Trophy 11

Something intruded on Bella’s consciousness. She didn’t know if she was awake or dreaming, but she knew she’d heard something. She turned her face to the ceiling, uncovering both her ears, and listened.

Her mind reeled back over recent events as she tried to make out whatever the sound was. After making the inner concession to work with Frank, she’d shouted to him for minutes on end, but it was evident he wasn’t coming. Why he wouldn’t see her, there was no way to know.

Bella told herself it didn’t bear thinking about. She ate the chicken soup in the thermos before it got any cooler, then tried to get some more sleep, winding the chain around her in an attempt to familiarize herself with it enough that it wouldn’t be so distractingly foreign as she tried to slumber.

It must’ve worked, because she’d eventually gotten to sleep. Her awakening now had her well-rested, cool-witted. In fact, she felt like there was a weight off her shoulders. And it was hard not to associate that with the fact that many of her in-laws might soon be dead.

If she’d known how intoxicating the prospect of being a widow was, she would’ve planned her husband’s murder ages ago.

The sound finally came to her, the slap of feet on barren flooring, coming nearer, closer, someone approaching. Bella realized it could only be Frank, and he could only be coming from one direction. She turned over.

There he was, body flashing in a circle of yellow lamplight like a train coming out of a tunnel and immediately going into the next one. He was barefoot, stripped down to his trousers and his undershirt, and freshly washed—moisture glistening on his bare arms and in the darkness of his slicked hair.

Bella sat up, regretting it when her bedsheet fell away from her, then drawing it over her bare legs. Her top—top, a corset!—still showed an abundance of cleavage, but at least it wasn’t an out-and-out undergarment like her panties.

She wondered why she cared about him seeing her undressed. He’d surely seen much more than that when he’d attacked Vito and Romano. All Bella knew was that she felt precarious, her newfound resolution only barely balanced, and if her heartbeat tripped any more wildly or Frank eyed her like she half-wanted him to eye her, she might lose her nerve.

She didn’t like it, but she could not help being afraid. This was an adrenaline rush far away from her dalliances with her stepson and bodyguard.

“Let’s talk,” he said in an undertone.

So Bella told him all about the upstairs Beluccis and the downstairs Stagliones.

Ten years ago, all that had changed. A RICO indictment had laid the Beluccis low, jailing or killing virtually all the leadership. The lower ranks were left brawling it out with the black gangs who more and more often ran the streets.

They’d been forced to call on Rico Belucci, an old man from Italy and distant cousin of the American Beluccis, to come in and stabilize the empire. He had brought with them his son, Vincenzo Belucci, who years prior had wed Antonia Spazzi, illegitimate daughter of the imprisoned New York capo.

Rico, old but savvy, and Vincenzo, a savage but untested youth, had worked magic. Recruiting the Colonels, a particular street gang to their side, and empowering them with their Belucci contacts, they’d rapidly firmed up control, resuming the payments to cops and judges that let their business run unmolested.

The more time they spent in each other’s presence, the more Bella noticed that his clean pair of pants was tighter than the last trousers Frank had worn. The bulge between his legs was like a boulder. Bella tried not to look. Then she tried not to be too obvious about looking.

The Colonels had almost been enough, but not quite. The bleeding was still going. They’d prevailed on the Scagliones for help—and gotten a shank in the back, as the Scagliones made a play for the New York territory. It’d been open war, the hyena going after the lion that was already bloodied from long battle.

Old Man Rico was taken out in a hit practically before he knew the war was on, but Vincenzo proved far more than the hothead he’d been last anyone had heard of him. He’d marshalled the weary remnants of the Beluccis and struck back, with a pipe bomb or a Molotov cocktail for seemingly every building the Scagliones called home. He masterfully abandoned the operations the Scagliones sought to co-opt, leaving them to deal with the still-circling blacks, while keeping a death-grip on the cocaine trade that was the lifeblood of the Mob.

Of course, this wasn’t the old days. There was only so much the government could ignore, no matter how well they were paid off, and it soon became apparent to both sides that a peace had to come about before the Law took advantage of the bleed. And with both families so damaged by the fighting, it was obvious too that they would need an alliance. A united front to deal with the gangs and the cops while the business was put back in order.

How else to legitimize such an alliance, telling all buon 'Taliani that the war was over, than for the only daughter of the Scagliones to wed the last son of the Beluccis…?

