A/N: I do apologize for the lack of updates to this story however there's been a lot going on recently and I just haven't been motivated, that was until last week when a large cup of coffee after 5pm perked me up enough to binge watch both movies. Shoutout to FanFreak2002 for looking this over and listening to my incoherent rambles for the last week as well as helping me work through what will be material for future chapters. Let me know what you think on your way out :)
Chapter 4
Roc's dead 'cause of me, you know that right? It was my idea to bring him in on our shit in the first place, my idea that he should go with us on these hits, my idea he go with us to Yakavetta's. It's my fault Rocco's dead and if I had listened to you in the first place that night he'd still be alive today.
I can't even put pen to paper to tell his Ma that it was my fault her son ended up dead. Hell, she'd probably shoot me dead and piss on my grave before she ever forgave me. I wouldn't be asking her to forgive me. Smecker said the cops told her he took one to the chest on his way home from some pizza place, but she should know how her son really died. Yeah, it was done by his boss and his cronies but she needs to know the truth, what really happened that night.
So do you.
I can still remember it clear as day.
Doc had given us Smecker's card a long time ago, back when we were attacked by the Russians out back in the alley, we just hung onto it just in case. Don't ask what that just in case was, we didn't know it at the time either but it presented itself to us when we made that decision. Connor told him we were going to be hitting Papa Joe's that night, after that head to New York. We left that out on purpose when we told you. We didn't think we'd see Smecker again, the last thing he told us before Connor hung up was to be careful.
We should've told you too that Yakavetta had a hit man coming after us; told Smecker about him. We didn't know it was Da; he had been locked up for the better part of 25 years (guess that explains why we never heard from him, right?) Ma wasn't too happy when Da told her what happened, went on a tirade and threatened to shoot him with his old revolver.
Anyway, after we got back to your place, you and Connor were arguing for hours on end, going back and forth the rest day until the time came for us to leave. I'll never forget what you told us.
"You cannot do this, I told you before that I've already had to bury someone I loved once and I cannot do that again. I swear if you walk out that door tonight I will not be here if and when you do come back. I will not be here to fix you; I will not be here if Smecker knocks on my door."
I knew the looks you were giving me when I had my back to you; I knew how scared you were about losing us, all of us including Roc. Everything seemed so final when the door clicked shut behind us. The entire way to Yakavetta's I wanted to tell Connor to turn the car around, that we weren't ready for something like this.
But I kept my mouth shut; I didn't speak up when I knew I needed to.
We parked four blocks away; we thought we were well out of sight, well hidden. We thought we were being sneaky trying to get in through one of the basement windows. How were we supposed to know there were cameras that alerted them to our being there? How were we supposed to know we tripped a silent alarm? How were we supposed to know that they were waiting for us? That we were set-up?
We thought it'd be only him, in the comfort of his own home.
How were we supposed to know that Roc's information was wrong?
How were we supposed to know?
They were waiting for us, the way they had us surrounded we knew we were fucked. But me being who I am naturally threw the first punch. It was all chaos and melee after that. We weren't quick enough though. Cuffed us all to chairs, arms behind our backs, feet shackled to the legs. They got a few good hits in on all of us; our faces were all bloodied up and swollen you wouldn't have even recognized us. Out of all of us, Roc got it the worst. He refused to talk so they shot his finger off (his actual words were "fuck you" but you get the picture.)
Connor will probably never say anything to you but I still catch him sometimes trying to scrub his face off. When Roc's finger got shot off the blood sprayed across his face. Connor sometimes will wake up in the middle of the night screaming at Roc to look at him; it's almost like he's seeing a ghost of him, you know? I have to remind him that there's no blood, that we're still not in that basement.
He has to remind me too; when they shot his finger off I was fighting against some fat fuck in a brown shirt with his arm wrapped around my neck in a chokehold, he was holding me down so anytime I tried to jump out of my chair I couldn't. After fatso let me out of the chokehold, after the gunshot, he held me by the throat with his bare hand, like he was trying to squeeze the life out of me.
Connor has had to wake me out of a dead sleep. He's seen me struggle, like I'm still in the chair; he has to remind me too that we're not in the basement anymore.
I can still see the look of pure horror on his face as Yakavetta came back into the room, the way he raised his gun (not even really aiming it) and the sound it made when he fired it. I can still hear the crack of the wood splintering as the bullet exited out of Roc's chest. There was so much power behind that bullet it literally knocked him on his back. Just like that, Yakavetta walked out of the room like nothing happened.
Connor was screaming his lungs out, no one could hear him but me. We knew they were out there, we knew they could hear him scream, but they ignored us completely. I toppled onto the floor next to Roc, shoving him with my shoulder, trying to get him to stay with us. I can still hear his words playing inside my head.
"You can't stop, you get outta here, don't ever stop."
He was gone, just like that. He quit breathing, his head fell off to the side and all I could do was scream that I was going to kill every last one of them. I even swore on it. I don't swear like that hardly ever but you can bet your ass that I did this time.
That's what we did. We killed every last one of them.
Then they all left us and went upstairs. Connor managed to shake a cuff loose from his chair and freed his leg. Fucking hurt like hell but he broke something (my arm, my wrist, my hand, something) and got me free from the chair so I could stand. Waited for one of those fucks to come back downstairs, when he did I stabbed him in the back until he was good and dead. Connor likes to think he helped by kicking the guy but really I did all the work with a fucked up hand.
Once we made sure he was dead, I rooted around in his pocket for the handcuff keys and got us both out of those chairs for good. We sat Rocco up and closed his eyes (I can still see how big they were; black like all the color had gone from them). We put the pennies over his eyes and started saying our family prayer and that was when we heard a gun cocking behind us.
It was Da, leaning against the door frame with a cigar in his hand for a few seconds before sticking it in his mouth. Da finished the prayer, put his hands on the side of our faces and just looked at us. We didn't say hardly anything to each other after we got in the car but Lord knows I wanted to hit him and shout at him where, questioning where he was all these years, why he left Ma, why he left us. I suppose he'll tell us in due time.
I can still hear Roc's screams when I sleep at night. Don't think I can ever get that sound out of my head. It's good that Da moved us out into the country where there's quiet. It helps us to forget, if only for a little while.
Sometimes when we go to town we'll bring our guns and wear our coats over them. Any time we see something on the street we don't agree with we both feel the urge to put the fucker on his knees. Da has to remind us that we're home and can't be doing that. He thinks we should take everything we had (the guns, the money, our rosaries) and lock them in a box, bury it somewhere where we aren't tempted to use them. He wants us to be fully at peace.
He thinks sending these letters are a bad idea, that they can be traced but Smecker's assured us that they can't be traced. As long as Smecker's alive, we'll keep sending you letters and little things every now and again. Your birthday's next month, maybe if I can get to town in the next week or two I'll pick something up for you, a new book perhaps (know you're fond of Stephen King).
It's getting late though, going on one in the morning here and we've gotta be up early to get the fences fixed. Some stupid fucking kids got in and tore some of the posts out. Probably for the best though, wood was rotted to hell to begin with.
Murphy
