Elect

Chapter Forty-three Nixon

“So?” I took a long swig of coffee and leaned against the tree. “Fifty-fifty it’s going to work?”

“I’d say…” Phoenix shrugged. “Thirty-seventy.”

“Chase will do it because he knows it’s not a normal call to make. We can bank on that.” I replayed the plan in my head over and over again until I wanted to puke. “I told him to go about business as normal. He’ll do it.”

“Good.” Phoenix nodded. “Because if he doesn’t your entire plan goes to hell.”

It would be fine. It had to be. “How was Tony?”

“Oh, you know.” Phoenix shrugged. “Pissed, but when you make an angry man an offer he can’t refuse—”

“He’s evil,” I interrupted. “Pure evil. No doubt about it.”

“As am I,” a voice interrupted us. “The danger does not come in the evil, but in the person. Evil is everywhere, but in the end it is always a choice.”

“And you choose it?” I asked Luca. “You choose to make life hell for everyone?”

“Absolutely not,” he scoffed. “I keep order in a world full of chaos. I am perceived as evil, but true evil? The type that people fear—it masquerades as something far more worse than darkness.”

He sighed and put on dark sunglasses. “It makes you believe it is light itself, and that is where you find your danger. Be ready tonight, gentlemen, or you will both be waving at me from the bottom of Lake Michigan.”

Phoenix swore. “Such a charmer.”

“I never thought—” I laughed. “I never thought that in the end it would be me and you. Old friends, sworn enemies.”

“Yeah, God has a great sense of humor.”

I watched Trace walk into class. She was holding Chase’s hand and they were laughing. The knife went deeper into my chest as I tried to look away but it was like I couldn’t. I was so damn happy she was healthy, alive, safe. Shit. I’d spend my life watching her from afar, as long as I knew she would still be smiling, as long as I knew she would be safe from the evil around her.

Phoenix slapped me on the back. “If it’s any consolation, she clearly loves you.”

“How would you know?” I snapped.

He removed his hand from my back. “The way she looks at you. It’s different than how she looks at Chase.”

“And how does she look at Chase?”

“Like he’s her savior,” Phoenix said softly.

“And me?”

“Like you’re her oxygen.”

I didn’t say anything.

The problem was that I didn’t just see how they reacted to one another. I could tell by her body language that slowly, piece by piece, she was willing to let go of me. I wasn’t sure what hurt worse: how fast she was able to do it, or knowing the person she was actually doing it for.

Last year I’d practically branded her as mine.

And now I wasn’t so sure. No matter what anyone told me, I knew what I saw. She was slipping like sand through my fingertips and I had no one to blame but myself. I wanted to punch Chase until he bled, but he wasn’t the real villain, not in this story. No, I only had to look in the mirror to see that guy.

I was forced to be the bad guy so that she could have a chance.

But damn, how I wanted, just for once in my godforsaken life, to be the hero, the knight in shining armor, the guy she deserved to have. The guy who’d rescue her at all costs, the guy who’d damn his family to hell in order to keep her.

But I couldn’t forget my family.

My blood.

My damn code of honor.

I envisioned myself standing with Trace in the end, but lately, her face had started to disappear, right along with my future.

Phoenix slapped me on the back. “She needs you man; just give it time. And do me a favor: When this is all over and we aren’t waving to Luca from the bottomless pit of Lake Michigan, give her a chance to process through stuff, okay?”

I snorted. “Never took you for one to spout out wisdom.”

“Yeah well, impending death has a way of doing that to a person.”

“You aren’t going to die.” I turned around to face him. “Neither of us will. Now, let’s go wait back at the house. If memory serves, you’re supposed to be helping Tony get the gang together.”

Phoenix laughed. “Mass killings are my specialty.”

“I still can’t believe he’d go along with it.”

“He wants to silence everyone and he’s a bastard. Of course he’d go along with it. He double-crossed the most powerful mafia boss in America, and then spat in the face of one of the Originals in Sicily. If that wasn’t bad enough, he tried to wipe out Trace and set up his own family. I’d say he deserves what’s coming to him.”

“Right.” I had a sinking feeling things weren’t what they seemed but I didn’t voice my opinion aloud. I didn’t want Phoenix to hesitate; hesitation could mean death, and after seeing Trace again I very much wanted to stay alive.