Ballistic (36 page)

“I know you’re young, but I’d like to meet a girl you fancy at least once,” she
said, kneading the bread.

“What’s the rush? I want a love like you and Pops have.” I
told her stirring, the sauce. “Besides, none of the girls I’ve met are worthy of meeting you.”

“You’ll have it one day,” she
said, smiling. “When it happens, you’ll find yourself on your knees.”

Laughing
, I kiss her cheek. “Why would I even be on my knees?”

L
ightly touching my face she said, “To find heaven one must look up.”

This morning I was lost, by afternoon I was found. By evening
, my entire outlook on life has changed. I have hope, I have happiness, I have love and I have her. Once we dusted off and secured the house, we went back to my place to shower and eat. Letting her shower first, I pull out frozen pizzas and a bottle of red to celebrate us working our shit out.

When my phone rings
, I ignore it. When it rings again, I walk over and see it’s Julian. He didn’t leave a message, but then before my screen blanks, I see he’s sent a text. Curiosity won out and after wiping my hands on my dusty jeans, I swipe it open.

His text
is an apology and an invitation for a drink. I wasn’t going to reply, but when Lina comes down in my shirt, I run it by her to see what she thinks.

“
You should go,” she says, standing on her toes to kiss me. “He’s still your friend, Anthony. He’s had your back for a long time.”

“If I go
, it’s a betrayal to you,” I point out.

“No it isn’t,’ she says
, laughing. “Friends fight, and trust me, I know. He misses you and wants to say he’s sorry. Give him a shot.”

“You don’t mind?”

“Nope.”

Taking my own shower, I come back down
when the pizzas done and we have a toast. Staring at my phone and taking her advice, I pick it up and tell him I’m in. I leave it to him to choose the time and place, when he says one hour and gives me an address, I finish the kitchen, then go upstairs to tell Lina goodbye. As usual, she’s completely focused on her work with her phone to her ear and fingers flying over the keyboard. It takes me several attempts to get her attention. Finally after putting my hand over the monitor, she looks up, smiles and puts her call on hold. Coming around the desk she wraps those tiny arms around my neck and pulls me down to meet her.

“I’ll miss you,” she says softly
. “I’ll be right here when you get back.”

“I won’t be long,” I tell
, her squeezing her ass. “Take a break soon, alright?”

“Sure thing
, coach,” she says, slapping my ass and then returns to the phone and zones out once again.

Putting the address in the navigation, I light a cigarette and drive to meet Julian. Fifteen minutes later
, I’m at my destination and it dawns on me, all these years of knowing him I’d never once been to his house. Julian has always had money so why did he live on an abandoned street that only had one other house on it? The guy could live anywhere yet he chose to live on the block that time forgot? Parking out front, I knock on the door and he yells it’s open, so I walk in and find him in the living room watching television. He’s got files scattered everywhere which are probably a cases he’s working on. It’s no secret the guy is a shark in the court room.

“Thanks for coming,” he says
, shaking my hand. “Red right?”

“Red’s fine,” I tell him
, taking a seat. He opens a bottle then comes back in with two glasses. Handing me one we both take a sip and I know I’m not the only feeling the tension. “So Lina,” he starts. “You finally got your girl, then?”

“I did,” I answer vaguely. Christ, he just couldn’t wait to bring her into this. “Why am I here
, Julian?”

Taking another drink he smiles at me
. “I wanted to say I’m sorry in person,” he says with what I believe to be fake sincerity and at that moment I wish she were here to tell me if he was bullshitting me or not. “I honestly didn’t think you wanted her, or at least that’s what I told myself. It’s obvious I fucked up and you were right to call me out on it. I wasn’t thinking of our friendship. I was thinking of myself.”

Raising my own glass and taking a hearty pull, I continue to sip because I’m choosing my words carefully
. “It’s in the past,” I tell him. “We’ve both made mistakes, but it worked out as it was meant to.”

“
By the way what happened to her hand?” he asks, cocking his head. “When I was with her at Mercury it was in a cast, but she was reluctant to discuss it. She did tell you about our meeting, right? Did she give you any other
details
about our time together?”

