xXxXx
There's a-mighty many people all millin' all around,
They'll kick you when you're up and knock you when you're down.
It's hard times in the city,
Livin' down in New York town.
-Hard Times in New York Town by Bob Dylan
xXxXx
My hands shift nervously in my pockets, maybe it's because Dallas and Giovanni aren't back yet or maybe it's because I currently have a cloth bag of cash that a mob boss gave Dallas a few hours ago. I'm standing up in a line of people all waiting for the midnight train to Nashville. I've bought tickets to Dallas, but our first stop is Nashville. I also hold Giovanni's ticket straight to Boston. He was supposed to start loading the bus at 11:40 to leave at 11:50. Which is why Dallas and Gio need to run faster with that address from the Pen. My palms are slick with sweat and I nearly jump out of my skin when I feel a hand on my shoulder.
"Hey, easy." I turn to see Dallas with a wicked gleam in his eye. Little Gio is at his side with a small backpack and a paper tucked in his hand.
"Giovanni!" I whisper yell. "You're supposed to be loading your bus to Boston right now." I give him the ticket and start to walk him over to where the bus is parked.
"Well I guess this is goodbye." He says softly, his eyes on the floor.
"I guess it is." I say and pull him into a hug. Then Dallas yanks his arm to make Gio look at him.
"Listen kid, don't tell any strangers your real name, where you're from, or what happened tonight or any other night with the Revilers. When you get with your family, lay low for a bit and don't even tell them what happened. Don't call anyone here, at least not for a little while, six months or so. If you do end up on the phone with someone from your family, don't tell them what happened either. This stays between us three." Dallas gestures to the three of us. Giovanni nods, his brown eyes gleaming with tears in the low light. "And if you see any of Ransom's guys, or anyone you think might be working with Ransom, get the hell out of there and make your way to Canada. It ain't gonna be worth staying if you get your head blown off by a gangster." Then Dallas smiles a little bit and punches him in the arm. "And try to smile a little kid, I was your age when I first ran away from home." Giovanni laughs a little, his eyes still shining with tears under the streetlight.
"Last call for the 11:50 bus to Boston!" The bus driver yells, honking the horn for extra effect.
"Alright Vanni," I start. "You better go, but just know that we love you kid and if you get into a bind you can call this number." I handed him a piece of paper with my sister's house number on it. "But don't call it right away, like Dal said, lay low for a bit." I try to smile and pull him into another hug. "We love you kid." I say patting his black curls.
"I love you guys too."
"Now go." Dallas huffs and he does, leaving us to wait for our bus.
xXxXx
Dallas pulls out another cigarette and lights it, handing it to me. As I reach out to take it I feel a hand curl around my throat and a voice hot in my ear.
"Hey baby." Ransom. Liquid acid fills my stomach as I feel the barrel of a gun shoved in my back. "Now Dallas," He says with a twisted angry smile. "Why don't you follow me out of the bus station so your pretty little girlfriend here," He jolts his hand in my hair for effect. "won't have to meet the business end of a bullet. How does that sound?" Dallas only nods as two goons subtly frisk Dallas, taking the gun out from the back of his jeans. We follow Random and his goons to an alleyway in a neighborhood nobody will bother us in, even if they hear screams. There are three of them and two of us and I don't think I could even take one of them. Ransom suddenly grabs my hair and forces me to look at him.
"You are a pretty little thing, aren't you? Judy? Isn't that what the sewer rat Giovanni called you?" I nod carefully, not wanting anything to happen. I can feel my eyes widening and my chest tightening with fear. Though I know I have to shove it down because every time since I met Dallas, if there is a moment where I looked even a little scared, Dallas will mess things up by trying to be some sort of scruffy guard dog. "And quiet too. Oh and with cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass." He runs a bloody fingernail down my cheek and I look at Dallas, knowing that Ransom is trying to draw him out. I give Dallas a look, hoping he doesn't say anything that will upset the fearsome underboss.
"What do you want Ransom? We finished the job and you paid us on the spot. We should be all finished here." Dallas says, playing it cool and trying to sound tough and older than he is. With a mere flick of his finger, Ransom signals his goons to pummel Dallas into the ground. Three punches to the face and four swift kicks to the ribs. I gasp, but Ransom starts petting my hair.
"Shh, it's gonna be okay, we won't kill him. Not if you tell us the truth, yeah?" I try to pull away or step on his foot, but all that does is piss him off as he swiftly yanks my hair and hits me in the face twice.
"Damn it!" Dallas yells, spitting blood as he struggles to his hands and knees. "What do you want? We did the job!" Suddenly Ransom lets go of me, shoving me down and swiftly kicking Dallas back to the ground.
"Did the job? Did the job? Then explain to me why David Schaefer was on the floor of that basement with his brains splattered from wall to ceiling! Huh? Huh!" He yells, kicking Dallas in the ribs again to punctuate the end of his sentence. "I had a bone to pick with that son of a bitch and you messed everything up!"
