KNOX: Volume 3 (6 page)

Nico insists that his cousin’s family will be out of the house tomorrow night since they’re coming to Bensonhurst for the Santa Rosalia Feast. He swears he doesn’t know where Rebecca is, but he knows Tony’s definitely the one calling the shots with her.

Nico doesn’t know this, but he just signed his own death warrant. I had already planned to kill him, but I thought I’d give him a day or two locked up in this garage to give up some more secrets. Now, I can’t risk anything getting back to Tony.

“Thank you, Nick. You’ve helped me out tremendously.”

“Can I go now?”

I stand from the chair and pull it back into the corner. I give myself a mental pat on the back. It’s always a victory when I make someone talk without any further bloodshed.

“I told you everything I know. You gotta let me go!”

I exit the garage and Bruno is waiting with Genie just outside the door. “Take her to the loft on Madison. Make sure she’s comfortable. She’s gonna be there a few days.”

Billy looks at me with that gleam in his eyes. He’s ready for his instructions. I nod at him then I set off down the corridor as he heads back into the garage. I don’t stick around to hear the gunshot.

11

The flight from Newark to St. John’s Airport in Newfoundland is exactly eight hours. My jet gets us there in two-forty-five. As soon as we land in Terra Nova, a helicopter is already waiting to take us to John’s hideaway.

John’s hideaway. Sounds like a fucking dive bar. But it’s not. John Veneto, King of Bensonhurst, has been living in the basement of a farmhouse in the Newfoundland countryside.
 

I’ve got a variety of hideaways stashed across the globe. I fly all my clients to and from those locations on my private fleet. We doctor flight logs and sometimes we’ll zig-zag the globe in a dizzying pattern to get the high-profile clients from one location to another.

But I’m going straight to John’s hideaway today because he won’t be going back there after tonight. Once Tony is dead, John can go home to Bensonhurst and I resume control of the neighborhood. And I can find Rebecca.

And propose to her.

The one-hour helicopter ride over the green countryside is humbling. I don’t even know what Rebecca’s plans are for the future. Does she want to live in Manhattan forever? Would she like living in the country? Does she want to have kids?

This is all stuff I would have asked her if I’d known she was going to be taken. She would have thought I was crazy, but I don’t give a fuck. I want to spend the rest of my life with her. But I want to do this the right way. I’m going to ask John for her hand.

The helicopter touches down just before eleven in the morning. The couple who live on the dairy farm come out to greet me. Mildred and Joshua Raine cover their heads as the helicopter blades slowly stop rotating. Mildred smiles as I approach, not at all perturbed by my sudden appearance.

“Mr. Savage, you look hungry,” she shouts over the whoosh of the helicopter rotors.

Joshua holds out his hand and I shake it firmly. “Good morning, Mr. Raine.” I turn to Mildred and take her hand in both of mine. “No time to eat today, Mrs. Raine. I’ve got to get John back home.”

“Of course,” she replies. “Come inside.”

The inside of Mildred and Joshua’s humble farmhouse kitchen is uncomfortably warm, as usual. Mildred is always cooking or she keeps a small space heater on in the kitchen to keep it warm enough to rise dough. She bakes her own bread using the grain from an experimental wheat crop planted two years ago. At some point today, she’ll complain about the short growing season or the wild caribou crushing her wheat stalks.

“I just took a loaf of sourdough out of the oven. Take it with you, dear,” she says, grabbing a round loaf of bread covered in a light checkered cloth off the table.

She tries to hand it to me and I chuckle. “No, thank you, Mrs. Raine. I’m here to pick up John, and that’s all. If I eat all that bread, I’ll go soft in the middle.”

“You need to live a little, Mr. Savage. Life’s not all about business you know.”

She says this with a wink as she leads me toward the shiny oak door under the stairs that leads down to the basement. Mildred Raine spent a good portion of her life savings to visit me in my Manhattan office three years ago. Her son was on the run. The Canadian authorities and the DEA wanted him on suspicion of drug trafficking. He could feel the net closing in on him and he was staring down forty years to life in an American prison if he was extradited.