“She,” I try to say
, but suddenly my body is like lead and my brain is sludge.

“What was that?” he asks
, smirking.

“You son of a bitch,” I mumble
, reaching over to strangle him.

Slapping my hands away easily
, he laughs at my expense. “Fucking amateur,” he says, standing up. “She’s mine Gallo, always was, and always will be.”

“Don’t hurt her,” I try and say
, but the words are jumbled.

“Hurt her?” he asks
, genuinely confused. “I would never hurt her, you selfish prick. I want her with me, by my side where she belongs. She may not want me now, but she will again in time. Hell, I’ve been playing you all for ten years so clearly I don’t mind waiting. Does she know that from day one you planned to use her because you didn’t have what it took to succeed? Don’t even answer that because the days of you and them using her for your revenge bullshit are over. I’ve got bigger plans for her and you old friend, I’m sorry to say won’t be around to see it all play out.”

He didn’t have to explain ‘them’ to me, I got it. The DPD,
the captain and myself. I knew what the cap had her doing for him behind closed doors when she was younger and I didn’t agree with it. She was too young and he took advantage of her ability for his own personal gain. But how in the fuck does Julian know that? How did even know that I was doing it too? I watch as he takes his phone out to accept a call he didn’t seem surprised to be getting. His smile is one of confidence and victory when he says “Come home to me Lina.”

Tossing his phone down he kicks me out of the way to take the chair across from me. Sipping his wine he smiles at me
then he lets his mask fall and I see Julian for what he really was. “Our fathers were enemies; it’s only natural that we would be too. My father was shot to death in his own home, Tony. He bled out on the dining room floor and your father was his executioner. Your father had no personal investment, mine had never wronged yours. My father was a job, an order, nothing more. A son and his father is a beautiful thing wouldn’t you agree? I mean, you must considering you’ve spent the last ten years trying to find closure. Guess what Gallo? You’re staring at it. I killed your family. The guy you used and ordered around all these years shot both your parents between the fucking eyes and I enjoyed it. I didn’t do Venessa’s parents though; my idiot cousins were responsible for that mess. But you, so blinded by right and wrong refuse to acknowledge your role in this. What happens next is because of you too. We’re both sinners old friend, the only difference is I don’t want absolution.”

Pulling me up by my hair, he puts me in a
headlock and drags me down the hall. The second I’m thrown to the ground I couldn’t get my bearings or fight free. When it fully hit my system my eyes rolled back and the last thing I saw was Julian closing the door behind him.

Pulling my jeans up, I look
ed down at him lying there and for a moment his façade slipped. He wasn’t sweet and uncertain Julian. He was cold and calculating Julian.
The only reason I’d entertained him this long is because he lets me take my pleasure however I want it. He doesn’t engage, (until after), and he doesn’t last long.

Reaching for my bag
, he pulls me into bed again and the whole thing feels wrong. “Stay,” he mumbled. “I’m not done with you yet.”

Pushing away from him
, I
roll my eyes. “Maybe not, but I’m done with you. Later, Julian.”

“Wait,” he
said, pressing me against the door. “You said it yourself, you don’t do repeats, but here you are in my bed. That tells me you have feelings for me.”

“Whoa,” I
said, pushing him back. “You keep invading my space, home slice. If it wasn’t you, it would be someone else, so don’t make this into something it isn’t. Trust me when I tell you this means nothing to me.”

“It means something when you’re coming all over me.”

“I can make that happen with or without you,” I reminded him. “Now move.”

“Lina
, please.”

“You just went from repeat to shuffle on my play list
. Now get the fuck out of my way.”

He did
, but barely. I didn’t do clingers, especially clingers who think they’re doing me a favor. Climbing into my truck and flooring it, I got a couple of blocks away when I started shaking. Every time I hooked up with him, I shook after, like I’d done something terribly wrong. Like I’d broken a promise I don’t remember making. Vowing to myself right then and there, I swore no more Julian, ever. Not a big loss really considering there was something off about him. I just didn’t know what it was and wasn’t sticking around to find out.

