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Dante's Fire Chapter Fifteen: Andre
ANDREThe sodding funeral lasted so long Andre was nearly konking out on duty. He was in charge of the security for the night. Perhaps for all other nights. Most of the soldiers in the mafia revered him now. They could often be found offering him a smoke, which was a thing he always accepted readily. They hailed him on the streets unabashedly, loudly. He had survived a hit, had seen a full scale insurrection and had lived to tell the tale. That counted for something in the city. To the elite though, it was a different matter. They now regarded him with distrust. With eyes that said they would rather he had not lived to tell the tale. Andre did not begrudge them their wishes, the sodding money hoarders. They were right to be afraid. As much as it was often believed that it was the Bosses who made the pivotal decisions, it could also be said that in every Mafia, the force of those below made the difference. Without foot soldiers, there was no organization. Their opinions mattered, mo
Dante's Fire Chapter Sixteen: Big Jack
Chapter Sixteen BIG JACKGhostly.That was the proper word for a place like the cemetery, Big Jack thought as he waded through the snow and wet lawn to get to his best friend's grave side. A light breeze blew. He had worn weighty clothes meant to keep off the cold, yet he shivered.Poplar trees saturated the parcel of land. In the errant wind, their leaves rustled and sang. Their fat branches and obese trunks cast deep shadows on the short snow-smeared grass and the cement headstones beneath them, some of which had been there so long that they were crooked, leaning sideways towards one another.Big Jack knew where his friend was buried: in an unmarked grave right next to that of his father. It was a spot far from the shade of any tree, near a hill rise. 'Nothing like a good cool breeze, Jack.' Raymond told him the day they were there, years before. They had come to visit his father together, because Raymond could not do it by himself. They were both nineteen and suntanned and it was t
Dante's Fire Chapter Seventeen: Dante
DANTENatasha looked surprised to see him when he arrived at her doorstep.'Señor,' She said, her full brows lifted slightly in startled contemplation. 'I did not think that you would come.' 'I did not think I would either.' Dante replied. She had left him an invitation to her house to talk about the future of the mafia. Dante had planned not to attend; he had at first not given a flying toss about the group. But after Natasha pressed the cross into his palm, things had taken a mild turn. After a night of emptying the liquor reserves at his father's house, draining bottle after bottle of sparkling and red wine, Dante had come to the realization that he would at least like to know how the group intended to proceed in finding Big Jack. That, he knew, he would learn if he were a recognized part of the mafia, or at least, a person who invested his interest in it. Even now, the cross was pressed to his chest, the steel cool on his skin as metal is often wont to be. It had been fashioned
Dante's Fire Chapter Eighteen: Dante
DANTE Blythe edged forward until he was at the edge of his seat. He played his thumbs over the rim of a glass cup with wine sloshing inside of it. 'So, Natasha, now that we are all here—and I believe that we are—why exactly are we here?''Patience,' cautioned Sean savoring his wine. 'You are always in too much of a hurry. Time is not running away.'Natasha smiled. 'Gentlemen,' she began, disentangling her legs and steepling her hands together instead. 'The past few days and, perhaps, weeks, have been, without overstating it, very tedious. This I know. Which is why I did not call this meeting sooner.'Dante shifted uncomfortably in his seat. It was stiff and too thin. Through the layer of padding and foam, he could feel the wood against his spine. How could they sit like this? It dawned on him that this was something they must have done now and again. Their meeting hosted in different places and different boroughs of the city. Perhaps this had always been one of the spots. That would
Dante's Fire Chapter Nineteen: Jackie
JACKIENeil had gotten Jackie a place to stay in the city. It was in the upstairs apartment of a tall, ancient building made up of a patchwork of red bricks. There was a store on the first floor and a barbeque across the street. The pavement which bordered the stretch of road was pockmarked by hydrants. Every two steps and you met another one. Jackie could imagine them in late springtime or the summer, pumping a spray of water into the air like a fire hose, children dancing underneath, getting their summer clothes drenched. Now, mercifully, they were not functional. Jackie could not imagine being hit in the face by a torrent of ice cold water.Since her father's disappearance, there had been no news whatsoever. Neil would have told her if there was any, she liked to believe. And if something had happened to him, the news would have told it. Or so she hoped. Being in the dark was a thing of many frustrations. For someone who had become accustomed to texts and lectures and the ordinarin
Dante's Fire Chapter Twenty: Jackie
JACKIE 'You are late today.' Neil said curtly when she arrived at the appointed place.Jackie slipped her bag off her shoulder and slid into the booth, thankful for the release taking off the weight of it had afforded her.'I am. I guess you are now free to call me my father's daughter.'The 'meeting place' was a restaurant too, like the first one, but this one was more secluded. At the corner of these street, a sign hanging on the glass of its door boasted of the finest mac-and-cheese in the city. An OPEN sign lay at the other side of the glass. Jackie pushed the door open and stepped in. There was no bell jangle. But she was immediately assailed by the strong aroma of food, of foreign spices and culinary miracles. A woman was emerging from the store with a baby on her hip, trying to squeeze past Jackie, but when she caught a glimpse of Jackie's face, she backpedaled and gave her a wide berth.What was that about? Jackie had wondered. The sheer brutality of what she had just witnesse
