nights, and although it was long ago cleaned up, sometimes, if I look just right, I think I can still see remnants of the blood.

  We talk about moving… we talk about it all the time… but for some reason, we haven't pulled the trigger, so to speak, too caught up in every day life to make a decision.

  Too caught up trying to adjust to our new realities.

  Him, as out as someone like him can be.

  Me, now his wife.

  Crazy.

  I use my keys to unlock the front door before stepping inside and relocking it behind me. Killer, my dog, is asleep in the living room. He looks up when I enter, on alert, before happily dodging toward me, wagging his tail, wanting to play. I rub his head, scratching his big ears, but I'm too exhausted to do much more today.

  Sighing, I kick off my shoes right then and there and head for the den with the dog right on my heels. Maybe I'll take a nap on the couch, if I can even shut my mind off to fall asleep. God knows when Naz will get home. Could be hours. Could be days.

  "Didn't take you long."

  A scream rips out of me the second I hear the unexpected voice, startling me more than even the gunshots did. What the hell? My knees buckle and I almost drop to the floor, panicked, as my eyes seek out the source. Naz sits in the den at his desk, clutching a newspaper open, his eyes on it.

  "Jesus Christ, Naz, what are you doing?"

  "Reading today's paper."

  "Reading today's paper," I repeat.

  He's reading a fucking newspaper? Really?

  "Yes," he says. "I picked one up on my way home."

  "You picked one up," I say incredulously. "On your way home."

  His eyes flicker to me then as he cocks an eyebrow. "Why are you repeating everything I say?"

  "Why am I repeating everything you say?"

  He can't be serious, can he?

  Je
sus Christ, he's actually serious.

  Seriously?

  Naz shakes his head, setting his newspaper down on the desk before leaning back in his chair, turning slightly to angle toward me. "Now I see why you hate it when I do that. It's quite annoying."

  "I just…" Seriously, what the hell? "I don't even know what to say to that. I don't know what's happening. You just… what are you doing?"

  His brow furrows, like I'm the one not making sense, and maybe I'm not, but I'm absolutely baffled. Why is he here? He disappeared from the deli, leaving me there to fend for myself, just to come straight home and read the goddamn newspaper?

  It makes no sense.

  "How did you get home?" he asks, eyeing me suspiciously.

  "I took a cab."

  "I thought I told you—"

  "Yeah, well," I interject before he can even try to lecture me for not listening to him. "How the hell else was I supposed to get home?"

  "You could've called for the car service," he says. "Would've taken them twenty minutes, tops, to get to Hell's Kitchen where you were."

  "Well, it wouldn't have been an issue in the first place had you not just left."

  "He told me to leave," Naz says casually, picking up his paper again as he turns back away. "What else was I supposed to do?"

  "Uh... take me with you. You didn't have to just leave me there."

  "You were safe."

  "I was safe?" I scoff. "How do you know?"

  "Because I wasn't there anymore."

  His voice is matter-of-fact. I'm not entirely sure what to say to that. "But how do you know—?"

  He sets down his paper again, this time with an exaggerated huff of annoyance, like he doesn't want to have to talk about this. I probably shouldn't press the matter, but I want to hear what he has to say.

  I want some sort of explanation.

  I deserve one.

  "You're not dense, Karissa, so don't act like it," he says, staring at me pointedly. "You continue to refuse to look at the big picture when it's always right there. How do I know it was me they were gunning for? Tell me something, sweetheart… who else in the place has a target on their back? There's only one reason someone would do what they did, and you're looking at it." He motions to himself. "So, yeah, I knew you were safe, because I wasn't there. Is that a good enough answer?"

  I want to say no, it isn't good enough, but I know he'll never accept that. Still, though, I can't help myself. "It's not your fault, you know."

  "Then whose is it? Yours?"

  "Why does it have to be anyone's fault?" I ask, walking over to where he sits, perching myself on the corner of his wooden desk. "Things just happen sometimes."

  "Look, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but just… don't," he says. "I've made my bed, and I've long ago accepted that I'll someday have to lie in it. Nothing I do—or don't do—today will erase what I did yesterday."

  "What did you do yesterday?"

  He cuts his eyes at me, and I know I need to watch myself at this point, because he's not in the mood for my antics. He looks angry. He almost looks like Vitale. "You know what I mean, Karissa. The present doesn't make up for the past."

  "Yeah, I get it," I say. "Just because you apologize doesn't mean you're automatically forgiven."

  "Exactly," he says. "And in my case, I didn't even apologize."

  "Are you sorry?"

  "No."

  I shouldn't laugh, because it's not funny, but I do. I laugh. Ever the blunt one. Naz looks at me, and he doesn't even crack a smile, but I see his expression soften a bit, his posture relaxing.

  We sit in silence for a moment—me watching him, him looking at his newspaper—before it gets to be too much. "That still doesn't mean it's your fault, though."

  He slaps his paper down on the desk with a groan before running his hands down his face. "Karissa…"

  "Look, all I'm saying is we're responsible for our own actions. We're not responsible for what other people do." He doesn't look like he's at all buying what I'm saying, but I continue anyway. "So whatever you did yesterday, yeah, that's on you, but what someone does today because of it? That's on them, Naz. No one has ever been forced to retaliate."

  "We'll have to agree to disagree on that."

