Chapter 27—Dante

It was late afternoon.

I was sitting in a chair in the corner of our workshop garage.

I was just sitting there watching Gio and Alex work on an old Harley that a customer wanted modified.

Claudius was pouring over those files again. Looking over anything we might have missed.

The garage door was open. Just ahead I could see the kids out on the dirt track and the skateboard park doing their tricks.

It might look like we were doing nothing, but this was us thinking. It was how we sorted through things. This garage was more like a warehouse with the space for all our ideas and equipment. It had seen us do many things—weird wonderful things and even nothingness.

Today, I kind of felt like I was leaning on the side of nothingness, but unlike most of those times when we came here to brainstorm our problems, I was coming up with nothing.

It was all a bunch of nothing. What was worse that Franco person was probably already here in Chicago waiting for the right time to take Maria and Flynn away from me.

A month hadn’t even passed since this whole shamble of a mess took off. It started with me at Christina’s graveside getting hope that we’d probably found a new avenue to explore. Then Maria had blown into town. Two things at once in just a handful of weeks.

So much information, but still nothing fit.

The creeper from the charity was never picked up on the secret squad radar. He wasn’t on the staff list either, so they were looking into the list of event liaisons. The guy from the other night that escaped from the cellar was never found. Shit wasn’t adding up and I was sitting on my ass like I had all the time in the world.

It was all getting away from me, stuff falling from my grasp and out of my control.

Claudius glanced over to me. He had that look in his eyes that told me he’d come to a dead end too. He couldn’t go any further and didn’t want to say it to me.

He came over and sat on the chair beside me. Gio stopped what he was doing and looked over.

“Can’t find anything, can you?” I asked.

“No, but I won’t stop looking,” he replied.

“It’s all over the place Claudius. There’s literally nothing.”

“Sometimes the truth can be staring you right in the face and you can’t see it. We know we’re close, we just have to find out what we’re close to. Wait to see what happens.”

“Or wait to see what comes to you?” Alex stated drawing our attention straight over to him.

He was looking outside.

A car had pulled up. Black Sedan with the windows tinted— standard mafia car.

We all stood up ready, ready for anything.

Ready for action.

Who was this?

The car door opened and out stepped the devil himself.

He must have come straight from hell except he was dressed in a beige suit and wore one of those old style fedoras.

Barabbas Antonella made his procession toward us with two guys I knew to be Manellos as his body guards.

Fucking hell.

I’d seen this man a few times in my life. There were two prominent times that would always stand out. The first was at a bar in town when I was nineteen, he’d met with the guy who own the bar and the next day that guy was found hanging from the bridge outside his house with two bullets in his head. The next time was just last year when he was helping the terrorist, Goliath, steal nukes.

Barabbas walked in like he owned the place and Claudius stepped forward.

While I had to admit there was some element of fear that gripped my insides, Claudius stepped forward with that smirk on his face like he was greeting some old friend.

“Barabbas Antonella, fucking hell. What breeze blew you to this part of town?” Claudius asked.

Barabbas smiled and stopped just paces away.

He looked like he’d just stepped out of The Godfather—very old school Mafioso La Cosa Nostra.

A little like Marcus, but Marcus had modernized himself to some degree. Barabbas on the other hand had not and he did not look like he took too kindly to Claudius’ lackadaisical attitude.

“You, scum. You are scum. At least Raphael knew his place and respected territory. You are just a boy.” He said to Claudius. “You are a boy and you think you can piss on tradition.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Claudius said then showed off the badass he was by stepping right up to Barabbas, into his personal space.

“Don’t act like a fucking idiot. You want to play games boss boy, let’s do this.” Barabbas looked at me. He actually looked at me. “Sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong is never a good thing.”

Fuck, he was talking to me and snapped me in gear. I didn’t give a fuck who he was. I waltzed right up to him and stared him down.

“Got something to say? Say it or get the fuck out of here.” I pointed to the door.

Even Claudius looked stunned by my words.

Barabbas stepped around to me.

“I just said it lapdog. Stop sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. Since I didn’t expect you to understand I thought I’d send a message for you to see. It’s on the way to your house.” He chuckled and my bravado faded. “You may want to get there before everything goes Boom! Woman and child gone.”

I would have beat the shit out of him, but adrenaline sent me straight to my bike. I jumped on it and rode out leaving them all.

Boom …

Like a fucking bomb.

Before I even turned the corner three bikes joined me—Claudius, Gio and Alex.

We all rode hard and fast to my house. Me praying nothing had happened to Maria and Flynn.

What the hell would I do if something happened to them? Fuck!

The usual twenty minute ride to my house took five minutes. We drove wherever we could cutting corners, jumping over hedges, anything to just get there.

Thank God the house was intact when I got there.

I ran inside and saw Saul, Donny, and Lois with Flynn sitting on the sofa.

Where was Maria?

“Guys there’s a bomb on the way here. Take Flynn into the basement.” I ordered.

Saul grabbed Flynn and went off with him.

Claudius and the others started checking around.

The basement was what I had in mind to keep them safe. It was that old style set up so it could take a beating and protect you if there was a bomb. I had to think fast. Going outside was out of the question because maybe that was what they wanted so they could gun us all down.

Maria ran down the stairs in blind panic.

She looked like she’d been crying.

“Dante, I have to talk to you. I have to tell you something now.” She babbled. She was talking fast the way she did when she was scared.

“Not now baby, there’s a bomb. There’s a bomb either here or on the way. I need you to get down to the basement. The boys took Flynn down there already.”

I grabbed her hand, but she pulled back.

“Elliot Granger.” She blurted, her eyes wild and wide with fear. “It was him. It was him Dante. It was him who killed Christina.”

“What the hell are you saying to me?” Elliot Granger was the governor. He was never on my radar.

“Christina was seeing him and I saw him kill Todd Parker with Barabbas Antonella. In her treasure box your Ma gave me was a whole host of evidence against Granger linking him to all sorts of things. It’s the dirt. The thing was I knew about him and I’m so sorry I didn’t say anything before.”

I stilled. Jesus Christ.

The guys rushed back in looking at us.

“What are you saying Maria? You saying you knew it could be him and you never said?”

“No,” she shook her head. “I didn’t know. I never knew. Not till today. I saw him in the park earlier. He came and spoke to me and I guessed he knew you were investigating. He knew you were looking in the right places. I would never hide that from you, and that is why I’m telling you now. Because I know it was him. The stuff in the box is dirt enough to destroy him and if we’re going with that then it has to be him. I couldn’t just speculate, because Christina was seeing other people too. He’s dangerous and I was scared to get it wrong.”

All I could do was stare at her while disappointment and hurt filled me.

All I wanted for so long was a name, just a name and she had it.

She had a fucking name all this time and never told me.

The glass smashing in on the floor to ceiling window stole my next words. A grenade dropped a few feet away from us and outside was the creeper from the charity.

The creeper with the long pointed nose, greasy black hair, and distorted face. The fucker was right outside my house.

Furious as I was the first thing I did was grab Maria and jump as far as I could into the hall while the other guys jumped out of the way.

The blast from the explosion took down everything in its path.