Chapter 24: At What Cost?

The winter passed without much incident. TJ was able to spend the holidays with the gang due to a lull in the fighting that had yet to truly kick off. It seemed that the men on both side of the lines had wanted one last period of quiet peace before all hell would break loss like the rushing of a mighty river during its spring thaw.

Vince was too preoccupied with 7 months pregnant Gretchen, who he had decided to marry before the baby came along.  Vince had taken TJ along with him to help pick out the ring because he had figured that TJ was married since he had a kid even though TJ had never said so himself and didn't have a wedding ring. Everyone including Vince had just figured that having a ring was dangerous since it could get caught on something.

Afterwards all girls, little Ashley included, cooed and awed over Gretchen and the ring. It was plain gold with a pair of small rubies on either side of the central diamond. Vince had popped the question at dinner one night. He had started to make a toast and simply had turned to Gretchen and asked her to marry him. There had been a small silence while the question sank in before Gretchen started crying and said yes. Pretty soon all the girls went about congratulating Gretchen and carrying on about the ring while the guys hauled Vince into the night to get drunk. All of the men returned with TJ being the only one that could walk straight as he was the designated driver. Gus and Vince came in leaning on each other for support. Mikey had gotten himself so wasted he couldn't even stand and was singing slurs of random songs. TJ had to carry the man military style, one leg on one shoulder and an arm on the other, to be able to carry him to his room. Needless to say the women were not happy having to tend to hung over men the next morning and the tongue lashing the Gretchen gave the guys was enough to ensure that there was not going to be an official bachelor's party.

The ceremony was small even thought TJ had plainly offered that he would cover the costs of it. Despite the early understandable outrage of the respective parents, both sets had showed up and it was a nice family affair as they say. That was in late November.

In early December one of the gang became one of the gang war's first victims. Somehow word had gotten out that Mikey was Ashley Spinelli Detwieller's bodyguard. Unspoken rules of engagement meant that the Dread Eaters couldn't just bump Mikey off right away even though Mikey had defected to another gang. They had to give Mikey a chance to back away from his post or else the Spinelli family would have the right to a full out retaliation. Normally a bodyguard was just another man but the Dread Eaters figured the Mikey must have some connection to rise up to such an important and secure position in such a short amount of time. Since Mikey's family was out of the city visiting some distant relation the Dread Eaters had bumped off a close friend instead. And the Dread Eaters had gone about in such a way that TJ, and later Mikey once he had gotten over it, spent most of the holiday season brooding over the death that shrunk the old gang's numbers from six to five.

Their friend's passing saddened Spinelli like everyone else but she had her own fears to face. The sight of his beaten and mangled body laying on the door step that morning had made Spinelli fear that perhaps there was going to be a gang war and somehow the enemy, whoever they were, knew about her reluctant connections. Her preoccupation was unnoticed by TJ and Mikey and vice versa as all three were too consumed in their brooding and worrying.

Only the little Ashley remained cheerful during the holidays. Or so it seemed. Everyday she would bounce around as joyful and cheerful as ever but what everyone didn't see at night was her crying herself to sleep. Ashley knew what her father did for a living. She knew there was going to be a gang war. She knew her father would have to do the one thing she hated the most because it was his job. And she knew that the gang war and his job were what they were because of her stupid, cruel mother. The things her mother did to her and her father made Ashley's blood boil but she wouldn't tell her father about the pain. She wanted to but couldn't because he would always have to leave because of his other job doing the thing she hated; killing for a living. Ashley knew her mother didn't kill people, well at least not directly, but at the end of the day she still preferred her kind and loving father to the bitch that sometimes beat her and made her do things she didn't like. Because her father would leave eventually Ashley couldn't tell her father about all the bad things because he would confront mother and she would act all nice until her father left and then Ashley would have hell to pay.

Christmas proved to be a time of brooding and fighting inner demons for most of the gang. Mikey but especially TJ brooded over the up coming gang war and the cost it would demand. TJ brooded over the material as well as human cost it would cost his forces in not only the upcoming war but in another scheme he had been planning for years. If all went well Jet's second war would be over in one night with only a few bodies to be cleaned up later. The Dread Eater threat would take longer to eliminate but if the plan succeeded Jet would have the money and manpower to eradicate the Dread Eaters utterly and completely out of the city.

For Mikey's part he worried more along the lines of whether he would have to kill anybody in the near future. Unlike TJ, who had been in the business a while and had built his reputation on his killing, Mikey was relatively new to the whole underground. The only reason he had even hired himself out as a muscle was because he had been strapped for cash and the pay was good. Plus he knew he was a big guy and his size alone intimidated most people. However during his year in the Underground he had not killed anyone or even carried a gun with him. He had been in a few fights but he had always had buddies with him to help him out. For Christmas TJ had gotten Mikey a piece or gun of his own and shooting lessons. It was just a plain K-54 pistol that was quite common in the Underworld but with it TJ had said, "You're gonna need this."

Those words worried Mikey the most. He had come to love little Ashley like a niece but he was still trying to get used to the idea that he may have to kill people to protect her.

For Spinelli she withdrew slightly from the running war that she had been waging with Ashley. Now that she was not constantly fighting with Ashley, Spinelli  realized that in the beginning she had been jealous of TJ's daughter. For some reason she had felt that the little girl would be against her getting together with her father but now Spinelli saw that Ashley saw the little fights they had as a game. Now that there was a lull in the fighting Spinelli realized that Ashley had no siblings, no friends and her parents were rarely there so she had become somewhat of an older sister figure.