A few things were bothering me. The executions for one, the fact that they increased
after
I put in for a leave of absence made no sense. If it was about getting my attention these men would be left for me to find. For instance stuffing one in my car with a note or, outside Anthony’s house as warning. This escalation wasn’t following any patterns I had ever seen before. My absence was supposed to signal that I was backing off but whoever this is didn’t buy my bullshit. Second, the fact none of this shit storm ever hit the media when it was happening in broad daylight for everyone to see had me concerned too. Anytime something happens here, the media eats it up with a spoon. ‘Oh, look what happened in Detroit
again
.’ The media lives for that ‘I told you so’ bullshit because the drama they cover is job security for them. Maybe in the beginning I was being toyed with until he realized that I was a real threat. Now these deaths are my warning that he noticed and would retaliate. Whoever he is gets high off of his own power. He loves corruption and forcing otherwise decent men to do his bidding in exchange for life and a few bucks. By escalating the body count you increase the risk of getting caught. So why risk the exposure? Simple. Because he wants
me
to find him.

T
his tells me we know each other. Lighting a cigarette, I knew a history lesson was in order so I started from the top.

Grabbing
the flash drive from the drawer to look over what Jules had on Hank again. I felt a sudden urgency to read what was on here. My gut was telling me I fucked up by not treating this as a real lead. In the midst of all the chaos, I thought Jules wanted me to have it for Max’s sake. She dedicated years to tracking Hank and all his illegal bullshit. Jules knew Hank couldn’t be trusted and right now I’m kicking myself for being too caught up to look at all the angles. Deep down it was nagging me that maybe Hank Allen wasn’t the dead-end I thought he was. Well, I mean he was dead, but I needed to figure out what got him that way. As I scroll through her data I couldn’t figure out Hank’s motivation at all. Until recently, Hank wanted no part of Lush then almost overnight taking it from Max was priority one. He had seen Jules as a threat from the start and when she married Max he fucked with her constantly. But the shit he pulled to get her out of the way recently was extreme even for him.  Which means Hank wanted Jules out of the way for a specific reason. Hank needed full control over Lush and couldn’t as long as Max had a wife. Over the years Jules had collected dozens of photos of Hank, but I never saw past him. With fresh eyes, I look in the background. Taking note of buildings, landmarks and people, especially. In most of the photos, Hank is on his phone, or he’s coming and going from his home in West Bloomfield.

Shuffling through
them, I’m getting pissed that I can’t find anything useful until I finally find one where a man is at least offering a profile view. Zooming in I see it. Saving the shot, I grab Detective Cross’ file, a file he kept and shared with only his partner, Detective Gryza, Anthony’s father. Angelo Russo was a drug dealer, this we know. He, along with his brothers Orlando and Antonio, started off small but quickly grew with the help of their cousin’s connections. Once the Russo’s joined forces with the Carna family, they were seriously close to taking over the city. That is, until a small team of Detectives successfully ended their reign with the most impressive raid the city had seen at that time.

Donnie Carna had one son, Donnie “The British” Carna Jr., however
, Angelo Russo had two sons. Benjamin “Benny Boy” and, of course, Julian Russo. Lighting another cigarette, I pull the file on Juliette Russo whose given name was Perret. The Russo’s and Carna’s were extinguished, their sons, years later by Karma herself.

But one son survived.

He changed his name to that of his deceased mother, put himself through law school, and became a very well-respected but slimy criminal defense attorney. All the while he had his eyes set on finishing what his family started. He was buying cops off, getting criminals off and nearly killed my friends. He still wants to kill my friends and he’s been working behind the scenes for ten years with no one the wiser. This was a man that was trusted by many people for all the wrong fucking reasons. This man snowed us all.

He
is also currently with Anthony.

Pulling my hair up, lacing my
Chuck’s and lining my eyes the blackest they’ve ever been. Climbing into my truck quickly, for the first time ever I don’t sync my music. Eminem hasn’t written a track for this shit yet, but who knows, maybe someday he will. Grabbing my phone, I dial one number. “Come home to me Lina,” was all he said before disconnecting.

Putting it in drive, I lit a
nother cigarette preparing for war.