Bad Bitch (17 page)

From the day I accepted DiSalvo’s dirty money, some small part of me had known a reckoning was coming, one way or another. Maybe it was my upbringing talking, fire and brimstone and all that, but here it was. I was at the edge of the precipice, looking into the inferno below. I’d been dancing on the edge for years. Of course, I never believed it would blow up in my face this completely. But I wasn’t going to jump into the flames. I was going to push DiSalvo in and listen to him scream. The headache receded and left revenge, the kind served cold, in its place.

I sat up straighter, forcing myself to stop slumping even though no one could see me. “Now, I added you onto the firm accounts a couple of years ago. If you go to the bank or anywhere, you’re listed as an authorized user. Get on my laptop; I have a Word document with all my passwords and accounts listed. The password to get into the sheet is Tybalt. That gives you the keys to the queendom. If anyone asks, I had a mental breakdown and I’m on a long vacation.”

He laughed, though it was a sad sound. “No one would ever believe that you had a mental breakdown. I’ll say you ran away with a smoking hot law clerk and are living out dirty fantasies on a beach somewhere in South America.”

I sniffled. The tears dropped onto Lincoln’s light blue shirt, making dots of royal blue appear here and there.

Vinnie sighed again. “There has to be another way.”

“There isn’t.”

“I don’t know if I can do this without you.”

“You can.” I wasn’t worried for a moment. Vinnie had the chops to pull it off, not to mention I was leaving the firm account pretty flush.

“Where are you going to go? What will you do?”

“I have funds and my small semblance of a plan.”

“Care to share it with me, for old time’s sake?”

“No can do, Vin. I want you and your little baby safe. If it’s a girl, Evangeline is a great name.”

“Now you’re pushing it.”

My laugh overtook the sob that was threatening. “We had a good run, you and me.”

“We did, boss. We did.”

“One more thing.”

“Anything, boss.”

“Make sure to give Jena hell. She needs to toughen up if she wants to get anywhere in this life.”

“Will do.”

“Thank you, Vin, for everything.”

The line was silent for a while. I had just given away everything I worked so hard to build. I suppose it deserved a moment or two of silence. Or maybe I just couldn’t cope what the enormity of the loss.

Vinnie’s voice came through, somewhat choked. “I’ll miss you.”

He made me smile. Just those words gave me the kick I needed to seal the deal. It was done.

“Take your balls out of your purse and man up. You’ll do fine without me. Take care.”

I hung up the phone, blinked back the tears as best I could, and started making more calls.

Sal’s was already starting to fill, the lunch crowd clamoring to be fed.

I approached the hostess counter, hoping to make quick work of getting the storage-building information from Trish. She cried out and put her hands to her face when she saw me. Some patrons turned to look. I hurried past them and pressed up against the counter, face-to-face with Trish. The dark bruises under my eyes and my disheveled appearance had her yelling for Sal before I could even get a word out.

He came barreling through the restaurant, surprising his guests with his bluster.

“
Bella!
What happened? What are you doing?” He went into a long string of Italian that I couldn’t follow.

Trish answered him with a stream of lovely yet unintelligible verbiage and held up an envelope—my letterhead, with Vinnie’s handwriting scrawled across the front. It was the storage information. I reached for it, but Sal grabbed it from Trish’s hands and tucked it under his arm.

“What’s going on?”—indeterminate Italian—“You tell me who did this. Tell me,
bella
! So help me!”—more Italian.

All the eyes on us were making me feel uncomfortable, exposed. There was no shushing Sal, so I darted around the counter, took Sal’s arm, and pulled him toward the back office. Thankfully, Sal followed as Trish regained control of the hostess stand.

I sat as Sal poured me a brimming glass of Italian red.

“Tell me,
bella
,
so I can fix it.” His earnest request pulled at my heartstrings, even though there was nothing he could do to fix any of my troubles.

I painted the general picture for him. He flexed his knuckles as I talked about the hit men. The naked woman tattooed on his arm wobbled around on his thin, aged skin, giving me an unnecessary eyeful.

When I was finished, Sal said, “That’s it, then. We have to take Leon out. He comes on my turf and threatens one of my girls? No.” He punched his fist into his palm for emphasis. The nude woman all but folded over on herself.

I wanted to inform him that the entire island of Manhattan didn’t really qualify as his “turf.” Any protestations would have gotten me nowhere. Sal wasn’t as high up in the ranks as DiSalvo, but he had enough connections and sheer backbone to put a hurting on anyone who crossed him.

I shook my head. The fight was already finished. DiSalvo had won. I couldn’t stay in this city. It was a death trap for me now. I wouldn’t have Sal going to bat for me—literally or figuratively—and starting a war among the deadlier denizens of New York.

“Don’t shake your head at me,
bella
! Look what they did to your pretty face. Look what you’re wearing.”

