Trapped in his End Game (Series)

Big, fake tits. As far as the eye can see.

Topless girls in G-strings strut on a stage lit up in deep, purple lights. Johns are lined about around the circular perimeter, clutching one dollars bills in one hand and their cocks in the other. In my black suit, I’m bathed in darkness.

Strip clubs were never really my thing, but Nicky spends a lot of time here. At the bar, I see Nicky nursing a drink as he watches the girls on stage. My insides tense up.

Even though I know that FBI fuckhead was wrong, I’m still rattled by what he said. I still keep thinking, what if? What if Nicky really was pissed off enough to do something stupid? It wouldn’t be the first time.

A stripper with balloons for tits notices me as she finishing a lap dance. “Hi, Vince!”

“Hey, sweetie.” I give her a quick, cursory nod. “I gotta go talk to Nicky.”

Nicky sees me approach and slides off the stool, extending a short arm to me. “Oh, he’s back from the dead! How’ve you been?”

His small, round face grins widely. He has no clue what’s been going on.

“My restaurant was raided by those fed cocksuckers. They seized everything.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. I don’t got enough on my fucking plate?”

He pats my back, looking horrified. “Jesus. Have a drink with me.”

Yeah, I think I will.

I sink into the stool with Nicky, who still watches me, dumbstruck.

“I’ll have a whiskey.”

The glass slides into my hand and as soon as I smell the harsh liquid, I remember Maria’s plea for help. My lips burn when it glides down my throat, adding to the bitterness I’m already choked with.

“You’re still pissed off about Adriana, aren’t you?”

I slam my glass on the table as Nicky’s eyebrows crease. “I can’t believe she’s with that piece of shit, that’s all.”

He laughs. “Yeah, I saw them together the other day. She has no fucking idea what she’s walking into.” He takes another drink.

That’s a weird thing to say.

“What are you talking about?”

Nicky’s small dark eyes suddenly look away. “Are you sure that you want to know?”

I hate these goddamn games. “Just tell me, Nick.”

Nicky shrugs his shoulders, looking flustered. “One of the Rizzo guys told me some stories about him. The man has problems. He beat a stripper to death while he was high on coke.”

Holy fuck.

This is the man she prefers?NôvelDrama.Org content rights.

“Why?”

He shrugs, suddenly letting out a bizarre laugh. “Who the fuck knows? Maybe she didn’t want to suck his dick. Anyway, he did it right outside of the club. Tony forced him to pay off her family. She was just a whore, but still.”

The empty glass might shatter in my hands, because I’m holding it so hard. “Jesus,” I finally spit out.

“As far as I know, it was only one incident. Maybe it’s not a big deal.” Nicky shrugs.

I stare at him. “I fucking doubt that.”

Sickness coats my stomach and I suddenly feel a crawling, disgusting emptiness. It expands like a sinkhole, and everything collapses inside. I slam the drink on the bar and wipe my hands on my knees.

I need to tell her.

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me sooner?”

He looks up from his drink, surprised. “I thought-I mean you guys broke up, so it didn’t really matter.”

Still hazy from the whiskey, I stand up.

I can’t just let her date him without warning her, but the last thing I want is to show up at her dorm.

Forget about how it looks. Could you live with yourself if anything happened to her?

“Vince, it’s not your problem,” he raises his hands. “Fuck that twat.”

My hands twitch and blazing heat scorches my face. “Shut the fuck up about her.”

* * *

“Open up!”

I hammer the door to her dorm, trying to be quiet so I don’t alert the RA on her floor. Then I decide I don’t give a fuck.

BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.

My fist rattles against the door again and again.

A girl’s voice growls behind the door as she struggles with the lock. “Hold on. Jesus.”

Adriana’s tall roommate wrenches open the door, her snarling face calming down the moment she recognizes me. “Oh, it’s you. Hi.”

“Where is she?”

Maria blinks through her shock. “Um, she’s not here, sorry. S-she’s at a bar, actually. I was going to meet her, but maybe you can go instead.”

At a bar. Perfect.

“She’s at The Dead Poet.”

Something resonates inside me. I’ve heard of that bar, because it’s right by my fucking apartment in Upper West Side.

“I know it. It’s near my place.”

A knowing smile spreads across her mouth. “She still loves you, Vince. I am sure of it,” she says in a low voice. “She doesn’t talk about him at all. A couple times, I wondered if she was forced into it.”

I feel guilty for how hopeful that makes me feel. “Whatever. Bye Maria.”