Bella sensed irritation from Frank here. Like he didn’t like the thought of her being forced to marry. Well, she hadn’t either.

The Scagliones, battered and bloodied by the long war, had needed desperately to shore up their ranks for fear of falling short in the new alliance. And so, like the Beluccis had brought in the Colonels, they had given scut work to some of the many violent criminals among the migrants constantly imported by the city’s liberal policies.

It was not an alliance like there was between the Beluccis and the Scagliones. The Somalis were more like well-fed dogs: loyal to the meat.

They knew not to bite the hand that feeds.

Frank was dry by the time Bella finished. She wondered if he’d taken a cold shower or a hot one.

“That all tracks,” he said. “Now tell me something I don’t know.”

“Something…” Bella sputtered. “Something you don’t know? You knew all that! You knew and you still kidnapped me, chained me up, fucking—fed me chicken noodles!” She knew that wasn’t a slight, but she was at a loss for other indictments of him. “Why?”

“Had to know if you were lying or not. Now—”

“I swear to God, if you tell me to tell you about the criminal activities of the Belucci family…”

“I want to know about routes, locations, personnel. The drugs the Beluccis sell: where do they bring them into the city? Who’s in charge of distributing them? Where are they stored?”

“Fuck!” Bella got up, grasped the chain in both hands, and tore it as hard as she could—jerk, jerk, jerk—playing tug-of-war with the floor and losing. But after she’d done that, she felt controlled again.

She’d come out from under the bedsheet, exposing herself to Frank in her lingerie all over again, but she didn’t mind now. In fact, it seemed like a point she’d scored against him—even if they were both aligned against the Beluccis now.

He couldn’t have her, couldn’t satisfy his lust for her, or it would surely break his vaunted code. So she could flaunt herself, she could tease him, she could even flirt with him, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Breathing evenly once more, Bella laid back on her bed in a pose that she knew accentuated her body, showing off what was already undeniable. Frank was motionless. His Adam’s apple bobbed. He liked to look, she knew, but he didn’t like not being able to do anything.

“The only thing I know about drugs is meth. Vincenzo cooks the stuff in his own territory—he doesn’t import it. But the labs produce a lot of heat, heat they can pick up with drones. So Vincenzo put his lab in a cave up in the mountains. Snow all around. Tons and tons of rock. There’s no detecting the heat because it’s cancelled out by all the ice.”

“Where can I find it?” Frank asked.

“That’s the easy part. The boys cook five days a week, and on the weekend they get drunk and high and screw. On Monday, they’ll all drive back to the mountain and camp there for five days with fresh supplies. Look for cars parked five days that leave on the weekend. Then just follow the driver—you did it well enough when you crept up on me.”

Frank shook his head. “Don’t need to wait that long. I can look up who’s been buying parking spaces for five days at a time, week in, week out. Once I have the cars, I can track them from there.”

“Good for you,” Bella said, feeling a sudden fit of ambivalence.

She’d done it. She’d given the Punisher something to use against the Family. A capital offense in the world of Cosa Nostra. Did she regret it? She didn’t know yet. It was definitely something. And she’d been used to nothing for so long that ‘something’ was something she didn’t know how to react to.

She felt like she’d taken off a blindfold for the first time in years and been immediately asked to know which shape was which, remember what color was blue and what was red. It was enough to make Bella grateful she was lying down.

“Is there anything I can get for you?” Frank asked, a measure of gratitude actually entering his voice.

Bella laughed. Did he mean while he was out? While he was off to blow up a meth lab, he’d pick up Wendy’s for her? Crazy. Insane. But it was happening to her, like everything else.

She got her laughter under control while it was still only verging on hysterics. “No. No, that’s okay. Just cut me loose, I’ll make myself something.”

“I can’t do that.”

She bounded up again, shaking the chain once more. “I’m helping you, dammit! Get me out of this thing!”

“We’ll talk about it once I’ve confirmed your information.”

“Goddammit, Castle, I did what you wanted! You can’t keep me here!”

He very nearly ignored her, glancing at the bucket. She hadn’t used it yet. “I’ll be back soon. Make a list of whatever it is I can get for you. And don’t keep waiting for a flush toilet. Use the bucket.”

“FUCK YOU! TESTA DI CAZZO! FOTTITI! I HOPE THEY BLAST YOU INTO A MILLION PIECES!”