Ties That Bind (6 page)

“Sorry,” he murmured. “And no. Water’s probably a better idea.”

Sonny handed him a water glass then slipped off his jacket, his shoulders taut against the fabric of his shirt from the adventures of the evening. He dropped into a chair opposite Mitch, taking a few breaths to let his muscles relax into the cushions. “Are you joining Vinetti?”

“You advising against it?”

“No. Not if that’s what you want.”

“Oh, no,” he shook his head. “None of your philosophical bullshit tonight, Sonny. I’ve been playing bodyguard for hours now-”

“Exactly!” His eyes narrowed as he sat forward. “Mitch, come on, you could do so much more. So much better than being a hired hand for-”

“Sonny,” he cut him off with a sigh. “We’ve had this conversation a hundred times. I like what I do. I don’t want permanence. I don’t want to be in charge of something. Anything really. I like freedom a hell of lot more than a having a permanent address.”

Sonny held his hands up and dropped back into the chair. It was an impossible discussion and he knew it but he figured if he kept hassling Mitch he might catch him in a weak moment. After ten years it had been a fruitless effort but Sonny had never been one to give up easily… he just guessed that the right circumstances hadn’t appeared yet for Mitch to change his mind and want less transitory life. He glanced toward the bedroom where Ashli had disappeared to take a shower.

“She really didn’t tell you about us?”

The disappointment was obvious and Mitch laughed. “Yeah, she really didn’t tell me. I’m surprised you didn’t, though.”

“Vinetti nearly threw my ass off that balcony. It wasn’t one of my most glorious moments.”

“Tough guy is he?”

“Throws a better punch than you but,” he grinned, “you’ve got a hell of a lot better aim.”

“Who are we aiming at?” Ashli asked, sweeping into the room in one of the hotel robes and dropping on to the sofa beside Mitch.

“We are planning the assassination of your brother,” Sonny said, pushing a drink her direction.

“Oh, fabulous!” she grinned. “Can we make sure I’m out of town first because that would really ruin my weekend plans, you know?”  She moved away from them, unable to sit still, and went to turn on the radio. She switched on a hard rock station and turned it up several levels before beginning to twirl around the room.

Mitch watched her move then tossed a quizzical look Sonny’s direction. He shrugged but tapped his nose, guessing Ashli had likely imbibed in her drug stash before joining them. Mitch grimaced, causing Sonny to move over and sit beside him. He draped an arm around Mitch, both watching her move about the room in random patterns.

“Don’t judge her so harshly.”

“Sonny-”

“I know,” he nodded, “you don’t believe in imported drugs. But, come on, she’s had one fucked up night.”

“Where’d she get the drugs?  Jimmie?”

“No,” he shook his head. “Jimmie won’t deal drugs. Never has. But she’s a connected gal, Mitch. She can get anything and anyone she wants. You might want to remember that.”

Mitch shot another irritated look at no one in particular then dropped his head to the back of the sofa. “How the fuck am I supposed to explain this to Jimmie?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Peace. It was what Mitch wanted more than anything in the world. Not the general statement that people across the globe spout with they attempt to be patriotic but true peace in his own life. He could even be more specific if required to quantify it: he wanted nothing to do with either the IOC or the mob. He wanted both organizations out of his life completely. To be at such diverse odds, Mitch sometimes wondered if the two ever realized how intimately similar they were.

Both were vying for more power – one in Congress and the other in Sicily; both wanted more money, neither caring too much where it came from; and both asked way too much from the people that joined. Giving your life to the mob was no different than giving your life to the IOC. He could be killed working for either and that, more than most things, are what caused the lines to blur for many new recruits to the agency. The IOC offered little in the way of perks to its employees while the mafia?  Whatever your vice, the mob could deliver in spades. In the way of bad habits, Mitch had lucked out.