"I don't know what you're talking about! We left before that coulda happened!" Dallas spits, his bloody teeth shining in the dark.
"Yeah, what about the kid then? Your friend? He killed Schaefer and you got him out of town! Tell me what happened, you worthless piece of shit!" He said reeling back to kick Dallas again before turning to me with a sick grin on his face. "Or better yet." My stomach dropped about fifty miles at his words. Suddenly he grabs me up by my hair, pulling a knife out of his pocket and dragging it down the side of my face, from my cheekbone to my jaw. I felt tears prick my eyes letting out a whimper as blood began to run down my face and neck. I see fury burn in Dallas's eyes, but as he moved to get up, Langston stepped on his wrist, pinning him to the ground. It didn't break his wrist, but it didn't feel great either.
"Pretty broad." Ransom hissed in my ear, his hot breath sending shivers down my spine. "Too pretty for him." He used the knife to gesture to Dallas. "Too pretty for Manhattan. And too pretty to be a Jew. Tell me you got that little bastard out of town! Now." He spat the word with a cold fire.
I sucked a deep breath in. I was about to lie to a mob boss.
"You're right! You're right, okay? He killed David," His grip on my hair tightened as he moved the knife to my throat. "But we didn't even have to get him out of town."
"Elaborate, bitch." He pushed the knife harder to my throat, a small stream of blood making its way down my shirt.
"Before we could get him out of town or do anything really, he killed himself." I paused for a moment, trying my hardest to seem genuine. "With the gun you gave him, the same one that killed David! Right next to the pond near Glen Span Arch. His body is somewhere in the pond. I swear!" I let my voice catch on the last word, I really was becoming quite an actress.
Ransom looked genuinely stunned, if only for a moment. He believed me. He really did believe me.
I had just fooled a mob boss.
Then I heard the cries of what was going to give us away.
Being dragged by two gangsters I couldn't make out in the dark, was the beaten figure of little Giovanni. They brought him straight up to Ransom, throwing the boy at his feet.
"The man you was lookin' for, boss."
"More like the boy." Ransom sneered, rolling him over with a toe. He already had the start of a nice shiner and blood was trailing out of the corner of his mouth.
"Caught this bottom-feeder trying to catch a bus to Boston." One of the mobsters says.
"Boton?" Ransom repeats incredulously. "Boston? Surely if you are going to run away, you could pick a better place than Boston. What is this? Some kind of sick joke?" Well, at least Ransom shared every New Yorker's similar hate for Boston. Ransom lowered the knife on my throat, letting me go long enough to land a hard kick to the side of Giovanni's head.
"You wanna hear what this lying bitch said about you? Huh boy?" He said, giving him another kick for good measure. "She said you'd killed yourself. You'd shot yourself and thrown yourself into a pond." He let go of me and grabbed Giovanni's hair, forcing Gio to look up at him. "You're going to wish you had killed yourself when we finish with you." As if on signal the rest of the goons started beating the shit out of Giovanni, all while he screamed in pain on the ground.
"Damn it!" I heard Dallas yell before someone shut him up with a swift kick to the face. Bone cracking under boot, a wave of nausea hitting me.
But nobody did anything about me. Then suddenly I remembered. A savior. A kid in a gang fight's version of Jesus Christ. The heavy metal gun that was weighing down the pocket of my dress. Ransom and his goons hadn't bothered to frisk me, they didn't think a girl like me would be packing heat, even if she did run with some juvenile delinquents. I stepped back and put my hand in my pocket, feeling around for the safety, careful not to shoot myself as I pulled out the gun and cocked it.
With the rest of the gangsters around me carrying guns as well, I knew I had no chance in a standoff. Besides, I'd heard stories of Ransom killing people in standoffs, and those were people with at least a little experience.
So I took aim at Ransom first, strands of his greased hair coming untucked as he kicked Giovanni. His mouth turned up in a mean smile and his eyes filled with a fiery glint. Not of passion but of something else, something cruel and twisted, something barely holding onto any humanity.
He was hurting a kid. Almost my kid. A kid that never deserved any of this. And they had hurt Dallas. How many times had Dallas protected me when he didn't have to? How many times had he sat with me on that roof or at lunch during school to protect me? Too many times to count. So I would do this. I could do this. Pull the trigger and kill this monster that had hurt my friends. Honestly? My family.
Bang!
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Ransom was the first I shot but the last to fall. His eyes still angry as he muttered words I couldn't and really didn't want to hear. He fell softer than I thought a man like that could, staring up at the sky as the life drained out of him, dripping into cracks on the pavement and running down the sidewalk.
