“A deal like this?” he said with a laugh. “A deal like this would make a puppy pull a freight train.”
I didn’t know about that, but it sure made me reconsider what I’d always felt was moral.
* * *
Anthony dropped the ledger. It hit the desk with a thud. His eyes met mine. “Tell me again, slowly. I thought you said twenty-five hundred at 1k profit each.”
“You heard right. The problem is this: The receivers of the weapons will be manufactured in a manner that is currently contrary to law. I’ve always tried to walk a fine line, but one that is legal in the eyes of the law.”
“The guns will be manufactured illegally?”
I nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Would we be selling them to terrorists?”
“No.”
He stood. “Do you support the cause of the men who will receive them?”
“I do.”
His eyes fell to his desk, and after a long pause, he looked up. “What’s the prison sentence for murdering an ATF agent?”
The question seemed odd. “For me? With the RICO Act, it’s life in prison.”
“But you didn’t hesitate to kill two of them. Why?”
“They got in the way of what we were doing. They were a threat to the family.”
“They got in the way of a cause you believed in?” He walked around the corner of the desk. “Were your actions, at the time, legal?”
“No.”
“What’s the prison sentence if you got caught manufacturing the weapons?”
“Sixty months.”
“We’re not selling ice cream cones. This is a criminal organization. We break laws.” He shrugged. “Sixty months for a cause you believe in.”
I chuckled. He was making a good point. “So, you want to do it?”
“How much risk is involved? What are the chances of getting caught?”
“Caught manufacturing? Roughly zero. In transporting the weapons to Texas? There’s the risk associated with being pulled over and having the truck searched.”
“Have him pick them up. Make it part of the deal.”
“We typically deliver.”
“You typically deliver legal weapons, no?”
I grinned. “That’s correct.”
“Have him pick them up. Make sure he knows who he’s doing business with. If he gets caught, he found them in the street. If he talks, tell him I’ll kill his entire family.”
“So, it’s decided?”
He turned up his palms, and raised both eyebrows. “It’s your business. The decision’s yours.”
I’d never wanted to please anyone but myself. Now that I was part of the family, and close to marrying into a family, I felt a burning desire to please Anthony.
“I’ll have him pick up the weapons,” I said.
He patted me on the shoulder. “You make me proud. Always.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Terra
The days zoomed past, allowing the weeks to escape me, one after the other. Suddenly, it seemed everything came crashing in around me at once, leaving no time to plan the wedding.
I buried my head in my hands. “I’m so nervous I feel sick.”
“Everything’s taken care of,” Michelle said. “And, you’ve got months left to fix anything that comes up. Take a breath and finish your drink.”
I did a quick countdown, looked up, and then tossed my hands in the air. “Two months. That’s it.”
“Settle down.” She shook her head and then took a leisurely drink. “You’re a dramatic bitch sometimes.”
“It’s scary.”
“I’ll tell you what’s scary.” She glanced over each shoulder, and then leaned forward. “Cap fucked me in the ass last night. That’s scary.”
“Oh, my God,” I gasped. “Really?”
She wagged her eyebrows. “Mmhhmm.”
“Did you like it?” The words came out on a bed of laughter.
She shrugged. “It was weird, but yeah, I did.”
“Michael and I do it all the time.”
Her eyes went wide. “Seriously?”
“Uh-huh. I like it.”
“I liked it.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “But I’m afraid my butt is going to get messed up and then, you know, stuff will start falling out.”
I barked out a laugh and shook my head. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“You sure?”
“If that were the case, I would have left a trail walking in here.”
She let out a laugh. “You’re gross.”
“You brought it up.”
“So, are you ready? I mean, mentally?”
“For the wedding?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
Her changing the subject, and getting me to laugh, helped immensely. “I think so. It’s just stressful.”
“It’ll all be over before you know it, and then you’ll feel like there’s nothing to do. For you guys, nothing’s really going to change. You’re living together. You’re already boning. There’s not much left.”
She had a point. I’d been convinced for some time that the wedding was going to change everything. In reality, at least for Michael and me, it wasn’t going to change anything.
“I know nothing’s going to change, but I want the ceremony to be perfect.”
“It will be. Sitting here and worrying isn’t going to do anything. Look at your dad, you worried about him until you were a walking skeleton. Now look. It was all for nothing.”
“Yeah. I suppose you’re right.”
I hated to ask, but every time I saw Michelle, it drove me crazy that she hadn’t heard from her father. Feeling that if she’d heard anything she’d let me know, but worried nonetheless that she knew something, I opted to ask.
“Still nothing from your father?”
She coughed a laugh. “Nope. I’m telling you, he’s fish bait.”
“Michelle!”