Alcohol was his vice. More than drugs, sex, or immeasurable power, Mitch had always found alcohol most persuasive. It could ease a tortured soul, lift depressed spirits and be a cause of jubilant celebration. He didn’t have a great preference – whiskey was his first choice but it was more by default than preference. It served its purpose quickly while wine was civilized, rum an instant drunk, and sambuca a guaranteed hangover. And he had repeatedly tried them all. If he wasn’t required to be so clear headed all the time, he’d likely be a drunk. In that regard, he supposed he had to thank both the IOC and the mob for preventing his permanent membership in AA.

He swayed the bottle in his hand, watching the liquid move about in random patterns, wondering if Jimmie was as drunk as he. He kind of hoped he was, then his aim would be off and he could get away easily. But, if Jimmie was sober, it meant the end would come right here and now and be quick and likely painless thanks to the high dollar liquor Ashli stocked in her residence in the wilderness of northern New York state.

 It wouldn’t be a bad place to go. If there actually was a peaceful place on earth, this was probably it. With its impeccable formal gardens, cobblestone paths that led from one building to another, unruly wild blueberry bushes that Ashli claimed were taking over the entire property, and the twenty country miles to the nearest neighbor, this was the closest thing to seclusion Mitch had ever encountered in America.

“This is a beautiful place you’ve got here,” he murmured, hearing the slur in his own words and avoiding the somber gray eyes that he knew were focused on him from across the wrought iron patio table.

“Our refuge,” Jimmie returned. “We don’t allow strangers here.”

Mitch shifted his eyes to the pistol sitting on the table in front of them, something in the recesses of his mind telling him that he should grab it while Jimmie was pouring himself another drink. But another voice was telling him not to care. “Would you like me to leave?”

Jimmie frowned, hoping he looked some manner of sober to this man sitting across from him. He wasn’t – he’d been drinking long before he reached the compound after hearing that Ashli had spent the last few hours being shot at in some rundown warehouse by punks that no one could seem to put a name to. But he knew it wasn’t Mitch’s fault. By Ashli’s account, she would have perished if Mitch hadn’t been there to cover her ass. He wanted to blame someone, he wanted to strangle the life out of the people that had done this but without any details his hands were tied. He emptied his glass and extended the bottle to Mitch, pouring him half a glass. “No.”

“I had to call in Sonny Markesi to get us out. I hope that’s not a problem.”

“You’re longtime friends with him, right?”

“Since childhood,” Mitch nodded. “I didn’t have a lot of options.”

Sinking back onto the uncomfortable rigid back chair, he shrugged with drunken non-committal. He tugged his white pleated shirt out of his dress pants, letting it hang loose across his lap. He closed his eyes for a moment, letting the scent of cedar wash over him as he inhaled deeply to calm the tremble in his stomach. His baby sister. Nearly killed and for what?  No one seemed to know. She was the reason he’d killed his right hand, his closest friend, his most trusted confidant two weeks earlier. Alex had threatened her life if he and his girlfriend were not allowed admittance into the witness protection program. He wanted to gamble with Jimmie: Ashli’s life for his freedom. It was one of the few bets Jimmie was unwilling to make.

His eyes opened slowly, trying to focus on Mitch’s form a few feet away. The flickering torches surrounding the patio area made it difficult any time but tonight, hours into his drinking binge, it made it impossible. He dropped his gaze, focusing on the buttons of his shirt, which were much closer and seemed not to be dancing with quite so much vigor. “You saved my sister’s life. I don’t give a damn how you accomplished it. Just that you did. You have my sincerest gratitude.”

Mitch withheld the bitter, sarcastic retort that came to his mind. He hadn’t saved her for Jimmie’s benefit. He hadn’t even saved her because the IOC would have expected him to. Protecting people had been ingrained in him since birth, the absence of suffering one of the idealistic causes his homemaker mother had long aspired to. She had dragged him on every mercy mission she went on no matter how small or boring to a child – pans of lasagna with mozzarella so thick it required spatulas to dip it out of the metal baking tin were dropped off at the old widow down the street that had lost her husband in a car bombing; boxes of homemade cannoli with tiny chocolate shavings decorating the ends were delivered to the orphanage each Saturday; and then there were the pastrami and pancetta sandwiches she handed out to the neighborhood kids on the evenings when their fathers, normally always prompt for dinner, didn’t show up.

