Page 59 of The Killer Cupcake (Poison Cherry #3)

REVENGE OR REPRIEVE?

K athy opened her bedroom door and froze. The familiar scents—lavender sachets, old books, her mother's cooking she’d sneak from the fridge to eat on the bed while thumbing through magazines—rushed over her. Despite evidence of houseguests scattered about, the room's essence remained unchanged.

She could see it clearly: three years old, Daddy triumphant after escaping the tenements, tossing her onto this bed like she weighed nothing.

His fingers found every ticklish spot while she begged for mercy through helpless giggles.

Then both of them sat beside the bed, hands clasped, blessing their new home and praying that Mama would hurry with lunch. God, she'd been lucky.

The luck had turned double-edged.

Having parents who loved that hard meant knowing exactly what you'd lost when life took pieces away.

She crossed to her dresser, muscle memory guiding her to the drawer with the false bottom.

The hiding spot stood empty—those letters to Carmelo had made the journey to Butts with her—but the gesture alone summoned fresh pain.

"Kathy?"

"Yes, Ma?" She quickly wiped her face, turning with practiced brightness. "Hey!"

"Hey, yourself. Danny-boy said you wanted to talk?" Brenda closed the door softly.

The moment it clicked shut, Kathy flew into her mother's arms. They stood there, holding each other up, tears mingling on shoulders that had carried too much. Brenda pulled back first, studying her daughter with fierce pride.

"My baby girl. All grown up and married. So beautiful. I know I fought letting you go, didn't understand your father's decisions. But seeing you with Ely..." She touched Kathy's cheek. "Maybe it was all part of God's plan."

Kathy stepped back. "Is it God's plan, Ma? Or just the consequences of my choices?"

"Kathy—?”

"You heard Junior. You heard him call Matteo 'Papa.’”

"Children that age get confused?—"

"He's not confused, Ma. That's his father."

Brenda aged ten years in an instant. "Even if—we never say it. You understand? Never. This family can't take another blow."

"Ma, I have to tell you something." The dam broke. "Everything that's happened—Debbie and Matteo, this war, Uncle Pete—it all started with me and Carmelo. I'm the match that lit this fire."

"Baby, that's not?—"

"Please. Sit. Let me tell you all of it." Kathy retreated from reaching hands. "You're all I have left who might understand."

"I'm your mother. I'd die for you. Nothing you say changes that."

The story poured out—Janey, the arrangement, the baby, the brutal end with Carmelo. Brenda listened like a priest taking confession, wincing but never judging.

When it ended, Kathy felt emptied and clean.

Silence settled after the last word. Her mother stared at the wall, reorganizing everything she thought she knew.

At first, she couldn’t look at Kathy. She kept shaking her head.

Kathy felt the worst. Brenda closed her eyes at last and squeezed them tightly shut.

She mouthed a prayer Kathy could not hear.

When it was over, she stood slowly, as if it were painful to do.

Kathy trembled with shame and grief. Her mother’s rejection would be the nail in her coffin. She needed her mother above all else.

"Come here, baby. Mama's got you." Brenda said with open arms. Kathy collapsed against her, feeling twelve again. “All I know, all I focus on is my baby is having a baby. Another Elliot girl. Cause we are Elliot girls. Made from pain and strength. We take care of each other. Always.”

“Yes, Mama,” Kathy wept.

“We’ll protect this child like we protect each other. With everything in us.”

The Triangle Social Club blew at 3:47 AM.

Windows blasted outward in a violent symphony of shattered glass, cascading everywhere.

The blast turned night into day on Mulberry Street.

Ely was already running, legs pumping hard against the pavement, when the concussive blast wave slammed into his back.

He stumbled, his boots skidding, but sheer momentum and terror kept him upright.

Let the boys have hit their marks , he prayed silently, the thought sharp and desperate amidst the chaos.

If the plan held, Don Cosimo Ricci’s jewel – the hallowed ground where the Don conducted his most crucial meetings with his mob ties – would be lit up like a Christmas tree and reduced to a smoldering skeleton by dawn.

But plans, especially bloody ones, have a way of turning into shit.

The Riccis had been tipped off about Harlem’s retaliation.

While Slim’s warning arrived too late to stop Ely’s dynamite from tearing through the club, it gave the Riccis just enough time to arrive and spring their trap on Bumpy Johnson’s men, who now answered to Henry Freeman.

Gunfire erupted, sudden and brutal, from three directions at once.

The Harlem crew scattered like startled cats into the labyrinth of Little Italy.

Through the acrid haze of smoke and the leaping orange glare of the burning building, Ely caught a glimpse of Carmelo Ricci unfolding himself from the black bulk of a Cadillac.

The flames illuminated his face, etching it with pure, cold fury.

Across the chaos – the staccato gunfire, the shouts, the groan of collapsing timbers – their eyes locked.

"That's him! The tall one!" Carmelo's voice sliced through the din. “Nail him!”

Ely hit Hester Street at a dead sprint, lungs already raw and burning.

Ricci's foot soldiers faltered behind him, swallowed by the chaos, but Carmelo came on, relentless and fast. Ely risked two frantic glances over his shoulder. Bullets whined past his ears, stitching the air where he’d just been – the chilling realization hit him like a physical blow: Carmelo wasn’t just chasing; he was hunting to kill.

Ely ran into the mouth of a narrow alley off Hester, the sudden stench of decay thick in his throat as he slammed trash cans aside with his shoulder.