I don’t know or care if Mildred’s son was guilty. All I know and care about is that, by helping Mildred’s son get to a safe house in Brazil, I gained two very important allies in the Raines. And they’ve been paid handsomely to harbor John for the past five months. The checks they’ll receive in the coming years to ensure their silence will more than make up for a bad wheat harvest.

I step into the stairwell and John is already standing at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for me.

“Boy, it’s good to see you.” He pulls me into a bone-crushing hug and slaps me hard on the back. “I’ve been going stir crazy down here.”

I pull away and take a step back to look at him. His skin is sallow from the lack of sunlight and his belly looks a bit soft from all the bread Mildred’s been feeding him. I don’t say it aloud, but I’m worried that he’s not ready to take on Tony and his goons tonight.

“It’s good to see you too, John. You ready to go?”

“As ready as a Bronx whore.”
 

I thank Mildred and Joshua for their assistance and Mildred sheds a few tears when she hugs John goodbye.

“Who’s going to eat my homemade pizza now?” she laments as she latches onto Joshua for support.

“Throw a little grass on there and the caribou will eat it,” John shouts as the helicopter starts up.

She waves off this suggestion and John and I wave goodbye as we hop into the chopper. The helicopter is too noisy for us to talk. But as soon as the jet takes off from St. John’s Airport, I begin mentally preparing myself to talk to John.

“You look nervous,” John remarks as the flight attendant hands him his lemonade. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look nervous.”

“I’ve been thinking. Maybe you should let me do this on my own. I don’t want to know how it would affect Rebecca if you got hurt.”

“Rebecca hasn’t spoken to me in four years. She wouldn’t know if I got hurt unless she read it in a fucking newspaper.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly it. She hasn’t spoken to you in four years and she still wants to help you. That’s gotta tell you something.”

I don’t want to press too hard, but I really don’t think it’s a good idea for John to be tagging along on dangerous missions like the one we have planned for tonight.

“Look, Marco. The bottom line is that she’s my little girl. And I’m not going to let a lowlife criminal like Tony Angelo use my little girl in his scheme to take over the neighborhood. I’m gonna take that motherfucker down myself. Understand?”

I nod as I take the glass of water from the flight attendant. No alcohol today. I have to keep a clear head until Rebecca is back in my bed where she belongs.

“John, I want to ask you something.”

He continues to stare out the oval window. “Shoot.”

I lean forward in my seat and take a deep breath. “You know I care about Rebecca a lot.”

He turns away from the window to face me. “Yeah?”

I set my glass of water down on the tray and turn my body so my shoulders are facing him. “I’m in love with her, John. I’m going to get her back, not just for you, but because … I want to spend the rest of my life with her.”

He narrows his eyes at me as if he’s confused. “You want to spend the rest of your life with my daughter? The rest of
what
life? Your life as Knox Savage or your life as Marco Leone?”

“I don’t care, as long as it’s with her. I’ll let her choose.”

“You can’t let Rebecca choose. She doesn’t know what’s best for her.”

“She’s a lot smarter than you think.”

I clench my jaw to stop myself from saying something stupid. Like maybe he doesn’t know his daughter as well as he thinks he does, since she grew into a woman without any help from him.

“I know Rebecca’s smart, but she’s never been good at forgiveness.”

“She got that from you.”

He laughs then takes a sip of lemonade. “I don’t know if I can give you my blessing. Your life is not the kind of life I want for Rebecca. I want what any father wants for his daughter. I want her to get married, give me a few grandkids, and live happily ever after. But most of all, I want her to be safe.”

“I can keep her safe. You know that.”

He looks me in the eye, sizing me up. “Prove it. Get her back. Keep her safe for at least a couple of years. Then I’ll give you my blessing.”

I smile as my insides fill with warmth. “I will.”

12

The jet touches down at Burlington International Airport at six p.m. Bruno, Billy, and two of my tactical specialists are already waiting in the chopper on the tarmac. Just as the sun goes down at eight p.m., the helicopter drops all six of us in a small airfield just outside Brownsville, Vermont where three cars await us. Bruno and Billy will take the lead. John and I will be the in the next car with me driving. Jacob and Albert will be in the car behind us, watching for tails.