“He is. We hired a private investigator. He did a search of phone records, and found some things out. The night he went missing, he talked to Sal. Then, he went to the bus station, bought a ticket, and nobody’s heard from him since. Mom talked to Sal, and he doesn’t know anything. He couldn’t even remember that they’d talked.”
“That’s just weird.”
“If he worked at Walmart as a greeter? Yeah, it’d be weird. Being in the mob? No, it’s not. He’s either hiding from everyone because he’s a rat, or he’s hiding from the cops because he’s next on the feds’ list, or he got whacked. That sums it up.”
I couldn’t believe she could talk about it so nonchalantly. If my father had disappeared, I’d be devastated. I wished I hadn’t asked.
After managing to get the corner of my mouth to curl up, I met her gaze. “I’m sure it’ll all work out.”
“It’s already worked out,” she said. “Whatever’s happened has happened. Now we just have to go on with our lives.”
I tried to put myself in her shoes, and in doing so, felt that I’d be a mental wreck if I were her.
“Do you think I’m overdramatic?” I asked.
She responded without looking up. “Uh-huh.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You are.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Seriously? Look at some of the dumb shit you’ve done. What about when you broke up with Michael over his dealing guns? What about that? And you were keeping the biggest secret ever from him. You were dramatic and a hypocrite.”
“Okay, besides that.”
“They arrested your father. You lost what? Twenty pounds? You’re a fuckin’ twig in the first place. You looked like a zombie.”
I had lost fifteen pounds, but I felt that anyone in my situation would.
“That’s normal. When people grieve, they lose weight.”
“Look at me.” She stretched her arms wide. “Do I look like I’ve lost weight?”
She looked the same as always. I shook my head. “No.”
“My father hasn’t been arrested, he’s probably dead.” She cocked her head to the side. “You’re dramatic. I’m normal.”
“You don’t accept things like I do. You deny. Deny, deny, deny.”
“You’re so full of shit. I just told you, I think he’s dead. That’s not denial. And, I think Cap is running the gun business now. I’ve accepted that.”
“What? Michael’s business? Why do you say that?”
“He’s been going to that office every day for the last few weeks. I think he’s in charge of it now.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “So, what do I do? Throw a fit and break up with him? No. I support him.”
“I support Michael. We had a talk about it,” I said matter-of-factly.
“You had a talk about it?” She let out a laugh. “I’m sure that’ll solve everything when he gets arrested or has to whack someone.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You say you’re supporting him. It’s easy to say, Terra. Doing it isn’t as easy. What would you do if he killed someone? If someone crossed your father, and Michael was the hit man? He’s probably who your father would use. Him or Cap. They’re experienced, and new in the mob. It’s the most logical choice.”
The thought of my father having someone killed seemed ludicrous. Michael performing the dirty work seemed even more so.
“This isn’t a movie. It’s real life, Michelle. Nobody’s getting killed.”
She burst out in laughter. “Holy shit, girl. Just like you said, denial, denial, denial.”
I shot her a glare. “Do you really think they kill people? Like kill them?”
“Your father was in jail for killing an ATF agent. They arrested him twice. For two different murders. Both ATF agents. Do you think that was a coincidence? Do normal people get arrested for killing ATF agents? Do the heads of ATF agents normally show up in the river? Do you think it’s a coincidence that my father came up missing at the same time?”
I hadn’t given it much thought, but really didn’t want to. My father was not guilty of the crimes, and Michael assured me of it.
“Michael promised me my father wasn’t guilty,” I said emphatically. “He said he was sure of it.”
“Unless he did it, or he saw someone else do it, how could he say that? Have you asked yourself that?”
I hadn’t. But I was now.
Michelle was right. I lived in my own little world. I wasn’t quite living in a world of denial, but I sure wasn’t living in a world of reality and acceptance, either.
“No.”
“No what?” she asked.
“I haven’t asked myself that. I didn’t really think about it.”
“Well, think about it.”
I didn’t want to. I wanted to shift the subject away from Michael.
“What would you do if Cap was...if he was...if he whacked someone?”
“I support Cap. He’s a good man, Terra. He really is. If there’s something he does, I’ll support him. I know if he was ever asked to do something he didn’t agree with, he’d say so. And, if he believes in it enough to do it, I support him. That’s what wives of mobsters do.”
It was exactly what my mother said.
“Who told you that?” I asked.
She shrugged. “My mom.”
As much as I told myself I was supportive of Michael and his involvement in the family, it was obvious I wasn’t as loyal as I told myself I was.
But if I was going to marry Michael, I needed to accept him, and his involvement with the family, wholeheartedly.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Michael
I glanced around the shop, proud of the job Cap had done. The crates of weapons were neatly stacked, prepared for pickup.
“You did it, brother.”
With his hands on his hips, he surveyed the shop, and then looked at me. He beamed with pride. “Ever have your doubts?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t doubt you, but there’s always a possibility of Murphy’s Law.”