Lincoln’s baggy shirt, cinched in at the waist with a belt I’d found in his closet. I was trying to pass it off as a shirtdress. Failing, according to the look on Sal’s face.

I put a hand on his shoulder, stooped by time. “Sal, I’ve already made up my mind about what I have to do.”

His eyes, filmed slightly with cataracts, searched my face and lingered on the evidence of my violent night. “Run?”

“Yes, run.” It wouldn’t be the first time I’d run away from a bad situation, and I could only hope it would be the last. “It’s the only option now.”

“He’ll find you. Let me find him first. Please,
bella
.”

“He retired in Cuba. You know that. He’s untouchable right now.”

“No one is untouchable.”

I took a long swig from my glass. It was tasty, fuller than a Malbec. Sal’s taste was spot-on. Maybe I should have listened to him for all these years.

“You’re right. I do have a few things that could leave him vulnerable.”

Sal smiled, a gap appearing where one of his front teeth should have been. “What’s that?”

“I have some pieces of evidence. Weapons, ledgers, notes, other documents. A pile of information that, if given to the right people, would cause a world of trouble for DiSalvo.”

Sal nodded. “DiSalvo trying to fight a war on two fronts. Impossible.”

Though Sal was a bruiser, he wasn’t too bad at strategy, either. “Right. If I can keep him occupied elsewhere and make myself disappear, he won’t have the wherewithal or the inclination to come hunting me.”

He plopped down into a faded leather chair, stuffing poking out of the rips that weren’t covered over with electrical tape.

“I just need to use your phone. And, since you’ve already busted me, maybe let me stay with Trish for a night while I get my travel plans together?”

“You got it,
bella
.
Anything you need.”

I looked at him, wanting him to leave before I made my phone call. He didn’t budge, just gestured toward the phone. It was a risk, letting him overhear the details of my plan, but there was no way around it at this point. I picked up the receiver and dialed.

Lincoln

Wood was in a meeting with some higher-ups from the attorney general’s office. I’d waited outside his door, pacing the floor, for almost two hours. I couldn’t stop walking. The energy propelled my feet back and forth on the already-worn carpet in the waiting area.

Wood’s secretary glanced at me every so often. I made her nervous. I didn’t care.

My thoughts never strayed far from Evan. I hated to leave her after the night she’d had, the night we’d both had, but speaking to Wood was imperative if I wanted to keep her safe. He could arrange witness protection, get her out of the city, do any number of things the federal government had at its disposal.

Time moved slowly, and I continued my solitary march along the navy blue carpet. Evan would be awake by now, surely. Was she scared? I knocked the thought out of my mind. I never wanted her scared, never wanted to see the terror in her eyes or hear it in her voice the way I had last night. I should have regretted what I’d done to the men who’d taken her. I didn’t. I’d do it again if it meant she would be safe.

The sound of her apologies played through my memory. The way she spoke about herself, as if she were dirty. The things she’d told me about her family. The things I’d dug up about DiSalvo and Clarence Sherman.

At first, after I realized she’d taken my most closely guarded secrets and thrown them back in my face, I let the rage run free. I started frequenting rougher parts of town. It didn’t take long to find an underground fighting club. I was welcomed with open arms, fresh meat for the regulars to pummel. I took my licks and broke noses in return. Over the course of two weekends, I’d become known as the “Rebel Rager,” a cheesy nickname based on my accent and my fighting style. I didn’t care. I’d been called worse. All I cared about was taking out my anger on anyone who dared challenge me.

I spilled blood every chance I got, letting the rage inside have its fill before returning to my apartment and passing out for the night. The violence deadened my senses, but took my pain and made it tangible, real. I could bandage a cut, be ginger with a bruised rib, spit out the blood that ran in my mouth. The only impossible feat was treating the pain that ricocheted in my chest every time I thought of how Evan had betrayed me.

After one particularly vicious night left me with too many cuts and bruises, Jonesy came to my desk.

“Not looking so good, my friend.”

“We aren’t friends.”

He shrugged. He had a file in his hands. The name Clarence Sherman was imprinted on the outside in stark letters.

“What’s that?”

“Something you might find of interest in your current case. I told you she was more than she seems. I told her you were dangerous. Neither of you listened to me.” His tone was chiding.

I wanted to knock his teeth out. My poker face was gone, washed away in the tide of my anger. He dropped the file on my desk and backed away.

“I’m only trying to help.”

“I remember the last time you
helped
.
” I wished I didn’t. I recalled how Evan had shown up at my apartment, ready to rip me to pieces, how instead she had slept in my arms. But her angelic appearance hid her demon. I knew that now. “Didn’t turn out so well.”

“Well, just give that file a look, and if you feel the same way after you’ve gone through it, then I understand.” He sauntered off.