“You all know the objective. No one strays from the objective,” I say once everyone has their weapons packed and their cars ready. “Anyone is fair game, but Tony is mine. If I should go down, Tony is not to be harmed until Rebecca and Lita are found. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” all four of my guys reply in unison.

“Good. Let’s head out.”

I hop into the black 370Z and shift into gear to follow Bruno’s car out of the airfield. The car rides like a beauty on the highway. I may have to get one of these for myself. I don’t drive myself around a whole lot because I like to keep my hands free for more important things. But I’ve always had a thing for cars. My house in Santa Barbara has a ten-car garage and every slot is filled.

I’ll admit that leaving all this behind will be hard. But if Rebecca wants me to go back to being Marco, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll do whatever it takes.

“Marco, I got a favor to ask of you.”

I glance at John and he’s staring straight ahead. “Anything you need.”

“If I don’t make it out of there today, I need you to promise me you’ll take care of Rebecca and Marie.”

“Of course I will.”

“I know I haven’t been the best husband in the world to Marie. She deserves better than me. But I need to know that she’ll be taken care of. And I know Rebecca’s got a hard head and she’s liable to forget about her mother if you don’t stay on her.”

“I won’t let that happen.”

“Good. Thank you.”

I speed up a bit when I see I’m lagging too far behind Bruno. “Is that it?”

“No, actually, there’s something I need to tell you. Something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time.” His voice sounds a bit strained. “You’ve been like a son to me. From the moment I met your mother when you were just eight years old, I knew I’d found the son I never had. You were just like me.”

I don’t know how to respond to this. I’m not good with emotional stuff.

“When you were twelve, your mom and I broke up for a year. She wanted me to adopt you so you could take my name. I told her I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t leave Marie and Rebecca.” From the corner of my eye I can see him turn to face me. “I know I’m not the kind of father Rebecca wanted and I wasn’t the kind of father you deserved, but you’ll always be like a son to me. And if anything happens to me today, I want you to know that. Understand me?”

“Yeah, I understand,” I answer without looking at him.

“No, you don’t understand. Look at me, Marco. ‘Cause I need you to understand this.”

I turn to face him and there are tears in the corners of his eyes. “And there’s something else I need to tell you … about your mother’s death. It wasn’t — ”

His eyes widen at something in the road ahead of me. I don’t have time to turn my head before the car slams into something as solid as John’s regret.

13

I wake up surrounded by the smell of gasoline. My body’s moving, but it’s not me moving it. I look up and the bottom of Bruno’s square jaw is the first thing I see.

“Let me go!” I shout at him.

“This car’s gonna fucking blow!” he shouts back.

And the smell of gasoline hits me again. Shit! I push Bruno off me and scramble out of the broken 370Z onto the grassy terrain. About forty yards south of us is an orange fireball giving off plumes of thick black smoke.

I crouch down to look at the passenger seat and my heart stops. “Where’s John?”

Bruno grabs my arm. “He’s gone! Come on. We gotta get the fuck away from this thing!”

I push Bruno off me again and glance back at the car one last time before I walk away.
 

“What do you mean, he’s gone? He was right fucking there!”

The explosion blows both of us forward and we land face down in another part of the field that smells like animal piss. I push up into a sitting position as something trickles down my neck. I swipe my hand across the back of my neck and head. There’s just enough moonlight out here for me to see the red glint of blood smeared across my fingers.

“What the fuck happened?”

“A fucking deer.”

“A deer?”

“A fucking deer,” Bruno repeats. “I slammed on the brakes and you must have swerved to avoid me and landed in this ditch. Jake and Al didn’t make it.”

“Where’s Billy?”

“He went to look for John. The house is less than a quarter-mile from here. We think that’s where he went.”

“Alone?”

Bruno shrugs and I feel like punching him in the side of his enormous blockhead. He had to slam on his fucking brakes. Jake and Al are dead and John is missing. This plan couldn’t be a bigger clusterfuck if I executed it with a group of first-graders.

“We have to go after them. They’re outnumbered and out-armed.”

Bruno and I load up on ammo and weapons then head down the ravine toward the open pasture. I ignore the woozy feeling I get every time I bend my neck forward. Once I’m done with this mission, and Rebecca’s safe, I’ll have time to worry about that.