But somehow, he failed, and that failure seemed utterly inexplicable. I never would’ve believed that Maksim could let Vlas get murdered in cold blood like that.
And yet it happened. I watched it happen right before my eyes.
“It’s just the way of things,” Leo said. “Maksim’s getting old. His benefactors are getting weak. He’s not the same man he used to be, and so a lot of his followers are deserting him, breaking ranks, forming new crews and shit.”
“Is that what you did?”
“No,” he said. “We were never on the inside. Never wanted to be.”
“Who are his benefactors?”
He gave me a look. “You really don’t know shit about your family.”
“I told you, they don’t care about me. They don’t tell me anything.”
“The Leone Family,” he said. “They used to hate each other, but then they made this agreement a few years back. Made your uncle strong again, but it didn’t last. Not ever since the Leones began to move into Chicago and abandoned Philadelphia.”
“This doesn’t make sense.” I shook my head and took a few deep breaths. “I knew they had an alliance, but why would it matter?”
“Your father was always for show, that’s my theory anyway. The Leones were always the ones behind the scenes. Now that they’re moving on to a new city and growing weaker here, your uncle’s losing his most powerful backers.”
“So your boss thinks he can just swoop in and take over?”
“Not exactly,” Leo said. “We’ll need to kill a lot of people first. Show everyone that we’re not weak. Then we need to do something harder.”
“What’s that?”
“Prove we’re not stupid. Anyone can be strong with a gun in their hand. But most people are pretty damn stupid.”
“I kind of wonder about you and your boss.”
He laughed. “Think what you want, little bird. But Hedeon’s not as stupid as he may seem.”
Leo took an exit on the right and slowed down as we went around a wide bend then merged onto another highway. This time though, I recognized where we were. He moved over to the right and took the first exit.
Franklin Mills Mall loomed up over a mostly empty parking lot. The main entrance had a bright red metal kite with a little yellow lightning bolt painted in the top right corner perched above large green glass doors. He parked in a spot toward the back of the lot and turned to me.
“Now, this is going to be tempting as hell,” he said.
“You’re not seriously taking me in there, are you?”
He nodded slowly. “That’s the plan.”
“Why?”
“You need clothes. You need other shit. I figured we can get it all at once.”
“You want me to buy a whole new wardrobe?”
He shrugged. “Let’s say your budget’s a few thousand dollars. Will that work?”
I gave a bitter laugh. “That’s probably more than my actual wardrobe is worth.”
“Then consider this an upgrade.” He leaned toward me. “But I’m going to warn you right now. If you fuck around and try to run, I’m going to bring you into the men’s room and spank your bare ass raw.”
“What the hell?”
He didn’t smile. He didn’t laugh. I couldn’t tell if he was serious at first, but his eyes burned with a strange, intense desire.
I thought back to that rough first kiss in the street.
“If you go up to someone, if you try to find a cop, I’ll do it. You might enjoy it or you might not, but I’m not sure you’re ready to find out just yet.”
“You’re a psycho. How’s that going to stop me?”
“I could threaten to kill you, but that’s bullshit. I could threaten to hurt you, but you know I probably won’t. Spanking your pretty ass? Now that I’ll actually do.”
I opened my mouth to call him an asshole, or a total nutcase, or any number of insults, but decided not to bother.
He smiled, took off his seatbelt, and reached around into the back seat. He fished a sweatshirt from off the floor and shoved it at me. “Put this on.”
I sniffed it. “Smells old.”
“It is old,” he said. “And it’ll be too big. But what you’ve got on is stained with blood, so better safe than sorry.”
I felt my cheeks drain of color. I’d forgotten that I had Vlas’s blood on me still. The red specks turned to a bronzish-brown.
I pulled the sweatshirt on then he got out of the car. I followed him and we walked toward the mall together.
It wasn’t crowded. The floors were a high-gloss hardwood. Stores lined either side of the space, crammed together, their windows bright and inviting, their signs glowing a dull white. The mall was a single story and a long, twisting maze with ramps that dipped down and moved up again.
Retail workers looked bored. Weekday shoppers looked dazed. Every person we passed was another chance to try and get away.