bar swung open.
Fucking reinforcements.
Panic threatened to consume Dante, but when his eyes darted that way, he saw a familiar face. Umberto. Galante soldiers flanked him, rushing inside, ten seconds too late to stop what was happening. The blade sliced into Dante, searing pain tearing through his side. He growled, clenching his teeth, as chaos erupted. Weapons were pulled, guns aiming at heads.
"Enough!" a voice bellowed through the bar. Barsanti. He didn't approach, but the lone word was enough for them to press pause. Barsanti's men lowered their guns as Dante was released, the hostile mob around him retreating.
Dante clutched his bleeding side, staggering toward the door, shoving through the crowd. He stepped in front of Umberto, his old friend's gun inadvertently pointing at him.
Dante continued to the door, moving around his father's men, not addressing any of them. Stepping out into the warm night air, Dante inhaled sharply, pulling up his shirt to examine his side. Blood streamed from the wound. Not so much that he would bleed to death in the street but enough be concerning.
"What the fuck, Dante!" Umberto spat, storming out of the bar behind him. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
Dante groaned. "The son of a bitch got me."
Umberto looked at the wound as he shook his head, muttering under his breath, "I can't believe you fucking did that. What were you thinking?"
Dante dropped his shirt, covering the wound, as the rest of the Galante men resurfaced. What was he thinking? It was hard to say. "How'd you know I was here?"
"Lucky guess."
"Bullshit," Dante said. "Are you following me?"
Umberto hesitated, not wanting to answer that question, which was all Dante needed to figure it out.
"He ordered you to follow me." Dante shook his head. "Unbelievable."
Truthfully, he wasn't surprised. How many times had his father told him to shadow Genna, to keep an eye on her? Every damn day since the moment she'd learned to walk.
"He was concerned," Umberto said. "You're not acting like yourself."
"Stop following me. I don't need a fucking babysitter. I'm fine. I can take care of myself."
Dante turned, taking a few steps, trying to apply pressure to his side to stop the bleeding.
Umberto quickly caught up, grabbing his arm. "Look, let's get you to the hospital, okay? Get you seen by a doctor."
Dante yanked his arm away. "I don't need a doctor."
"You're hurt."
"I'll live."
"Come on, don't be this way, man. We're friends."
"Are we? Because I thought we were, Bert, but seems to me I was out of sight, out of mind."
Umberto gaped at him, jaw slack. No defense to that.
It would've been nice, he thought, for just a moment, to have someone put him first. It would've been nice to have someone care about him… to have someone miss him.
It would be nice to have someone need him again.
It would've been nice, but that wasn't how it happened. It was never about him. He was just a pawn. Umberto hadn't hesitated to fill his shoes, hadn't hesitated to take his place in the game.
"I have to go," Dante said, walking away.
"Where are you going?" Umberto called out.
Dante didn't stop, mumbling to himself, "To see the only friend I've got."
The town was just a few miles down the highway, not even the size of a Manhattan neighborhood, so small that Genna wasn't sure of its name. Did they bother to give it one? A picture-perfect community, the kind she didn't think existed outside of television. No stoplights. No police. It was Mayberry without Andy Griffith.
Parking the Honda in the small dirt lot, Genna climbed out and glanced around. It was quiet. Too quiet. Birds chirped in the distance as bugs buzzed by her head, but where were the revving engines? The people shouting? The horns blowing?
She'd never get used to it.
Turning, she approached the square building, eyeing it with distaste. The red paint was chipped, exposing tattered old wood, surrounded by stained concrete and topped with a rusted metal roof, like some sort of makeshift barn. Old gas pumps lined the right side, a pair of garage doors raised to the left, with a span of dingy shop windows between them. It looked as if someone had plucked it right out of the 50s and plopped it down in front of her.
Jerry's Garage
It was still functional. Cars surrounded it, two pulled inside with the hoods raised. A guy in blue coveralls leaned over the front of a little Toyota, checking fluids as he whistled along to some song playing on a nearby radio.