Page 35 of Refrain (Beautiful Monsters #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

ESPI

“You gonna ignore me all fucking week?” Arno spits out while pouring himself a shot. He overfills the glass, and the liquid sloshes over the rim, tainting the air like gasoline. “How many times do I have to fucking say it?” He downs the shot and grimaces at the taste. “I’m fucking sorry.”

“I hope this means that I won’t have to fight Jose for the title of your best friend forever.” I step farther into his office and nearly trip over a trail of empty bottles.

It’s like he spends more time in this damn room than he does at his own place, not that I can blame him. After all this time, he can’t bring himself to sell that house. He can’t even empty out her room.

“Don’t even fucking joke,” he snarls, already pouring himself another shot. “You know me. I wouldn’t go to that piece of shit without a good fucking reason—”

“I would like to think so.”

Arno isn’t one to hold grudges. Jose, on the other hand, doesn’t just cling to a vendetta. He cuts it into pieces and hangs it on his wall.

“Let’s just say I took a gamble and got more than I goddamn bargained for,” Arno says, his jaw clenched.

“I found a gun at the warehouse of the cartels that got hit. I figured some idiot from the other side dropped it, and a good trace would lead back to a dealer at least. Maybe I could neutralize this new threat myself.”

Suddenly, Dante’s warning reads loud and clear. “And?”

The dark look he shoots my way prefaces the gravity of the answer. “The gun belonged to a cop.” He doesn’t bother explaining just how he found that out. “It wasn’t a lead. It was a plant.”

“You’re serious?”

“Damn right,” Arno agrees. “They’d find that fucking gun, and it wouldn’t just end there.

They’d have ‘just fucking cause’ to open up an entire FBI investigation.

They could arrest and interrogate at random.

Whoever is behind this isn’t just happy with burning shit down.

They’re leaving a sniff trail for the goddamn Feds. ”

I almost swallow the question that springs to my tongue. “You…you think it’s Dante?”

Arno shrugs, tearing a hand through his hair. “He wouldn’t be that stupid to bring that shit down on me—not so close to the fucking Gardai.” But he doesn’t sound very convinced of that.

Am I? My head spins with the new information, but at least one mystery might be solved by this shitstorm. “Is that why you’ve been acting so weird lately?”

“Part of it,” Arno admits. He knocks the next shot back and chases it with a swig directly from the bottle. “About the Russians… You deserve to know why I really sent you there. Not whatever bullshit I told you before.”

“You mean you aren’t looking to muscle in on the human sex slave trade?”

Arno’s had his fingers in some shady shit, but never that dark.

Yet.

“Fuck no,” he says, “but have a seat. You’re not gonna like the real reason, and I don’t need your fucking pity. ”

“All right.” I take the seat across from him and try to keep an open mind. More drugs? Guns? Something worse? With Arno, you never know just how deep the rabbit hole will go. “Lay it on me.”

He swipes at his mouth with the back of his hand and eyes the wall behind my head. “You remember what happened to Mack?”

“Mack?” It’s a weird change of subject—his ex-partner who ran an underground fighting ring. “Mack got stupid. Tried to fuck with the Syndicate. Either he got ghosted, or he skipped town.” According to the rumors, anyway—which Arno never corrected.

Until now. He scoffs and takes another swig of liquor.

“Mack. You really think that fuck would just walk away and let me have all of this?” He gestures around to the peeling wallpaper.

The chaos from the main barroom reaches us even here, a distant pulse through the trembling walls.

“Fuck no. That bastard wouldn’t run. But whatever happened to him, you can bet your ass he had it coming. ”

“So, what happened?”

Arno breathes out and tears a hand through his hair. “You know that shit with Vinny Stacatto?”

“It’s not like I can exactly forget.” My fingers flex at my sides before I manage to clench them into fists.

“Ah, fuck.” Arno notices my hand and grimaces. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. Look, Dante didn’t want you to know, but Mack’s the one who turned you in. He offered you up to that sick fuck on a platter. Everything.”

Given Mack’s history with Arno and Dante, the news isn’t exactly a surprise. I uncurl the fingers of my left hand and eye the ones remaining on the right. A ruthless criminal, Mack was never my favorite person. I still wouldn’t have pegged him as a goddamn traitor, no matter the payoff.

“So you two killed him?”

“No,” Arno says. “We didn’t kill him. That would have been too good for that piece of shit. We did him worse.” He sighs and pours another shot. Then he slides the glass over to me. “We sold him out to the Russians. They don’t take too kindly to traitors.”

