Page 14 of Vicious Souls

“What the fuck, Tate! You think I give a shit about that?”

“I’m only following your father’s orders, King. You need to get a grip and you need to take my advice.”

“No.” I had folded my arms across my chest nonchalantly and fixed him with a hard glare. “Make the arrangements. We’re burying him tomorrow. I’m not waiting another day.”

We now stood at my father’s gravesite, watching as the coffin was lowered into the ground, my heart constricting at the thought of not being able to have anyone present to bid their final farewells. My father, if nothing else, had been a just man. A private man, but a just one nonetheless, with friends that spanned many continents. Judging by the mail trucks and the phone calls that had come through, and enquiries about his funeral, he would be sadly missed. It humbled me to know that he had been well loved in some circles, despite his line of work.

Tate’s hand brushes against my arm as he tells me we have to go and he tries to steer me toward the car. I flick his hand away, the icy glaze of my eyes coating him like a second skin. The tears had not yet dried on my cheeks for all the grief I felt, and he wasn’t making things any easier. I would have fired his sorry ass then and there if it hadn’t been for all the years of service he’d given my father. If it hadn’t been for my youth, my age, my ignorance regarding everything involving my father’s empire – I know I need Tate now more than ever to help me wade through all the bullshit and navigate this ship to shore.

“It’s not safe for you to linger here,” he whispers, his lips hovering near my ear. His eyes dart around the cemetery nervously, and I can tell he’s afraid something’s going to happen. We hadn’t been holed up at home for two weeks for nothing.

“Let’s go.” I throw the white rose I have in my hand on the coffin and turn toward the car, knowing the hardest thing I will ever have to do is bury my father here and leave. He is the last family I have. The last shred of normalcy. And he is gone.

The cars wind through the graveyard as the sun is setting low in the sky… in that precious moment before the day loses its shine and night gathers its darkness. Tate had insisted on a late afternoon burial – it is when most gangsters had their guard down after a big lunch, he claimed. It is the most convenient time to get done what had to be done.

I sit staring out of the window, watching the scattered tombstones as the car inches past them, respectful of the speed limit amongst the dead. There is an unusual number of funerals happening in the twilight of the afternoon, and a scattering of gate- and grounds-keepers also dominate the beautifully kept lawns between plots. I hadn’t imagined that my father’s burial would be shared by so many.

We are almost at the gate when all hell breaks loose. Cars converge on our convoy from all corners. The driver of our car slams on the brakes harshly, clearly trying to avoid the car in front of him, which has suddenly come to a stop. The thunderous clap of car doors and yelling reaches my ears, and Tate shoots his hand out and grabs my neck, folding me over until I am bent on my haunches, my head no longer a target.

“Get on the ground and stay there,” he hisses, unclipping his gun. A violent spray of bullets disturbs the silence of the dead’s last resting place, a raucous vibration coming from all directions. I can’t tell where the shooting is coming from, but I can hear from the metallic ding of the bullets that they are aimed at the cars. The car thumps, sinking into the ground as the tyres deflate, the gunfire continuing like deafening thunder.

“Fuck!” Tate curses. “Fuck, fuck.”

“This can’t be the end,” I murmur, considering the irony of dying within weeks of my father. Dying where we’d just buried him.

Someone tries to open the car door from the outside, but the locks are engaged. There is a heavy twank as another shot goes into the door, prying open the lock. The door is flung open, the air laced with metal as it filters into the car with the last remnants of the day.

I keep my head down, but out of the corner of my eyes I can see the barrage of machine guns that gape into the vehicle, ordering us out. I hold my position, saying nothing, my head low to avoid the confrontation. I would rather that they shot me there and then to get it over with – no point delaying the inevitable.

“Out, and nobody gets hurt.”

Still, I hold my ground, until heavy hands grab at my arms, dragging me from the car.

“Tate?” I gasp, my head lowered. Out of the corner of my eye, I see all the men from the other cars being shepherded out of their vehicles and made to stand in a line in front of the firing squad. Heavily armed men dressed in fatigues and black balaclavas over their faces point their guns at our men, their eyes deadly beneath their masks.

“Everyone does as they’re told and no one gets hurt,” one of the men says, and as though to drive home his point, he shoots a bullet into the foot of a man that is reaching for his gun. The man yelps in pain and falls to the ground, crying hysterically. Even I expected more of the men I had inherited from my father. I make a mental note that if I get out of this alive, I will need to recruit some seriously kickass ex-Marines.

A shadow falls over me as I continue to lower my gaze to the ground, afraid what I will see if I look up. I know that Tate is standing next to me; he would never leave my side, and besides, I would know his boots anywhere.

The sliver of cold steel touches my chin, and I shiver as I realize there is a gun pointed in my face. Whoever holds it uses the muzzle to raise my chin until I lift my head and look squarely at the aggressor.

“You must be Murray Junior,” he says, his beady black eyes staring at me through the holes in his face mask. I muster as much loathing as I possibly can and ball it into the glare I respond with, saying nothing. “Get him in the car,” he commands, and two men grab my arms and escort me, struggling against their hold, to a nearby SUV. I hear Tate’s voice as I’m dragged away, which gives me little respite, as I know there is nothing he can do. There are too many of them compared to out dozen or so men.

“Don’t you fucking tou…”

“Shh, shh, shh,” another man says. “Your boss will be well looked after. Don’t try to find him. We’ll release him when we’re done.”

I can hear Tate’s heavy exhale through the open car door. He must be thinking the same thing I am – if they want us dead, they would have killed us already. No, this would be a game of waiting until we knew precisely what they are after.

“You don’t know who you’re messing with,” Tate spits out, and I hear the man tsk his dissatisfaction.

“No introduction needed, Tate man. We know exactly who we’re dealing with. It is you that doesn’t know who he’s dealing with.”

“If you were man enough, you’d show me your face.”

“All in good time, my friend. All in good time.”

I watch as my men’s hands and feet are secured with cable ties, then crane my head as far back as I possibly can to watch in the review mirror as I am driven away, not knowing whether or not I’ll see any of them ever again.

---