Dante's Fire Chapter Twenty One: Big Jack
BIG JACKBig Jack had been watching the window for days without end. Just outside the dimly lit hotel, there was a tall dogwood tree, its leaves so white that you could barely contrast between foliage and snow, its branches reaching for something beyond them.He had noticed everything in the park beneath the hotel, from the strollers to the newcomers—who he could tell by the bewilderment on their faces at the busyness of New York—to the taxis and the delivery man. But he paid attention to the dogwood tree in particular, because a few dates before, a nondescript car had parked underneath it, and its occupants, what resembled a raven-haired woman and a short man wearing sun shades, spilled out of the car. They stayed there in the shade of the dogwood plant, silently staring up at the building.Big Jack had oiled his gun thrice now. Maybe more. He did not keep count. Dismantle, recouple. Dismantle, recouple. Dismantle, recouple. He did it until his fingers were sore. A better part of him
Dante's Fire Chapter Twenty Two: Big Jack
BIG JACK Big Jack did not take his car.Cars rolling through the city were far more conspicuous than people, he had learnt. Especially when the vehicle in question was a blue Impala. People could not always remember what a person looked like. They would say, He was big. They would use adjectives like tall, short, skinny. They would say, I think he had brown hair. But they often did not remember the vitals needed to differentiate one person from the other. The case was not always the same with cars. You saw a blue Chevrolet or a green bentley with obfuscated windows parked at the side the street, and you knew what you saw. Nobody could tell you different.So Big Jack took the bus to the deeper parts of the city, what some liked to call the city's 'underbelly'. It was in these cramped alleys that the most crimes were committed; it was at these corners that the mafia's 'snow' sold best. He knew the rough terrain like the back of his hand.He alighted from the bus when he had gotten as f
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- Dante's Fire
Jackie & Big Jack: Chapter One-Hundred
JACKIEDante drove as though he meant to frighten her, in that peculiar fashion that she had seen people do in movies sometimes, when they meant to frighten their passengers into silence or verbosity. But he did not ask any more information of her, or her continued silence, which would have been unlikely. This left her to wonder what his endgame was. Was his plan to orchestrate an accident? To kill them both? He was intense, she granted him that. But he never appealed to her as suicidal.'Dante, what are you doing?' She asked tentatively.He kept his eyes on the road, never blinking. 'Is it not obvious?''You can stop the car. Stop the car, let's talk. It doesn't have to be this way.' She said. Now he looked at her. The rage that had returned had now dimmed in his eyes. Instead, there was only exhaustion. Soul-swallowing exhaustion.'You know,' he told her, 'you were the one person in this world that I believed I could grow to trust. Really trust. The one person. And then you just h
- Dante's Fire
Dante: Chapter Ninety Nine
DANTEJackie's phone beeped to life on the nightstand in the dark of the room, bathing the wall in white light, and for the third time, Dante ignored it. That night, the moon was a phosphorescent thing, and it poured into the room through the windows, spilling onto the floors. Over Jackie's shoulder, Dante watched it creep further into the room as the night drew on. The clock on the nightstand read 3 A.M in ominous red letters bright enough to betray the pistol Dante had laid next to it. But it seemed like nothing more than a few hours had passed since they had sex. The room smelled strongly of semen, fabric softener and—this close to her—cheap shampoo.Time stood still whenever Dante was with Jackie. He knew quite well that reality awaited him outside the doors of the hotel, outside of her arms, but while he was with her, his many troubles shrunk and the world ceased trying to swallow him whole, flesh and bone included.Even in the gloom, he
- Dante's Fire
Jackie: Chapter Ninety Eight
JACKIEThe Aurthurson Hotel burned a harsh silver under the glaring moon. Although it was gigantic in its own rights, it was dwarfed by the corporate skyscrapers around it. What they had in height, the hotel had in width.Dante parked the car in the parking lot and shut off the engine. He let out a long, tortured breath. Jackie examined him in the quiet darkness. He slumped into the seat and stared back at her.'Your grand plan is to sit here all night? Or are we ever going to go in?' She asked, humorously.He snorted. 'Real talk? I wish we would. It's peaceful out here. It's almost never peaceful in New York.'They stared at each other in the dim, contained silence of the car. It was the first time since the raid a semblance of calm had returned to him. He was composed again, the Dante she was accustomed to. Jackie knew caged rage intimately. In part, because she was Big Jack's daughter. In part, because she had felt it for herself. After the
- Dante's Fire
Nick: Chapter Ninety Seven
