Spin (Songs of Corruption #1)(62)

Scott broke into hysteria.

Zo’s eyes went wide. He chanted “Holy shit holy mother of Jesus,” over and over.

I let the gun swing from the trigger loop, finger extended. Paulie looked both impressed and pensive as he held out his hand for it. We didn’t have a chance to exchange a word because the door opened with a creak.

Antonio stood in the rectangle of light. “Paulie.” The word was a statement with a serious undercurrent of darkness, violence, and unspoken threats. “What is she doing here?”

“Nice to see you, too. What took you so long?”

Antonio stepped inside, taking in everything, his hands, knuckles already bloodied and bruised, coiled for something. Zo shut up as if someone had stapled his mouth shut, and Scott, for once, was reduced to silence.

“You said you were in the trailer,” he said.

“I moved him.”

Antonio reached me and took the gun then put his other hand in mine. I realized that with everything we’d done together, we’d never held hands. Not until I was afraid to hurt him or get blood on my cuffs did I feel his fingers laced in mine.

“What the f**k are you doing, Paulie?” Antonio asked.

“Good luck with this one,” he said.

Antonio pulled me through the door, and I followed because I had no choice. Though the container had been lit, the afternoon sunlight made me squint. I held my hand up to block the sun as Antonio pulled me toward his Mas.

He opened the door for me. “Get in, and do not make me put you in.”

I got in. He came around the front of the car. We watched the open door of the red shipping container. No one came out. Antonio backed out of the parking lot in a spray of gravel.

“What the f**k—”

“He picked me up from work,” I said.

“What did he tell you?”

“Nothing. Then we went in there, and Scott looked like that. Did you do that to him?”

“I didn’t want you to see that. It was supposed to be that I finished getting his guys to understand my position, then we worked on Scott. Then you gave him his money back, and you were done.”

“Well, I did see it. You hurt him. One of his eyes was sealed shut.”

“I woulda done worse if Zo hadn’t pulled me off him.” Antonio drove in a rage, pulling onto the freeway as if he wanted the car to eat it. “He just wouldn’t stop f**king talking. This is what I was telling you. This is who I am. This is what you do to me. And Paulie? He doesn’t trust you. He showed you so you’d run away from me, right?”

“He wanted me to shoot Mabat in exchange for Katrina’s immunity.”

“And what happened when you wouldn’t?” he asked.

“I did.”

“You what?”

“I pulled the trigger.”

I saw that he was confused. He was probably thinking: Had Scott been quiet when he got there? Did he look dead? Who was the woman sitting next to him? Was there a whole new set of problems to solve?

“You think you’re the only one, Antonio. You think you’re the only one with a little murder in him,” I said. “A little temper? Well, I knew there were no bullets in the gun, because it was so light. I knew it would just click, but I was sorry it was empty. I wanted to spray his brains all over the wall. He’s a waste of a man.”

Antonio pulled the wheel hard right at eighty miles an hour and screeched to a stop at the shoulder. If that was what it was to be mercurial and impulsive, I understood the appeal. Every moment felt like living at the height of awareness, every sense sharpened to a fine edge.

“God help me,” he said. “I’ve ruined you.”

I touched his arm, but he pulled away.

thirty-six.

ntonio,” I said.

He didn’t answer, just kept his wrist on the top of the steering wheel.

“Capo.”

“Don’t call me that.”

My face got hot, and my loins tingled as if I’d been dropped off the first hill of a roller coaster. I wanted to look at him, but I couldn’t. I wanted to check his hands for bruises and accuse him of worse violence than I’d wanted to commit. I wanted to make excuses and demands. I looked at my own hands, free of blood or bruise, but they were shaking.

“Antonio, what’s wrong?”

He got off the freeway downtown. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I think it does.”

“We’ll still protect you.”

“What? Wait. I don’t understand. What happened to everything?”

“It’s just done, Theresa. Over.” He shook his head, eyes on the road and avoiding my gaze.

I blinked, and a tear fell. What had I done? How could I have done differently? How could he shut me out? “This was Paulie’s plan? That you’d hate me?”

He didn’t answer. He’d turned to stone right in front of me.

“Brilliant,” I muttered. “He’s a f**king genius.”

“Nice mouth.”

“Fuck, f**k, f**k!” I hit him on the arm.

He yanked the car over, screeching to the curb a few blocks from the loft. He drew his finger like a rod, rigid and forceful, as if he could kill me with it. “Do not hit me again.”

“What happened?”