Vito had written Spinelli the yearly letter telling all the news about the rest of the family that Spinelli kept hidden from the rest of the gang. No one knew that Spinelli even had a family. Her parents were never home when she was growing up, Vito and Joey were already in the Underworld busy establishing themselves, and Florence, her sister had been busy building up her own following here as well. Vito had written that Florence, Spinelli's senior by five years, had gained a fine officer in her little territory and the officer and Flo and hit it off even though it was well established that Flo liked girls as well. In the end Flo had had a daughter making Spinelli an aunt. In the letter that the niece was now seven years old, Vito explained that he hadn't told Spinelli that she was aunt because she was just 14 at the time and he had been worried that Spinelli might not have taken the news well. Vito also mentioned that the parents knew that they were grandparents but because of the same reasons.

Spinelli was thankful that her brother and parents hadn't told her the news back then. She was sure she could not have handled it as all with the trouble she was having at school and TJ not being there for her. It was not that he was not there physically, it was just that that was the around the time he started to become detached from the group.

Even now as she read the letter again in the refuge of her room she had a hard time believing that she was an aunt. Whoever had knocked up Flo must have been quite a guy because Flo had shown favoritism towards partners of her own gender early in her teens. The man must also have had lots of guts to be with Flo because Vito and Joey were still big brothers even if they didn't talk to each other much. Despite all of these things Spinelli was already an aunt and she wasn't even finished with college yet. In actuality she had become an aunt in second year high school according to the letter, she just didn't know that then.

"Mikey."

"Ya TJ?"Mikey replied. TJ and he were downstairs sitting in the kitchen discussing the inevitable bloodshed.

"My vacation will be over soon."

"Right." Was all Mikey could reply. He had no idea what that meant.

"It means I only have a couple of weeks to finish this war before it begins. But to do that I will have to have full uncontested control."

Mikey got up and went to the liquor cabinet and retrieved a bottle of vodka and some shot glasses.

"That means I'm gonna have to launch a coup d'état against the Doña and her immediate family." TJ said taking the bottle from Mikey and pouring the drinks.

Mikey looked at him wide eyed. "Why her immediate family? That would include Spinelli." Mikey tried to reason with his friend. A coup d'état would be a smart career move for Jet and Mikey knew that Ashley would be happy oddly enough but the elimination of the immediate family of the Doña could include both of the Spinelli's. Mikey knew that Jet had no qualms about taking a man's life but to take the life of Ashley's mother and uncles and aunt would be simply horrifying. Sure it was the right way to do business in the Underworld and tradition to quite out the family of the head figure you had just bumped but in this case that family was Spinelli's and TJ was sort of a part of that family.

"Why now? You've been in the business for a long time now. Well a couple of years anyway." Mikey asked.

"Have I ever told you about the first time I killed someone?" TJ asked Mikey in order to avoid the question.

"No."

"I was just 14, Mikey, still a boy doing a man's work. I had gotten in a fight outside of school one day and Vito saved me. Shot the two bastards that had attacked me. To pay back the debt I did small favors for him like be a carrier or messenger. After a few months he actually gave me a gun and made me the head of a small group of foot soldiers, really just other kids my age. We were the cannon fodder of the mobs. One night my group got attacked when we were finishing up our patrol. We ducked inside the church that you guys still go to. Only one person was killed in the gunfight that followed. I killed him; shot him through the head. And afterwards… I felt no remorse, no guilt, no nothing. It was that night Jet was created. You can say Vito brought me into the Underworld, I feel that I should leave the Underworld through him as well." TJ said tying up his story.

"What do you mean by leave TJ?" Mikey asked leaning on the table to listen closely.

"I have a plan that can put the control of the Spinelli family's wealth and territories firmly in my grasp Mikey, and I want you to take over when I leave. "

"You mean be your second?" Mikey ask his friend to make sure he was understanding what TJ was saying to him.

"Yes Mikey. After my coup d'état I will have time to do enough damage to the Dread Eater leadership to paralyze them for the most part. You should be able to clean up the rest."

Mikey just nodded.

"And take care of Ashley for me. I doubt my return back here. The Army has dug in and they want me to help hold the lines in the north. Seems the fighting has gotten more intense since I last was there." TJ added off handedly.

"But TJ, you just can't leave Ashley, she'd be crushed."

"I'm too big of a target Mikey. I'm too infamous; I have too many enemies that are after me for personal reasons. If I disappear or die the Spinelli family would have that much safer and so would Ashley. The best way I can be a good father for my daughter is to protect her by not being there. I will not have my daughter grow up with the horrors I did Mikey. No matter the cost she will not grow up as I did. I will pay any price it takes Mikey, even if it means my life. That is how much I love my daughter Mikey; the cost is not important."

There, another chapter down only 2 more left ppl. They will be long I promise. They have to be because I have 3 majors scenes left. You'll love them I swear. Well I have to say I am a bit disappointed that my average review per chapter has gone down from about 6 to about 2.5 but somehow I can at 109 so I guess a thank you to all of you is in order. Maybe 120 should be the goal for this fic. You think you could do it? 11 reviews in just 3 chapters counting this one. I think you'll appease my by yelling at me for what I will right next. Coming up; Chapter 25: A New Moon Rises, the climax chapter of the fic. Should be up in a bit, though it will be long so bear with me people. It'll be worth the wait.

LockDown over and out…