“You get hit?” I ask.
Al’s got blood splattered all over him, but he shakes his head. “Not a scratch.”
I wipe my face, then pull off my shirt to wrap my arm where I got hit. My thigh hurts like the devil, but it doesn’t seem to be losing much blood. I use my tie to secure my shirt in place around my shoulder, then press my palm down on my thigh, gritting out curses until I get used to the pressure.
“How bad’s that one?” Al asks.
“Didn’t even feel it,” I admit. The adrenaline was too much. The pain’s only now setting in.
We drive in silence for a minute, back toward home. My stomach knots up, and I glance at Al from the corner of my eye. “Was that a set-up?”
“Had to be,” he says. “It isn’t like Anthony to be so sloppy, sending guys in broad daylight. He’s making a statement.”
“Fuck,” I say, clenching my hand around the door handle. This is my fault. Eliza told him I was going to kill her, that by the time we met atJean-Jean, it would be too late. I should have done more than fuck her with a spoon. She’s trying to end my life. I underestimated just how dangerous she is.
I shouldn’t say anything, it will spell my doom, but Al should know why. I have to know for sure before I tell him, though. “How fast can you get me home?”
Al grimaces. “Not fast enough, kid. If he went after us, the deal is off. He won’t have made a move without getting his daughter out first. If he did, she’d be left to answer for it.”
“She told him I wasn’t good to her,” I admit quietly. “That must be why they attacked.”
Uncle Al doesn’t say anything for a long minute. He’s probably deciding whether to dump me in the river while we’re out.
“You told her about this meeting?” he asks at last. “The details?”
“Yeah. I had her call her father.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
The Life is my life now. I don’t have friends here, or a girlfriend, or anyone to tell besides Eliza. Obviously that was enough.
“They might not have known you were coming,” Al says. “They could have been planning it before we decided to involve you. They’re not going to pass up a chance to knock down one of the families if they can get me alone.”
“Maybe.” He’s definitely a more desirable target than me. As Eliza likes to remind me, I’m no one. But I did tell her we were meeting today. Her father told her where.
Or maybe it wasn’t him at all. He gave her to me, after all. He entrusted me to take care of her, and he didn’t seem convinced by her pleas the other day. It’s not like the mafia to get involved in private affairs between a husband and wife, even if it’s a don’s daughter.
If it wasn’t him, does she hate me enough to have set this up herself? I thought we were past that, but maybe she was faking it. I’ve seen how good an actor she is. And she loves to talk about her obsession with freedom. What better way to attain it than to get rid of the one person she perceives as an obstacle?
“So, Eliza knew we were meeting,” I say. “Some of the other Pomponios obviously knew. On our side, there’s the two of us, your consigliere, and Little Al.”
My mind circles back to my “innocent” little wife, who I put on the Pomponio’s side without even thinking. Did she try to fucking kill me? I shouldn’t be surprised. Rage swells inside my chest, closing off everything else, even the pain throbbing in my shoulder. If she did this…
This week, the house was a fucking disaster of dirty dishes and takeout boxes and wine bottles from her friends coming over and hanging out all day. When I told her to clean up after herself or hire a maid, she played dumb and said, “I don’t know how to hire a maid.”
I know she’s not dumb. She may not know how to hire a maid, but I’d bet she knows how to hire hitmen.
“It had to be Eliza,” I say quietly.
“Look, kid,” Al says as we approach my place. “Anthony wouldn’t do something like this just because his daughter complained. If you were hurting her, he’d hurt you. But he wouldn’t come after both of us like that—not for a personal matter. This has business written all over it.”
“I’ll call home,” I say. After confirming with her bodyguard that she’s home with her friends like usual and not off with the Pomponios waiting to hear if their assassination plot worked, I hang up. Eliza hasn’t gone out since this morning when she visited the salon. That puts my mind at ease a bit, and I relay the news to Uncle Al.
“It don’t look good,” he says. “The Pomponios don’t show up, and we get ambushed? It’s got all the makings of a setup. I just don’t know yet, kid. Why come after us, knowing the war would be back on? And why leave Eliza with you?”
“To throw us off,” I say. “To make us think it wasn’t them.”