She knew, he knew…a late father meant he would not be coming at all. Sometimes it was simple – he had skipped town, either because he was fed up or because he was running from the law. Other times, the times his mother somehow always knew and prepared Mitch for in advance, the father had disappeared and would never be found. No body. No trace. No sign of him ever again. Like a vapor of smoke that was there and then suddenly gone, these were the men that dropped into obscurity and rarely, if ever, did anyone bother to ask where they had gone.

He wanted to hate Jimmie, knowing that he was the type of man who made these fathers disappear. But he couldn’t. How many people had Mitch himself made disappear even under the close scrutiny of the IOC?  Dozens. Hundreds. He’d lost count ages ago.

“Mitch?” Jimmie was eying him, apparently having expected some form of response.

“I don’t usually drink with others,” he managed with a crooked grin, “I become a philosophical fool and start evaluating my life. Makes me pretty shitty company, if truth be told.”

“I don’t get drunk with other people,” Jimmie agreed even though it was clear to both that he couldn’t stand now even if he wanted to. “Usually because that’s the easiest way to get a bullet in the back of my skull or say something that should remain private. Guess that means I have to hire you so if I say something stupid you’re at least on my payroll first.”

“Better to shoot your own employees than a stranger’s?”

Jimmie chuckled, his head dropping backwards with his laughter. “Something like that, yeah.”

“Who is after her?” Mitch asked in a low voice, glancing around to make certain no one was anywhere within hearing distance.

“Everyone thinks I’m going to shoot you for putting her in danger, Mitch,” he said waving around. “They’ve all disappeared to keep from being called as witnesses.”

“They don’t know you very well.”

“No,” he shook his head. “Not at all. And to answer your question, I don’t know any reason someone would be after her. We tightened security after Coppell, just like all the families and, of course, after Alex’s death. But no one should want her.”

“From the inside?” Mitch expected an immediate denial but when his question received silence, he turned a quizzical look Jimmie’s direction.

“It’s possible,” he murmured. “Not likely but entirely possible. We’ve done a lot of expanding recently. There could be people among us-”

“No need to explain further. I’ll dig around for you. About the west coast-”

“Nicolai Terenari.” Jimmie didn’t miss the flicker of recognition that passed across Mitch’s face. “You know him?”

“Intimately.”

“Care to elaborate on that?”

“No.”

Jimmie didn’t bother to try and scrutinize him having learned that, unlike most men he came across, information was not likely to be persuaded from Mitch. Not that he particularly required additional information about Nicolai. Raised in the boroughs of New York, worked his way up through the street gangs to take over his own business, eventually branching out to the west coast where he had remained for the last decade...his story made him the generic poster child for a gang leader. He was universally heralded for his ability to make multi-million dollar deals but, unlike families in the east, Nicolai’s death toll was notoriously high. Rather than striking deals and negotiating, he paved his corporate ladder with sprays of bullets, leaving no one left to oppose his impending takeover.

The pinched look on Mitch’s face told him that some previous dealings with Nicolai must have soured him on the man. This, in Jimmie’s mind, was only another credit to Mitch’s ability to discern character. He sent him a lopsided grin and pulled himself to standing, wobbling a moment as he tried to find his footing. “Let’s go find you a room before we both pass out, hm?”

Mitch nodded silently, his mind teeming with drunken memories and conflicting emotions regarding the man whose family he had just agreed to join. Jimmie seemed legitimate in his thought processes, sound in the manner in which he evaluated and discerned the problems that were facing him. Rather than jumping to conclusions, he gathered his information, listened to the words of those who were there and then came to his own conclusions. A rarity among the criminal minds he normally associated with. Even Sonny ran forward on rumors alone, his Italian temper always managing to get the best of him.