“Good luck!”

My head is in a fog as I jog down the steps. Forced into it? Maybe he has already threatened her. I can’t untangle my thoughts because they’re all confused. There’s something going on that I’ve missed, and I know I have bigger things to worry about, but I can’t shake the feeling that she’s in trouble. She needs me.

I speed towards my apartment, thinking that I could just walk to the bar. That’s another thing-why did she choose a place so close to my apartment? I’m not a fucking egomaniac, but that must mean something. Right? Of all the bars in New York, she chose this one. A few blocks from my place, hoping she’d run into me.

Okay, that’s a stretch.

The Dead Poet is a small, dark little place. Black door, black frame, black everything. I’ve never actually been inside. It’s cramped inside, with dozens of frames with quotes. I spot her in the very back, buried in a mason jar of booze. I sweep through the throng of people quietly before she can make a scene.

When I approach her, I see how thin her arms are. Her hair hangs lifelessly. Her face is pale and gaunt, and her lips move soundlessly. She doesn’t even look up when I pull the chair out in front of her and sit down.

Adriana looks like she’s on the verge of a breakdown.

What happened to you?

My anger with her fades to the background because seeing her like this is like a vicious punch to my gut. She looks like a beaten dog.

“Ade.”

She lifts her head and finally recognizes me. The look of misery on her face momentarily cracks. It’s like a ray of sunlight hitting her face, making her glow for the first time in weeks. She smiles and then painfully buries it, turning her head away.

“W-why are you here?”

“I’m here because Maria called me. You’re off the rails.”

“I can have a drink without her permission,” she snaps suddenly. “Or yours.”

The sharp look in her eyes makes me want to slap her. I want to grab her neck and take her little pink mouth in mine, and then force her head over my cock.

Jesus Christ, do not get hard in this place.

“Maria says you hit the bottle everyday and that you dropped all your classes. Classes that I paid for, by the way.”

Her eyes gleam as she stares back down at the table, looking so low that my heart makes a sickening thud.

“Damn it, Maria,” she says under her breath. “Why are you here?”

“I’m here to take you back home. You’re not well without me and as far as I’m concerned, you’re still mine.”

I didn’t mean to say that.

She looks up at me with the most strangest, hopeful expression. It’s like a green light. Go ahead, do it.

“We broke up,” she says in a flat voice.

I ignore her. “I also came to warn you about Carmine. He has a history of violence with women.”

Suddenly, her back tenses. “What? He’s never-but he’s so nice all the time. Are you sure?”

I’m glad you and that asshole are getting along so well.

“Yes, I am.” She looks like she’s on the verge of tears. “You need to be very careful when you leave him.”

“I’m not leaving him.” The corners of her mouth droop and she takes a shuddering breath.

What? “I’m sorry, did you not hear me? He beat a girl to death, if you want to know the details.”

Adriana flinches horribly and then shakes her head. She looks defeated. “I heard you fine. It doesn’t make any difference.”

Doesn’t make any difference?

“What the fuck is going on? I tell you that the man you’re dating has issues with women, and you don’t blink an eye?”

Now I understand why Maria was convinced there was nothing going on between her and Carmine. She looks like she suffered years of misery.

She lifts up her glass to her trembling lips, but I grab her wrist. She gives me a venomous look when I dig my thumbs into her wrist, forcing her to put it down. I drag the drink towards myself so that she can’t grab it again.

Adriana is like a shell. My hand lifts to her face to wipe the hair away from her eyes, which are like dark pools, shimmering with tears.

“We broke up, Vince.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that,” I say in a bored voice. “I can tell by looking at you that you want me. Let’s go home.”

“No.”

I wait it out as she squirms in her seat, tortured but unable to pull herself away from me. Years of experience with worming information out of people makes me realize that she’s on the verge of telling me something I’m not supposed to know.

Adriana’s small face pulls away from my hand, even more tears streaking down her face.

A sharp pain pieces my chest. This is torture for me. Torture.

“I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but I want no part in watching you destroy yourself.” I gesture towards the drink in front of her. “This shit isn’t going to make your problems go away.”

I get up to leave and the chair scrapes the floor as I push it back.

“No, don’t go!”

She lunges at me and takes my hand, sobbing on it. Huge wracking sobs shake from her chest as she cries all over me. It’s so loud that the other patrons glance at us nervously. My chest tightens horribly, and I can’t help but feel it’s all my fault.

Shit.

