Jonathan tells me everything he knows about that night. I had been worried about a text from Alina and had contacted Jonathan and Eddie-boy to find her. Eddie-boy fills in a few gaps about meeting me at Walgreens and taking Alina to safety, but I still don’t remember a thing. Jonathan tells me about being stuck in traffic and arriving just as Becca and Joshua Taylor were about to kill me.
“This guy right here,” Jonathan says as he points his cigarette at Eddie-boy, “saved your ass. If he hadn’t shoved you right then and there, you would’ve been killed.”
“That’s when I was shot?”
Jonathan nods.
“I thought you were dead for sure,” Eddie-boy says quietly. “I mean, who gets shot in the head and lives? You weren’t moving much, but you were still talking.”
“What happened to Becca and Joshua?”
“Jonathan stayed with you,” Eddie-boy says. “I went after them. Let’s just say they had an unfortunate car accident on their way out of town.”
He turns to Jonathan.
“You know, the electrical systems on those new cars are pretty nifty.”
“Nifty?” Jonathan laughs. “Where do you military guys get all your lingo?”
The casual way they talk about killing two people makes my gut cramp up. Becca had been working with us for a long time—even before she was doing Rinaldo’s books. Now she’s dead, and I can’t even remember exactly why. I don’t understand why she would want to kill me. I’d never done anything to her.
I understood Joshua’s motivations—I’d killed his brother. It was no wonder he wanted me dead. Now I was responsible for the death of both brothers.
I can’t take that back.
“We took care of Donald Hansen,” Eddie-boy says. “He was there in the alley. I looked him up.”
“I recognized him,” Jonathan says. “He was the dude you set up in that hotel.”
There’s a brief flash of Don’s blank eyes as I roll him over, and then nothing.
“I saw his tat,” Eddie-boy tells me. “We made sure he had a proper burial. He had a sister in Indianapolis, and we got her here for it. I’ll take you to where he’s buried when you get out.”
“Thanks,” I say quietly. “I appreciate it.”
I ask a few questions to try to piece together the rest of the night, and they answer one after another. Nothing sparks any other memories. Listening to people talk about a situation involving me and not remembering any of it is a little unnerving.
“How did Bastian end up here?” I ask.
“I called him,” Jonathan says with a shrug. “I knew you’d been talking to him, and well…honestly, brotha, we didn’t think you were gonna make it.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“Briefly. He had to get back home to his family, but he said to call him if your condition changed. I gave him a shout this morning. I have the feeling he’ll be booking a flight pretty soon.”
It occurs to me that the only time I have been in physical contact with Bastian since finding out we were half-brothers was when we were trying to kill each other. We had come to a truce, but my intent was to end him.
How could I have considered that? He’s my only known relative.
The callousness of the thoughts I had at the time shock me. All my life, I’d wondered who my family might have been. I tried to find substitutes in the Marines, but that ultimately failed. When I discovered I had a true, flesh-and-blood relative, I’d held him in my crosshairs and nearly pulled the trigger.
I close my eyes for a moment, remembering. It feels so different, so strange. I’d thought only of strategy to keep Rinaldo’s businesses on top of the Chicago mafia chain yet nothing of the potential relationship I could have with a real brother.
The only thing that mattered was what Rinaldo wanted.
But he’s gone now.
His family is long gone at this point—back to Italy where the crime families over there can keep track of them. All the businesses belong to me, and I don’t give a shit what happens to them. I have more money stashed away than I will ever be able to spend. I’d lived to be in his service, and now that he is dead and his family gone, what do I have that matters?