“I can imagine.”

“I thought he did it for money, you know? For power. Some dumb shit. You never fucking know with Mack—”

“Why does it matter what he wanted?”

Arno looks up, and I almost pour myself a shot. I’ve never seen the gleam in his eye before. Not like this. He inhales the liquor, finishing off the rest of the bottle, and winds up coughing most of it back up. He has to pound on his chest, his eyes streaming, just to speak again.

“We watched,” he croaks. “While they pummeled the shit out of that sick fuck. He should have been begging for mercy, but he…he was laughing. At me. He said, ‘That Italian fucker bragged at how fucking easy it was. You didn’t even look for her. You didn’t even try…

’” He breaks off, his hands clenching into fists.

One of them strikes the surface of the table, knocking it off-balance.

Again. “You should have seen him. Laughing even with a busted fucking jaw and a fucked-up eye. Just laughing. ‘You never gave a shit about her,’ he said. ‘She’s better…she’s better off without you. ’”

“He was lying.” I try to make my voice soft, the way Dante did when he told me that Santa wasn’t real. Soft but firm like a good slap to the face. “Parish is gone, Arno.”

“You didn’t see him,” Arno says, shaking his head. “You didn’t see the fucking look on his face. I know Mack. I know that look.”

“ This is why you’ve been so out of it.” Underneath everything, it was always her. “She’s dead, Arno.”

“You think I don’t fucking know that?” He lifts the bottle and starts to take a sip. Halfway to his mouth, he turns and hurtles it against the wall, sending broken glass flying in every direction. “You think I don’t fucking know that?”

“You saw her— ”

“I didn’t.” Admitting that makes him brace both hands flat against the table, his knuckles white. “I… Fuck, I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I sent in someone else. They said her face was t-too—fuck!”

“Mack got inside your head,” I say as gently as I can. “He wanted to fuck around—”

“I tried to let it go. But too many fucking things made sense. That’s how Stacatto operated, you know? Those fucking Italians. They loved keeping things around for ‘insurance.’ If she’s alive, the Russians would know where. Hell, she could be in any fucking one of their bars—”

“Arno, don’t do this.”

“Don’t fucking lecture me, Espisido. If it were Dante, you’d be doing the same fucking thing.”

I don’t have a comeback for that. The sick, ironic thing is that Arno has a better shot of finding his dead sister alive than I do of finding Dante when he doesn’t want to be found. The joke’s on me.

“I just wanted you to know,” he says, hauling himself upright. He has to take a few steps before he can balance on both feet.

“Okay.” I stand and turn for the door.

“Wait,” Arno says before I am halfway there. “There’s something else. I got a little message from Jose today. It’s not much, but it’s something that’s for sure.”

I can tell from his tone that I won’t like to hear whatever it is. “What?”

“Apparently, there’s word about a new gang in town. They’re recruiting, but get this—not the usual criminals and punks. They’re targeting ex-police. Informants. People who’ve been fucked over by the Cartel, or the Mob, or the Syndicate.”

“And the Gardai?” I say, taking a shot in the dark.

Arno just chuckles. “It seems like someone wants a war, little brother. You better keep your fucking head down. Got it?”

I leave him there to hunt for another bottle, but I can’t shake what he said. Maybe I don’t want to shake it. It gives my brain something real to focus on. Something important.

After all, a war just means more business for me. I even manage to laugh at the bitter irony. Business. If only I could afford to keep my fucking kit stocked in the meantime.

I hunt for the current cause of my low supplies, but I don’t find her sweeping at the corners of the bar. It’s only later that night when the girls take the stage that I realize she’s gone. I know without even having to go up and check that she took the gun.

I tilt my head back to eye the ceiling while I fish my final cig from my pocket and light it up. One hit and I don’t feel anything, just a burning taste in my mouth. Two drags don’t help, either.

I’ve gotten hooked on something harsher than nicotine. The funny thing is that I can’t go five minutes without a cigarette, but without her?

My feet twitch against the pavement. I could go after her. But the key question is, does she want to be found? A woman like that, with so many damn secrets. She could have a lover out there. Someone who doesn’t hesitate to touch her—or more.

Someone she wouldn’t leave in the middle of the night.

I try not to let the fact sting. I’m a big boy. She’s a big girl. I’ll get over it.

But finishing the pack doesn’t make me feel any better. Despite the acrid taste of ash in my throat, her flavor remains, stubborn as hell.