“Adapt and overcome,” he said with a light laugh. “I won’t even tell you about all the problems we had.”
“Like what?”
“Them fuckin’ machines. Took a while to get the programming figured out. They send you a thumb drive to plug into it, but it ain’t that easy. I put the boots to the first machine, and was about to toss the second one in the street when Trace stopped me. He got it figured out after a while, but it wasn’t cut and dried.”
I chuckled at the thought of Cap kicking one of the Ghost Gunners. “Put the boots to it, huh?”
“Kicked the shit out of it, then I shot it.”
“Shot it?”
“Twice. Fucker’s built like a tank, though.”
Knowing my involvement during the entire process of manufacturing the weapons was non-existent made the result seem somewhat surreal. Almost as if I was recalling a past from yesteryear, I looked around the shop and shook my head.
“Seems strange.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Not being involved.”
“You’re too busy sucking Anthony’s cock to actually get any work done.”
His remark was meant to be a joke, but it caught me off guard nonetheless. I locked eyes with him and then arched an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“You know what I mean. You and him are family, and then there’s the family. I’m happy for you, brother. You’ve got the family you’ve never had. Shit feels good, huh?”
It did. I crossed my arms and nodded. “It does.”
“Matter of what? A month?”
“Thirty-four days.”
“Countin’ ’em, huh?”
“Can’t help it.”
He sat down on one of the crates and let out a sigh. “My pop and me made up. Guess you probably know that, bein’ his law partner and all.”
“I haven’t talked to him in months.”
“Well, we made up. He apologized for what he said, and he meant it. We talked about the fog of war, and the kind of shit that happens. First time I talked about it in years. Felt kind of good to talk seriously about it to someone.” He looked up. “You ever talk about it?”
The battle in Haditha was off-limits, and would remain so until the end.
My eyes fell to the floor. “Nope.”
“Made me feel like something escaped me. Kind of weird. Been carryin’ that shit around for ten years, and after talking to him, I felt twenty pounds lighter. You ought to talk to someone, brother. Get them to accept what happened. I know that shit eats you up just like it did me.”
I kicked a splinter of wood across the floor. “I’m glad you two patched things up. He’s coming to the wedding, isn’t he?”
“You think you’re slick, don’t you?”
“Huh?”
“I said something about Haditha, and you changed the topic to the wedding. I’m telling ya, you need to talk to someone.”
I didn’t need to talk to anyone. Some men were emotionally weaker than others. Nothing against Cap, but I had no desire to talk to anyone about what we did in Haditha. Trusting someone enough to speak freely about the truth would be close to impossible.
I made my peace with God, and that was all I needed to do.
“Your father’s coming to the wedding, isn’t he?”
“You’re a stubborn prick.” He looked at me and then shook his
head. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
I hoped to never need to use his services again, but seriously doubted I’d get through life without having at least one more run-in with the law. Having Al at the wedding meant a lot to me. He was a good man, Cap’s father, and instrumental in having my soon-to-be father-in-law released from prison.
“Looking forward to seeing him again. Hell, he’s the reason I’ve got a family now.”
“Guess that’s one way to look at it.”
I sat on the stack of crates across from him. “No other way to look at it. With Anthony in the picture, I have a father figure, and a boss. Having him as a boss allows the men to accept me as being an equal, and as being his son-in-law. If he was gone, they’d always look at me as a stand-in, and as someone who didn’t earn his way in this family. I’ve got Al to thank for that.”
A content look washed over him. “Nice to hear.”
The sound of a truck in the parking lot caused each of us to stand. He turned toward the door. “Sounds like he’s here.”
I walked to the door, opened it slightly, and peered into the parking lot. Mark and another man got out of a U-Haul moving van, and then turned toward the front door. The second man had a military-style canvas bag over his shoulder.
I whistled. “Back here.”
“Well, holy shit. How’s it hanging, Tripp?”
I pushed the door open. “Like a hammer. How you doing, Mark?”
“Just trying to earn a living,” he said. “One gun deal at a time. You?”
“Same as you. We’re in the low-profit side of the equation, though.”
Mark was a former Army Ranger, and a veteran of the war in Iraq. I’d done business several times with him in the past and trusted him completely, but had no reason to trust the man with him. He looked not much differently than Mark. Tall, lean, and wearing the two-hundred-yard stare, he appeared to be former military, and a combat veteran, if my instincts were correct.
Regardless, I had no reason to trust him.
After they stepped through the door, I looked at Cap, and then at them. “Hate to say this, but I’m going to need to make sure everyone’s clean.”
Mark raised his hands in the air. “No objections.”
I patted him down, and then searched the man with him. Both, at least as far as I could tell, were free of any listening devices. I motioned toward the bag the second man had tossed onto the floor.