I picked up the file, wondering what someone named Clarence Sherman had to do with anything.

I flipped open the front flap, humoring Jonesy, or so I told myself. Clarence Sherman’s mug shot was enough to make me want to end him. The creep’s face leered up at me from the glossy sheet, death to bitches tattooed on his neck.

Page after page detailed his depravity. He was one of DiSalvo’s most vicious enforcers. I continued flipping, his rap sheet like the diary of a madman. I stopped when I came to his last arrest record for murder, no surprise there. Then I saw the notation at the bottom of his arraignment sheet. Evangeline Pallida was appointed as his public defender. This had been years ago, when she’d first started out. I smirked—when she’d wanted to “help people.” What a load of horseshit.

I kept flipping, faster now, looking at the plea deals offered by the prosecutor, each one refused by Evan. Then came the trial transcript. I skimmed past the prosecution’s case and slowed to pore over Evan’s arguments. She did well for her client, far better than that piece of shit deserved. Her words were persuasive, solid. I shook my head. She put her credibility and her bar license on the line for a man who was no better than an animal, worse even. She truly had no remorse, no decency in her anywhere. After seeing her closing arguments about how Sherman’s charges were a “miscarriage of justice,” I’d had enough and slammed the file closed.

A sheet of paper flew out, disturbed by the rush of air. I picked it up, preparing to cram it back into the file before throwing the whole thing in Jonesy’s face.

The paper caught my eye. It was newsprint, a story on the trial’s outcome. There was an inset photo of the courthouse steps, bathed in late-afternoon light. Evan was in motion when the picture was snapped, her foot hovering over the next step in her descent away from the courthouse. But her movement wasn’t what caught my attention.

It was her face, almost unrecognizable. She was haggard, haunted. Hollows resided where her cheeks should have been, and the dark circles under her eyes rivaled some nasty shiners. Her eyes—Jesus Christ, the fear that lived in them in that photo tore at my guts. She was terrified.

I glanced farther up the picture. There, in the shade of the stone overhang, stood DiSalvo. He haunted the top of the steps, Sherman at his elbow, both men watching Evan’s retreat.

It was then I realized how DiSalvo had caught her in his trap. He’d no doubt seen what she could do in Sherman’s trial, how she was a diamond in the rough. If it came through easily on the black-and-white transcript, it had to have been stunning to watch her work in person. With her particular skill set, she was a major asset.

I could see in my mind how it all must have played out. A wealthy benefactor offering to put Evan back on her feet after she’d gone through hell? Of course she’d agreed to it; she would have been a fool not to. And from the looks of her in the photograph, she was not in the right headspace to make such a momentous decision. I’d been there. I knew what could happen when a person ran on pure emotion and little else.

Jonesy had done me a solid that day, made everything clear. No wonder she’d chosen the nuclear option. She had nowhere else to turn.

That day I refocused my energy, no longer directing my rage toward Evan. I knew it had been DiSalvo all along, crushing Evan into a corner, giving her no chance of escape. I wanted my hands around DiSalvo’s throat. Choking the life out of that piece of shit would be a public service.

Wood’s door opened, bringing me back to the present as a deep burst of several voices rising in laughter echoed out into the waiting room. In its wake came Wood, shaking hands with each of the black-suited brass from D.C. in turn. “I’ll meet you for lunch at one, let’s say?” he asked.

The three from the attorney general’s office agreed and left. I gave them a curt nod as they passed.

“I need to speak with you. Now.” I tried to keep my voice even.

Wood lifted his gray eyebrows. “Well, I need to take a piss, so walk with me.”

I fell into step behind him, following him down the long hall toward the restrooms.

“For someone who needs to talk, you sure are silent.”

“This needs to be for your ears only.”

“Step into my office,” Wood said and swung open the door to the men’s room.

I followed and did a quick sweep of the stalls to make sure we were alone. He took position at the urinal and gave an immediate meaning to the term “pissing and moaning.”

“I thought they would never leave. Jesus. People from D.C. talk just to hear themselves. Pompous assholes.”

“Wood, Evan’s in trouble.” My voice bounced off the white tiles.

“You two talking again? After what she pulled with your brother?”

“That’s not important.”

“How is her betraying you by using your own brother against you not important all of a sudden?”

Wood was right. It had been important to me. I’d lost a lot of sleep thinking about Evan, about how I thought she’d played me all along. But now I knew better. She was caught in a trap. Was it of her own making? Yes. Did I give a shit? No. My mistakes were no worse than hers. Problem was, hers led to a rendezvous with the end of a gun barrel.

“Because I love her.”

Wood shook his head as his stream died. “You love the bad bitch?”

“Yes. Without a doubt.”

“Shit, Lincoln. A woman like that? I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into.”