I move closer to her and stoop down, taking her thin shoulders in my hands. “Adriana, let’s go to my apartment. We can talk there,” I say in a low voice.

Her eyes grow round like saucers. “No, I can’t!”

I am going to smash something.

“I can’t do this. You’re fucking some other guy and you keep playing with me like I’m your goddamn toy. I’m sorry, but I need to move on.”

Suddenly the tears subside enough for her face to burn a deep, angry red. “Everything I’m doing is for you, you piece of shit!”

“What?”

What does that mean? How-?

Her face suddenly blushes and she looks horrified at her mistake.

Jack’s words suddenly echo in my head: “Jesus Christ, you are so fucking stupid!”

A sudden, nauseating thought drops in my head. A couple times I wondered if she was forced into it. What if she was?

She buries her face in her hands and yanks on her hair. Adriana looks quite deranged. “Oh, God.”

“Ade, is someone forcing you to be with Carmine?” My trembling hands seek out her head, but she stands up and slaps cash on the table.

She gets in my face, her lips trembling. “If you ever cared about me at all, you won’t interfere. You will not tell anyone.”

I’m right. I’m so stunned that I almost let her walk around me. I side step in front of her, and she gives me a pleading look.

“You’re coming with me to my apartment, and you’re going to tell me everything.”

I feel scared, as if something I’ve been avoiding is about to corner me. My hand closes over her wrist and then I drag her towards the exit before she can say a word.

“Vince!” She tries twisting her arm out of my hand. “Let me go, or I’ll scream!”

I whirl her around so that her arms are against my chest, resisting against me feebly.

“Go ahead,” I grin as her pupils shrink into small circles. “I’ll knock you out if I have to, but you’re coming with me.”

“You don’t understand! I can’t be seen with you!”

Who the fuck told her she had to be with Carmine? Jack?

Heat rises in my face and my teeth clench together. All this time, he knew.

He knew and never said a fucking word to me. The strange things he said about Adriana prove it. But why?

Maybe the fear in her eyes isn’t paranoia. Maybe it’s real.

“Who is doing this to you?”

She pulls away from me, still struggling. Her eyes are blinded with tears. “Let me go, Vince. Please.”

“No.”

She won’t tell me? Fine, I’ll drag it out of her. I steer her towards my apartment building. The streets are thankfully devoid of people. Her eyes dart around as if searching for something. Someone. Then she stops moving and her arm shakes in my grasp.

A shadowy, male figure walks towards us. The streetlight illuminates the face I’ve been seeing in my dreams these last couple weeks, haunting me. Gloating at me.

“Carmine, thank God!”

Adriana’s strangled voice yells for him, and once again I feel a stab of betrayal. What is she doing?

The fucking bastard looks calm and collected. He even has the nerve to smile at me. His windowless, empty eyes stare at me.

Adriana tries to jerk out of my grasp, but I keep her against my chest. Every instinct inside me screams to keep her away from him. Not because she’s mine, but because he’s dangerous.

“Fancy seeing you here. Both of you.” His voice rumbles as he glances towards Adriana.

I want to kill him so badly. I visualize myself reaching into my jacket pocket to grab my piece, to see his body jerk back when I pull the trigger. But I can’t kill him here.

“It’s not my fault. He dragged me from the bar. My roommate t-told him where I was.”

The fucking lies. I let go of her roughly and she runs into Carmine’s arms, who runs his hands anxiously over her face. “It’s all right, hon.” A smile twitches on his face. “You’re safe.”

Adriana basically told me that she was not with Carmine out of her own will. She was crying, shaking, and miserable. Now, she looks completely different. She looks at him like how she used to look at me, and it’s like all the air left my lungs. She lurks behind him, fear suddenly blossoming on her face as she looks over Carmine’s shoulder, directly in my eyes. She mouths something: Don’t.

“I had a feeling she might be here when she wasn’t returning my calls, and I was right. I can see that you don’t give a damn about what she wants, but maybe you’ll care if I put a fucking bullet in your head. Stay the fuck away from my girl.”

“She’s not-” My voice stops when I see Adriana violently shaking her head. I need to at least find out what’s going on before I do anything. I’m so fucking confused, I want to scream.

My stomach turns as I realize that the whole break-up might have been a farce. Something to keep me away from both of them.

I shrug at Carmine, gritting my teeth when I see Adriana wrap her arm around his. Then I turn my back on him, even though everything inside me fights against it.

Besides, I have work to do.

I need to find Jack.

I’m going to find him and kill him.