  "Pfft, I'm right and you know it," I continue. "Retaliation is a choice, plain and simple. You choose to get revenge. You always have the option of being the bigger man."

  Naz stares at me like I've sprouted another head out of my neck. I don't know if I'm getting through to him or not, but I hope so. Because all of this? I really just want it to end. Maybe that's like asking for a miracle in our lives, but it doesn't hurt, I think, to just… ask.

  "You know," he says after a moment, looking away from me. "You were a lot more submissive before I married you."

  Again, I laugh.

  Again, I probably shouldn't.

  "Whatever," I say, rolling my eyes as he goes back to reading. I regard him curiously as he does, my words still bouncing around in my skull. Retaliation. Part of me figured that was what he'd been off doing, why he'd left the deli so quickly, leaving me behind. "How'd you get home, anyway?"

  "Drove."

  "Really? Your car wasn't in the driveway."

  "I parked it in the garage."

  My brow furrows. "Did you make any stops on the way home?"

  He shakes his paper at me, continuing to read. He stopped for the newspaper… he said that earlier.

  That's it?

  "You didn't go anywhere else?"

  Carefully, his gaze slides my way, eyes narrowing slightly. "No."

  I drop the subject then, knowing I'm pushing his buttons. We've got a policy now, one we both adhere to: I don't ask questions I can't handle the answers to, because he's not going to lie to me, no matter what it's about. Ignorance, he says, is most definitely bliss, but if I want to know, he's going to tell me.

  Call it a perk of marriage.

  It's bitten me in the ass before, though, especially with his bluntness.

  Like when I brought up Professor Santino and he'd told me, point blank, the pointer stick broke off in the man's ribcage.

  So if he says he didn't make any other stops, I'm choosing to believe him.

  Choosing it, like I fear he's still choosing retaliation.

  Karissa's dreaming.

  Or having a nightmare, rather.

  I can hear her as she lays beside me, whimpering in her sleep. Her body is tense, jacked up like a live wire. I think if I try to wake her now, she might electrocute me.

  I wonder, sometimes, if her dreams are about us. Are they ever the happily ever after variety? Or are they always about all the things I did? The hurt I caused, the pain she went through, the horror of falling in with a man like me. I wonder, but I don't ask her, because I'm not sure it matters.

  I'm not sure she ever remembers.

  She never mentions her dreams to me.

  Besides, dreams mean nothing when it comes to reality.

  Life is what it is.

  You can't escape it.

  The ceiling fan lightly spins, blowing her hair. Reaching over, I carefully brush the wayward hair away from her face, watching her for a moment, before leaning in to press a small kiss to her cheek. She sleeps right through it, deep in the throes of the dream, oblivious to my presence, hopefully just as ignorant to my upcoming absence.

  I don't want her to worry about it.

  As carefully as possible, I slide out of the bed, making sure not to disturb her. I grab a pair of black sweatpants on my way out the door, slipping them on out in the darkened hallway before making my way downstairs.

  I'm grateful I manage to make my way past the mutt. He still doesn't like me... not that I blame him. I did shoot his owner right in front of him once. But he makes it hard to sneak around sometimes. Makes it hard to maintain peace in this house.

  It's a warm, fall evening, nearing midnight, but the marble kitchen floor is cool against my bare feet. My footsteps falter as I nea
r the sink, and I reach over, plucking the boning knife from the wooden block on the counter. The handle is black, the narrow blade eight-inches long, the point sharp enough to pull flesh from bone.

  That's what it's meant for, after all.

  I grab my keys from the hook near the side door before stepping out into the garage, mindful to close the door behind me again. Open doors are invitations I don't want to extend to anyone right now, but especially not Karissa.

  I want her to stay right where she is, fast asleep.

  Oblivious.

  I pop the trunk on my Mercedes before shoving my keys in the pockets of my pants. The moment I do it, I hear whimpering as something shifts around inside the car. Pushing the lid open, I stare down at the form in the darkness, illuminated by the dull lights of the trunk.

  Sweat covers him from the top of his bald head to the tips of his bare toes, his face drenched, dripping beads of it, his filthy white shirt clinging to him. And it stinks… Jesus, it fucking reeks. It'll take me a month to get the stench of piss out of my trunk after this. Anger surges inside of me at the very thought of him pissing himself, the spineless coward. He's lucky I don't plunge the knife into his neck, right here and right now. Lucky he might… might… live to see another day.

  For his sake, I hope he does.

  He looks like he wants to survive.

  He stares at me, wide-eyed, panicked. The moment he catches sight of the knife, he breaks out into tears. He's hyperventilating, sucking air through his nose, trying to breathe but the duct tape covering his mouth, wrapped around his head, is damn near suffocating. His wrists and ankles, too, are bound, but it doesn't stop him from flailing around in the trunk, making a ruckus.

  "What did I tell you, Armando?" I hold the knife to his throat, the action making him tense and stop moving so much, so not to cut himself. "You let my wife hear you and I'll have no choice but to slit your fucking throat."

  He tries to quiet his cries, going mostly silent, but the tears continue to fall. I hate it, the sight of someone crying, be it man or woman, but especially men who are supposed to be a part of the family. Men who pledge to live by the gun shouldn't fall apart the second it's hinted they might die by it, too.

  Or in this case, by knife, which arguably, when I'm wielding it, might hurt a hell of a lot more.