Alannah
“Hello? You still there? Goddamn it!”
I sit on the floor in complete shock of the show playing out in front of me. Tommy Two Nines, one of the people I considered a friend for the past year of my life, paces around the abandoned, dirty room like he’s losing his mind. I watch in shock as he lifts his cell phone over his head like he wants to slam it on the floor, but stops himself and roughly shoves in into his pocket instead.
“Goddamn it!” he screams again, his veins popping out of his thick neck from the force of the yell. Then, he lets his body crumble to the floor right in front of me. He sits there with his hands covering his face, a broken man lost in a storm without a map to guide him out.
“Frankie say something you didn’t want to hear?” I say, taking a jab at his already floundering confidence. My hands and feet are bound together with zip ties, but I feel as defiant as ever. I’m Dominic Collazo’s girlfriend, and the things I’ve seen have toughened me up. I don’t scare easily. Plus, I’m pissed that Tommy has done this. He was supposed to be our friend.
“How could you do this, Tommy?” I ask, feeling myself becoming more and more confident the more I speak, and the longer Tommy sits in front of me shielding his face like he can’t stand to look at me. “Dominic loves you like a brother, and you turn your back on him for someone like Victor Fronzo? You conspire with his own consigliere to have him removed from power? How could you do this?”
Tommy doesn’t answer, and I feel my temper flaring.
“Answer me, Tommy!” I snap, yelling at him as if he’s the one tied up and being held against his will in an abandoned hell hole. “Dominic trusted you. Out of everybody else in the Family, it was you Dominic trusted. He wanted you to watch our backs, he thought you were his friend. I’d expect this from Frankie since he’s always acted like he should’ve been the boss, and he’s always treated me like I shouldn’t be around. From him, I’d expect as much, but not from you, Tommy. I thought you were the one who was loyal.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Tommy bursts, snapping his head around to look at me.
“Fuck you!” I spit back. “Everything was going fine until you two decided to mess it all up. Why couldn’t you just leave a good thing alone? When Dominic finds out, you know you won’t survive a day.”
“You arrogant little bitch,” Tommy fires back, finally standing up and towering over me, using his size and scowl to intimidate me. “You talk as if you have some sort of clue about what’s going on, but you don’t know half as much as you think you do. You don’t know a fucking thing.” He glares at me for a second before turning on his heel and settling back into the routine of pacing around the dark room.
“What are you gonna do, Tommy?” I ask, still defiant, but with less of an edge now. I have to remember that I’m tied up, and the man in front of me is Tommy “Two Nines” Caprio, a man who had no problem cutting the fingers off of his enemy just to own a casino. Even though he seems fractured now, he’s still a ruthless killer. “Have you thought about this?” I continue as he keeps pacing. “Have you given one second of thought to how this all plays out after you leave this house tonight? You kidnapped me and tied me up. I’m the boss’s girlfriend, the love of his life, and you just tied me up. How do you think Dominic, your boss, is gonna respond to that? You think he’s just gonna forgive you for this? You think you can try to explain it all, get him to understand and then hug it out? Come on, Tommy, we all know Dominic better than that. Tell me what your grand plan is, because it’s starting to look like you don’t have one.”
Tommy still doesn’t answer. He just walks from one end of the room to the other before turning around and repeating the process. He looks more out of sorts than I’ve ever seen him, and I don’t know if I should feel confident or terrified.
“What did Frankie say, Tommy?” I ask again. “Something tells me he’s the brains of this operation, and based on how that phone call sounded, he’s leaving you hanging now that you’ve kidnapped me. He’s leaving you to fend for yourself, isn’t he? That’s because Frankie’s a piece of shit. He’s jealous of Dominic. He always has been, and he talked you into whatever this game is that you’re playing, but now that the stakes are high, he’s doesn’t want to play anymore. Wow. You never should’ve let him get you into this mess. He screwed you, Tommy. Just accept it. Come on, tell me what your partner in crime told you on the phone.”
“My partner in crime told me to kill you,” he snaps, finally standing in place directly in front of me.
He looks down on me with a rage I’ve never seen in him before. Is this the face he makes before he cuts off your fingers to mail them to your friends after you’re gone?
“I hear you over here,” he says. “You think you’ve got it all figured out, right? You think you know how deep this thing goes? I’m just some little puppet in all of this and you’ve fixated on Frankie as the puppet master. Well, let me tell you Queen Alannah, you’re completely in the dark. If you really had it all figured out, you’d know to shut the fuck up. You’d know that I’ve been pacing back and forth, racking my brain, trying to figure out where to dump your dead, rotting carcass after I put a bullet through your pretty little face. If you had any sense at all, you’d be completely silent. You’d be praying to whoever you believe in, because you’d know your life is hanging in the balance, teetering on the edge, and I’m the big, bad, Italian motherfucker standing behind you, ready to push you off. If you knew how close you are to death, you’d be using these last minutes to plead for your life.”
I’m stunned into silence. Tommy kneels in front of me, staring me straight in the eye, and when I look into his, I don’t see fear or desperation. I see anger. I see a man who’s ready to go out in a blaze of glory if that’s what it comes down to. All this time, I thought it was me who was defiant, when it really was Tommy.
“Let’s play a game,” he says, just as he reaches into his jacket and reveals one of the two guns he’s known to always have on him.
He looks at the weapon like it’s his prized possession, turning it over to catch a glimpse of the shiny chrome from all angles, before finally pointing it at me, and roughly shoving the barrel into my mouth. Tears start to stream down my face just as a small trickle of blood oozes out of my bottom lip.
“I’m gonna ask you some questions, and you’re gonna either nod yes, or shake your head no. If you get two answers wrong, I’m gonna blow a hole through the back of your throat. If you get two answers right, I’ll let you go. Ready?”
The pain of keeping my mouth open is already becoming unbearable, but I manage to nod my head.
“Great. First question,” he says casually, like he doesn’t have a care in the world. “Do you think I have a plan right now?”
I think it over for a second, and the defiant side of me tries to show itself once again. I don’t want him to know that I’m afraid. I shake my head no.
“Ouch. Wrong,” he replies, smiling with amusement as he chambers a round and pushes the barrel of the gun deeper into my mouth, forcing me to a gag. “Idohave a plan, and that plan is to kill you tonight, dump your body somewhere it’ll never be found, and then blame the whole thing on Victor and Giovanni.”
As he speaks, I lose all control of my emotions, and tears are now streaming down my face and dripping off of my chin.
“You seem upset,” Tommy mocks me. “You thought I was just flying by the seat of my pants, huh? Well, like I said earlier, you don’t know shit. Next question, and I’d think real hard before answering this time. Ready? After what I just told you about my plan, do you think you’ll make it out of here alive?”
The weight of Tommy’s words drop down on me like a ton of steel. I can hear it in the tone of his voice that he plans to make sure I don’t walk out of here. If I leave, Dominic will know everything, and Tommy can’t let that happen. I know he’s going to kill me, and I can barely hold myself upright. I shake my head.
“Good job,” he says with a sly grin. “I think you’re finally starting to pay attention. Now, next question. And remember, think real hard before you answer. Does Frankie have anything to do with any of this?”
Tommy smiles at me, waiting for me to answer, but I’m so caught up in the fact that I’m going to die tonight, I can barely muster up the strength to nod my head yes.