But I didn't have time to watch Ransom die. I needed to make sure Dallas and Giovanni were okay. I put the gun back into my pocket and knelt next to Gio. He was curled into a ball and his eyes were squeezed shut as tears leaked out the sides of them. He was crying… for the second time tonight, which broke my heart. I helped him sit up and he looked at me with fear filled eyes.
"Judy? What happened? Is it over?"
"Yeah hon, it's okay, they can't hurt you anymore. You hear?" He nodded, his wet eyes searching the alleyway around us and widening when he saw five dead mobsters.
"Do I still have to go to Boston?"
"I don't know." He clung to me as he cried, the hem of my skirt in his fist. I pulled him into a sort of side hug, rubbing his back and humming a bit.
"I'm gonna check on Dallas, okay?" He nodded, letting go of my skirt, his eyes keeping that vacant somehow pained look. I walked over to Dallas, kneeling beside him and shaking his shoulder a bit. His closed eyes and labored breathing scaring me more than anything. He quickly jolted awake, flinching in pain and groaning a little.
"Dallas, get up, we have to get out of here." I helped him into a standing position as he looked around the alleyway at what was essentially a murder scene.
"Judy, what the hell happened? Did you shoot them all?" I looked at him, blankly nodding. I didn't really want to think about the fact that I'd had to kill them all. Then I walked over to Gio, starting to ease him up.
"We gotta get out of here. Fast."
"Remind me not to piss you off." Dallas grumbled and I draped his arm over my shoulder. Both boys heavily leaning on me, we made our way down the street.
"Where are we going?" Dallas asked.
"I don't know. Out of that damn alleyway though."
"We have to find Enzo, he will know what to do." Lorenzo was Giovanni's oldest brother. He also happened to run most of the Sharks business. Giovanni was right, Lorenzo was our best bet. I knew what Dallas and I were going to do. We would get cleaned up and catch the next bus down south. I didn't know what to do for Vanni. We had tried to do what we could and those mobsters still got him and beat the kid half to death.
Lorenzo would know what was best for his kid brother anyway. So that's where we were going.
xXxXx
On the way to the pen there was a small shop that Giovanni's brothers usually hung out at. It was called Milano's Meats and it was a hangout known among the Sharks. The lights were on inside, so, as the only one in the group not delirious with pain I directed the boys inside the back exit. I'd only been in here with Dallas and Gio about three times, but it was enough to know where to go. The lights were on low and a couple of gangsters were sitting at one of the tables near the counter. They were talking, smoking, and picking off the gabagool charcuterie arrangement in the middle of the table. Lorenzo was sitting at the head of the table with Antonio at his side. Giovanni's other brother Niccolo was nowhere to be seen.
The table quieted and the men looked up at us. I could imagine how we looked right now, covered in blood, limping, with Gio crying.
"Giovanni?" Enzo started, standing up. "Dallas? What are you-."
"Judith!" Antonio exclaimed with a genuine smile on his face. Giovanni always said Antonio thought I was pretty and he might like to ask me out sometime. "Oh cavolo, you look gorgeous. You are beautiful my Judith Adler Cassano." I smile a bit, wincing when it pulled at the cut on the side of my face.
"Still holding on to the Cassano, huh?" I say softly. From the few times I had met him, he had declared me an honorary resident of their Italian neighborhood and given me the last name Cassano. He said that one day he was going to marry me, he also said some other naughty things that I shouldn't be thinking about right now.
"Yes, of course! I am waiting for you, my love." He walks over to me and kisses me on the cheek. That's when Dallas looks up.
"Antonio, shut up for a second! Will ya?" Lorenzo says, hen he turned to Vanni, his dark eyes concerned in only the way a big brother could be. "Gio, what happened? Are you okay?" Gio doesn't answer, he looks like if he starts talking he'll start crying.
"Lorenzo, can we sit down? We got a few things to talk about." Lorenzo huffs.
"You can sit down when I find out what the hell happened to my brother."
"You'll find out what happened to your brother because the same damn thing happened to me. I'm not trying to have an official sit-down, I'm just this close to passing out and getting blood all over ya floor." Dallas says, holding his fingers up for effect. "Also, your kid brother is pretty close to keeling over as well. Your choice, boss." I look at Antonio, who has moved over to grab my arm and Giovanni's.
"Scram you guys. We got a situation, we'll talk later." The other men stub out their cigarettes and leave Milanos. Giovanni lowers himself into the chair groaning as he reaches for some gabagool. Dallas nearly collapses into the chair. I walk into the back for the first aid kit as Dallas begins to recount the story. Starting with kidnapping David. I find the first aid kit and Antonio takes it from me, starting to clean the cut on my cheek.
"Even with the cut, you are still the most beautiful girl I've ever seen." He says quietly. I laugh a little.
"You might need to get your eyes checked then Tone." He smiles.