“I do. But like I said, there’s trouble.”

“What’d she do? Are you talking about how she blew off Judge Crane yesterday? She’s going to have to save her own ass on that one. Matilda is going to make her grovel.”

“No, DiSalvo put a hit out on her.”

“The hell you say?” He zipped up and turned toward me.

“My investigation has stirred up DiSalvo and maybe more of her clients. DiSalvo for certain. He sent four men to kill her last night.”

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain car accident on Long Island last night, would it? Word is that four of DiSalvo’s men were killed, some by the wreck and ensuing fire, and some by lead poisoning.”

I remembered the flash of the muzzle in the dark. Lead poisoning was right, and too fucking good for those pieces of shit. I didn’t give any sign, but my silence was enough.

“Fuck, Lincoln.” Wood washed his hands, and we returned to his office in silence.

“Rita, hold my calls.”

“Yes, sir.”

Wood closed his office door with a thud. I took a seat on his leather sofa as he sank down into his desk chair. He pulled open one of his drawers and lifted out a bottle and two glasses.

“Too early for you?” he asked.

“No, sir.” I watched him pour and retrieved my glass before settling back down. I needed a drink. Maybe it would even me out, allow me to see the best way through, the best way to keep Evan safe.

“Shit, DiSalvo. I thought I was done with that prick. He moved to Cuba a few years back. Evan got him out of some serious charges and then set him loose on our neighbors to the south. I was glad to be rid of him, honestly. But now this?” He took a swig from his glass. “What did you do to get him so riled up?”

We drank as I went over the details of my deeper investigation into Castille. Wood downed the rest of his glass and poured another as I talked, giving him the lowdown on the prosecution wet dream of a case I had come up with against DiSalvo and a few choice others. He took an even bigger gulp when I told him I’d changed tactics once I met Evan.

“This case, Lincoln.” He shook his head. “If you would have pursued it through Evan’s front door and subpoenaed her files, shit. You have enough right now for Judge Crane to sign off on a warrant for every piece of paper in Pallida & Associates. Slam dunk. You’d be the next U.S. attorney in New Orleans, easy. You know that, right?”

I tossed back the rest of my second glass. “I do.”

“But you’re fine leaving that stone unturned?” Wood ran a hand along his jaw and rubbed his face.

“Fine? No. But I was going to for her sake.”

He leaned back in his chair and watched me steadily. “That didn’t seem to work out, though, did it? DiSalvo still tried to take her out. And if I know anything about that son of a bitch, it’s that he’s thorough. He’s no quitter. He’ll send more until he gets her.”

“That’s why I came to you. We have to find a way to get Evan out of the city. Witness protection?”

Wood’s eyes narrowed. “He’d find her. The federal government isn’t known for its secret-keeping abilities anymore. Hackers and the like make it impossible. DiSalvo has more than enough money to pay some Chinese genius to break into the government system and track her down. And he’d do it. No loose ends.”

“Shit!” I slammed my glass down.

“But that isn’t to say there’s no way to keep her safe and take him out at the same time.”

I heard something in his voice, like excitement. I didn’t think it was possible for Woodhall to get excited about anything. I was wrong. The glint in his eye was magnetic. It was like I was getting a glimpse into Wood’s past, back when he was a hotshot prosecutor looking to make a name for himself.

“I’ve been wanting to nail that piece of shit for decades. This could be the time.” He corked the bottle and slid it back into his desk. “Jesus Christ on the cross, this may be it.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose, my sleepless night weighing on me. “How? The bastard’s in Cuba, remember?”

“He is. He is,” Wood agreed, “but his son isn’t. Lester took over the family business after Leon left for Cuba. The DiSalvo family parted ways with Evan at that time, too, so she’d be free and clear of any investigation or charges brought against the son. And even more good news, the DiSalvos are just as dirty as they were back when Leon was still in charge. If we turned up the heat on the son, my money says the father would come running.”

“Do we have anything on Lester?”

“No, but I’d be willing to bet Evan has more than enough in her files to get us started.”

“Then we’re back in the same hole.” I threw my hands up. “She can’t turn that over to us. She’d lose her license. She would never agree, and I wouldn’t let her.”

“That so? You think she gives a rat’s ass about her bar card after what happened last night? Good work, by the way. Back in the olden times, U.S. attorneys were more than just prosecutors; we actually got to mete out justice on occasion. DiSalvo’s men got what was coming to them.”

I shook my head. Did Wood just give me a pat on the back for killing DiSalvo’s hit men? He was the real deal, a hardcore lawman. I hadn’t thought I could respect him any more than I already did. I was wrong.

“I may have a work-around to that, anyway. DiSalvo’s been gone for what? Four years?”

I wasn’t sure, but Wood wasn’t talking to me at this point anyway. He was ruminating to himself.