He scrambled over a splintered wooden fence, the sharp crack of a bullet tearing through the space his head had been barely a heartbeat before.

How the hell could he shoot and run at the same time with such accuracy?

He dropped hard onto the cobbles of the next alley and was moving again before his knees fully registered the impact.

Terror surged within. He could die. He could actually die after all these years of waiting and dreaming of Kathy as his wife; he’d die and lose the chance to love her before their life began.

He was a fucking idiot.

He should have listened to her.

He made a vow to God that if he got back to her, he’d never take such risks again.

The heavy, determined pound of Carmelo’s footsteps was closing the distance.

A bullet sparked viciously off the iron rungs of a fire escape just above him, showering sparks like angry fireflies.

Another thwacked into a brick wall inches from his shoulder, spraying stinging sparks.

Desperate, he cut left into the deeper gloom of a connecting alleyway and skidded to a halt on loose gravel.

Solid brick walls, stained and unforgiving, rose on three sides.

Overflowing trash cans blocked any possible crevice.

A dead end.

The cloying reek of rot filled his nostrils.

Nowhere to run.

"Turn around." Carmelo's voice was steady, unnervingly calm despite the chase, cutting through Ely's ragged gasps for air.

Ely turned slowly, hands raised palms-out, but muscles coiled.

Carmelo stood silhouetted against the alley's entrance, pistol unwavering, aimed squarely at Ely's chest. Behind him, the hellish glow of the Triangle Social Club fire pulsed with the encroaching sirens, painting the narrow alley in shifting patterns of violent orange and deep, impenetrable shadow.

"I've been waiting for this all day." Carmelo's words fell flat as stones. "You've wanted my Kathy from the beginning."

"I knew Kathy when you were still in short pants," Ely said, voice controlled despite the gun aimed at his heart. "She was mine before you existed, and she's mine now."

Carmelo advanced, the Colt steady as a surgeon's hand. "Then I'll hold her hand at your funeral. It’s my turn.” Something wild danced behind his eyes—part madness, part savage joy. His finger slowly tightened on the trigger. Ely's muscles coiled, waiting for the blast.

"Melo! Stop!" Matteo's command cracked like a whip from the alley mouth.

Neither man flinched. Ely kept his eyes on death's messenger; Carmelo's aim never wavered from Ely's chest.

“Melo! Listen to me!” Matteo stepped into the narrow space with the Judas, better known as Slim, as his shadow.

Ely registered Slim’s presence. The tall man who’d chosen the Ricci side, playing butler, chauffeur, and spy while feeding scraps to Bumpy Johnson to maintain his precarious middle ground.

Never trusted him , Ely thought bitterly.

Matteo pressed on, his voice low and urgent.

“You shoot him, you lose Kathy forever. That ain’t a guess, brother.

It’s a stone-cold fact. I’m losing Debbie right now.

I can feel her slippin’ through my fingers.

You pull that trigger, this war... this poison between us and our women.

.. it never ends. You hear me? Never .”

Ely held his gaze. "That's right. Kathy will never forgive you. And she’ll know it’s you. She’ll see it in your eyes.”

Carmelo’s jaw muscle jumped like a trapped animal.

His finger caressed the trigger’s curve.

Then, with a speed that blurred, he reversed the pistol and slammed the steel butt into Ely’s temple.

The crack echoed in the alley. Ely folded like a puppet with cut strings, crumpling onto the filthy cobbles.

Barely conscious, blood bloomed from his nose and split lip, hot and metallic on his tongue.

Carmelo crouched low beside him, the gun now dangling loosely in his grip. His voice dropped to a whisper thick with venom. “You know what she is to me?”

Ely spat crimson onto the stones. “I know what she was .”

“Is.” Carmelo’s voice cracked like ice. “Always will be.” He brought the gun up slowly, the barrel finding Ely’s face again.

“You think a piece of paper? Some fake vows she made to you to forget me, changes a nything ? It doesn’t.

But Henry Freeman ain’t wrong. This is war.

My war. Harlem will burn because I can’t have her.

You tell Henry Freeman this: Harlem is Don Cosimo Riccis, it’s mine.

” He leaned closer, the smell of cordite and fury sharp in Ely’s nostrils.

“So here’s your mercy, Ely the fake husband.

Take her. Take her back to Mississippi and make her forget me if you can.

But you stay the fuck out of Harlem. Breathe her air here again?

Touch her again in front of me?” He tapped the barrel against Ely’s bloodied forehead.

“I’ll put you down right in front of her.

Make her watch. Take her home with me, where she belongs. ”

Ely stared up, past the gun, into Carmelo’s eyes.

There was no lie there, only a terrible, absolute conviction.

Gospel truth . Carmelo’s bottom lip trembled, a visible battle against the urge to finish it.

With a sound like a choked growl, he pushed himself upright.

He turned, a dark shape against the distant firelight, and walked away without another word.

Matteo stepped into the void Carmelo left, his face grim. “Get Kathy out of Harlem,” he said, urgency tightening his voice. “Now. I can’t hold him twice.”

Slim merely tipped his hat, a ghost of a smile touching his lips as he glanced down at the broken man.

Then he and Matteo moved off, shadows melting after Carmelo.

Ely was left alone in the stinking grime, the taste of blood and defeat thick in his mouth, the cold cobbles leaching the last warmth from his bones.