"So what does all of this have to do with my brother Dallas?" Enzo says, his anger slipping. "It sounds like you got him caught up in a stupid situation and now we might have to go to war with the Revilers because of you."
"No!" Dallas shot back. "You'll have to go to war with them because your kid brother blew David's head off!" Lorenzo paused for a moment, seeming to know that everyone here was to blame and not just Dallas.
"So then what, Ransom beat you and Vanni half to death and left you? How did you get away? There was no chance he wouldn't have killed you."
"Ransom is dead." Giovanni squeaked. "Judith shot him and all the other guys there." Lorenzo and Antonio both looked at me with shocked expressions, jaws down to the floor.
"Wow Judy," Antonio says. "Is it possible that I love you more now?"
"Oh shut up Tony." Lorenzo said, rolling his eyes. "Were there any witnesses? Did anyone see this happen?"
"No, I don't think so." I answered. "We were in an abandoned alley near the crossing apartments."
"Did any of the guys get away?"
"I don't know, I didn't check, I just got us out."
"Thank you for that." Antonio says quietly.
"Well nobody saw, but we can't be sure." Lorenzo mutters. "Which means that all of you need to get out. Gio can go and stay with the Bonnetti cousins in Bos-."
"No he can't." Dallas says, pressing a bloodied rag to the side of his bleeding temple. "If any one of those gangsters survived, they know that Vanni was headed to Boston before they picked him up."
"Ransom knew you's guys have family in Boston, which means other Revilers know about the Bonnetti cousins in Boston. He has to go somewhere else." I say. We all look at Lorenzo, even Antonio looks to his big brother for help.
"We could send him across the country, clear to Canada or California." I think for a second about taking Giovanni with me, but I quickly realize that's not an option. As much as I love the kid and I know Dallas loves the kid, we can't afford that kind of heat. If someone is looking for us, we can't afford for all of us to be found in the same spot. This is why we brought him to his brothers in the first place.
Giovanni is looking up at his brother with big eyes, new tears falling on cheeks where old tears and blood had dried.
"Alone? I mean I can't just leave you guys." Antonio puts a hand on his shoulder.
"Yeah, but you can't exactly stay either."
"What if I went to New Jersey?"
"Not far enough and besides, too many gangs here have connections in Jersey. You would be found way too fast." Lorenzo says. Giovanni starts to cry before Lorenzo shuts him up by giving him a look. "Enough of that, we got stuff to do."
"We can worry about our kid brother," Antonio starts, moving over to stand by me, a hand on my shoulder. "What are you two going to do?"
"What we were going to do from the beginning. We were going to get on a bus down south."
"Okay, stick with that plan." Lorenzo says. "We'll figure out where we send the kid and you guys'll head down south."
"Send him to Cali," Antonio starts. "It'll be easier if he stays in the states. Then we can send Niccolo out after him later."
"Perfect." Lorenzo says. "Let's get you guys to the bus station."
xXxXx
After we get cleaned up and changed we walk back out to the bus station. It's nearly 3:30 in the morning but there is a bus out to Cali at 5:00 AM. Lorenzo buys the ticket and we exchange tickets for a new bus that leaves for Nashville at 4:00 AM.
We are in the middle of our goodbyes when they call for us to load the bus. I turn to Giovanni and his older brothers. Dallas gives Lorenzo a hand shake and a muttered 'thanks' doing the same with Antonio before Gio gives him a hug. Careful of each others ailments they share a hug. Then I say good byes. Giving Lorenzo a curt 'thank you' and shaking hands before he kisses my cheek. Then Antonio. Nothing about him is subtle or basic. He gives me a kiss on the cheek pulling me into a hug.
"My beautiful Judith Adler Cassano." He takes my face in his hands and presses a hard kiss on my lips, smiling as he pulls away. "If I must wait for you to come back to New York City, I shouldn't let you leave without a proper goodbye." I smile, wiping at my mouth and hitting him in the shoulder. Stupid boy, he never even asked me out.
"Thanks Tony." He presses a paper into my hand with a phone number scrawled on it.
"Remember to call, gorgeous. We could make beautiful babies together, you know."
"Shut up. Focus on keepin' your baby brother out of trouble before worrying about a real baby. Jesus."
"Are you two done? I'm not lookin' to miss another bus on the account of a handsy mobster." Dallas says with a smirk. I pocket the phone number, barely having time to turn around before Giovanni is hugging me, holding on for dear life as I hug him back. This kid was the reason I'd killed a mob boss tonight.
"I'll miss you kid." I say.
"Yeah, me too," Dallas says as I pull away. "Try not to shoot anybody for a while huh kid?" Giovanni laughs, wiping at his eyes. Then we leave, trying not to look back at the three Cassano brothers.
I just hoped the kid would be okay.
xXxXx
Long chapter for you guys! Thank you for following this story. Thank you for reading, please leave a review and let me know what you think.