NickColeman Spears was the sort of man who did not give a sailing hoot about anyone else's sensibilities. Nick figured this out the day that he met him. A man who cared little for politics, but paid attention to it anyway, just like himself. So when he heard that the man had gone out of his way to go after Dante Bianchi, he was pleasantly surprised.It was in the tabloids, the raid. Not the police commissioner's involvement in the raid, but the raid itself. Bluish photos of Ambience taken from a distance showed dark police vehicles blocking off the main entrance from the street. Passersby stopped and stared in the snapshots. Were he younger, the old man would have been damn near ecstatic. But now, he only thought it would have been even better if Spears had finished it, had brought the goddamn Bianchi out of his precious night club in handcuffs. But hr had not. He had found nothing. This part did not leave Nick surprised. Impressed, but not surprised. Th
- Dante's Fire
Andre: Chapter Ninety Six
ANDREThe snow that gathered at the top floor of his building had melted with the coming of spring, and the water that it had left behind formed shallow puddles at the corners of the roof. Damp wetness was everywhere you looked on the roof, every surface you touched. Andre had not been here for a long while. He had forgotten what a view Brooklyn was at the darkest hours of night, and how much better the view was in the light of day. He had forgotten the rows and rows of buildings, some as tiny as pebbles in the distance, others skyscrapers, bursting through the cotton wool clouds.Memories are feeble things. But it was all coming back to him as he stood there, staring out into the day. It did not seem so long ago now, since he had been there with Nick Noah, Trent in a building some distance away, with a sniper trained on him. A much needed precaution.This time, however, like the last, Andre was not alone. Gloria was at his side. She was dressed as she oft
- Dante's Fire
Spears: Chapter Ninety five
SPEARSThe team of officers came through the front doors like an avalanche, breaking the mountain slope. This, at least, was what Spears imagined it would have seemed like to Dante Bianchi.He had taken the rear, coming in as the last man, his hands deep in the pockets of his Police parka, the handle of his firearm protruding like a leathery bone from his utility belt. Ambience was a tall building, and the lower floor could be traced with the eyes to the VIP section in the upper floor. Only staff were in the building at the time, and one of them, a woman was descending the stairs when they charged through the front door unannounced. She stopped, clutching the steel railing in a fright. Leo Daniels was ascending the steps, talking to the Oman as he climbed. The bartender was startled, too. Spears did not blame him. Cops were never bearers of good never.Soon Dante Bianchi answered them. He came rushing down the stairs, in a suit that distinguished him, gave him t
- Dante's Fire
Jackie: Chapter Ninety Four
JACKIEWhen Dante called again, asking if she would come to his club, Ambience, Jackie had said yes without pause. There should have been that fear of sounding desperate, that apprehension that he would hear her rapid, almost desperate yes, and wonder, and maybe even guess correctly that she wanted to be there only so she could go through his things so she could get into his head.But there was no fear. That gave her cause to worry. Neil had warned her many times already. The last time was the day before the call. He had picked her up from work the other day. She came down after a long, grueling shift to find him waiting in his car outside. Even though she would much rather had taken a taxi, she let herself be talked into entering the passenger seat.'Dante is dangerous.' He had told her. 'Volatile.''Oh, and you are not?'Neil ground his teeth together. She could tell he wanted to pound the steering wheel. 'Not like this. I watched him shoot a man in
- Dante's Fire
Big Jack: Chapter Ninety Three
BIG JACKHe cut the frizzly beard he had grown on the journey. In the mirror, when he looked he had become another version of himself. A man who was familiar in a distant fashion, but who was still a stranger. Big Jack washed the shaving cream off his cheeks and chin and felt the smooth, new flesh there. Another thing Joaquin would never be able to do.The fight at the motel had left him with a limp, slightly imperceptible, but still there. He limped out of the bathroom with its ornate mirror and shiny ceramic, back into the room that had been allocated to him. The windows in the room were open, and a gentle breeze played with the shutters. For there, Big Jack could catch a glimpse of the street. A row of palm trees lined both lanes on the road, the early morning sun was the colour of a cob of corn. He was leaving, finally. Everything felt distant in a way already. Like he was never there, like he was just passing through.McCoy had made his staff leave him some clean
- Dante's Fire
Dante: Chapter Ninety Two
DANTEColeman Spears was just as punctual as he had expected. The bloody man was correctness itself, what with that firm jaw, those self-righteous eyes that seemed to have the ability to make anything he did not approve of combust if he fixed them with a stare for enough time. Which was what he looked to be trying to do to Dante when he spotted him in the midst of the festivity.Dante took his hand in a firm grip. The man's giant paw of a hand almost swallowed his. 'Finally,' he said through a smile that was more clenched teeth than it was actually excitement. 'I get to meet the man running the city.'Spears snorted. 'I could say the same for you. The people seem to believe you are the one in charge.'Dante's arm was in grave danger of being crushed. Flattery and subtle violence? One handshake and a sentence and he absolutely loved this guy.He managed to get his hand out of the vice grip and smiled. 'Well, this is New York. The people think what they
