Somewhere around one of her favorite keys—3028—the little red light on the upper right hand corner of the safe blinked three times. Fantine entered a new code and entered again. The light went green and the lock clicked. She smiled and opened the safe.
There were two shelves inside the safe. The top was packed with cash—all hundred dollar bills wrapped neatly with rubber bands. Fantine grabbed that first. After, she snatched at the folders and notebooks below. This had to be it. Even if it wasn’t everything, Placido had to be content with this haul. She didn’t want to get ahead of herself, but something like relief washed over Fantine. “Oh, thank you so much for being an asshole, Aleksei.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied from behind her.
Just like that, all the relief was gone. Fantine closed her satchel and slipped her right hand into the pocket she squirreled that .22 into before. She gripped the handle and swung around, producing the gun in the same motion.
Aleksei stood there with a smile and a cigar between his teeth. The Twins behind him. “Easy, girl.”
There wasn’t time for a dramatic talk. Fantine felt the blood rushing into her head—there was a severe giddiness fit to overcome her. She raised the gun to Mr. Brown—her least favorite—unlatched the safety, and pulled the trigger.
Fantine wasn’t ready for the gunclap—for how loud it was to be behind the gun. She winced and took a few steps back. Panic hitting her, she opened her eyes to see Mr. Brown crumpled on the floor, Aleksei and Mr. Black both staring down in wide-eyed surprise.
“Shit.” Fantine steadied her aim at Mr. Black as he reached to his side. She pulled the trigger as many times as she could. The bullets all met Mr. Black’s chest and he stumbled back before falling over to have a talk with his partner on the ruined carpet.
Aleksei held a hand up and crouched. Made himself a smaller target—like it would have done any good at that range. “Enough, enough.”
Fantine couldn’t answer. She kept squeezing the trigger, but nothing happened. She’d fed the rest of the ammo to Mr. Black. Still, she held her aim at Aleksei as if she could will bullets back into the gun and into him.
Aleksei stood up and looked down at the bodies in his bedroom. He looked back to Fantine with a hard frown. “Are you done?” He pulled the cigar from his mouth and spit. “It was not supposed to be this way. You were supposed to give up, Peter said you would. You would offer us what remained from Empire City.” He laughed. “I knew there was too much of your mother in you. I was a fool to allow this to continue.”
No talking. No drama. Fantine swallowed the ice at the back of her throat and quickly crossed the room to Aleksei. Turned the gun in her hand—ignored the scalding heat of the barrel against her palm—and buried the grip into Aleksei’s nose as hard as she could.
Aleksei lost his footing, but managed to recuperate. He grabbed his face and moaned.
Fantine brought the grip back up and down again. This time striking his temple. Aleksei squat a little and raised a hand. It managed to get a hold of her shoulder. He was strong, but a pistol-whipping seemed to be his kryptonite. Another strike and he was down.
“All this shit.” She kicked him across the chin. “All these threats on my father’s life. My life. Pete’s. Fucking Pete.” The last words came out in a choke.
Aleksei curled up on the floor. He was nearly on top of Mr. Brown’s body. Fantine ignored the mess. She aimed her foot at his head and brought it down repeatedly until he stopped making noise. Content with his silence, she reloaded the gun and aimed down at Aleksei.
He stared back up at her. Twitching. Bleeding. “What about Peter?” he whispered.
“He’s dead.” Fantine felt tears on her cheeks. “Made me a fucking thief again and now a killer.”
“You chose…”
“Fuck you, Aleksei. Yeah, I chose a lot of stupid shit, but I also chose to retire.” She sobbed. “And you assholes knew I had the money. Couldn’t just threaten me for it, no? Had to play games. Try to manipulate me when you can barely get your goddamn head around properly setting a keypad password.” She felt her cheeks go wet. Must have been tears—didn’t matter. “You were propped up by the people you bullied into working for you and now look at you.”
Aleksei coughed. Nodded slow. “Yes, we all fall, young lady. We all fall.”
“So, was everything a fix? Pete offering me a room, all of that? Were you chasing my take even then?”
“No, you moving in made the opportunity.” He was out of breath. “When it became unlikely that you would not quit this job, I assumed maybe you could get the product. The investment would triple.”
“Anything for the money, huh?” Fantine reloaded the .22. She regretted ignoring her father’s advice to rent an apartment in some rat-hole out in Astoria. “And you had no idea who you were fucking with? That this Leiteiro, Placido, was a fucking psycho with some kind of set-up that makes us look like toddlers? That looping him into this ridiculous con would get us all killed?” She crouched down and shoved the business end of the gun against Aleksei’s temple. “Was everything in this house? The money and whatever dirt you have on the idiots who deal with you?”
“Yes.” Aleksei licked his lips. “I can get you more money, though.”
“Fuck the money.” Fantine wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I should put a bullet in your head, but I won’t. I want you to know you lost all of this—the money, the clout, and your son.” She stood up. “And when the time comes, we’ll see each other in hell.” One last kick across the chin—it made her feel better—and Fantine walked out.
She’d go there now, dump all of the info and take Jae. There was no guarantee Placido hadn’t already killed Jae, but his demeanor dictated otherwise. Sure, the guy was a psychotic, mad scientist, rage monster, but he told her that he wasn’t interested in killing Jae if he could avoid it. Something about that seemed true. Fan didn’t have much faith in things working out in her favor, but she had to try. Not only for her father, but for herself. If she was going to them all killed, it would at least be on her own terms.
Of course there were train delays at the LIRR station. Of fucking course.
13
With a near hour-long delay before a train was scheduled to show up, Fantine figured the first step was to call the cops. Using the only payphone at the station, she pulled up a list of the head detectives of multiple units via her phone to play it safe. Left a voicemail for each—detailed who she was, what was happening, and cited her robbery of Empire City. There were bits and pieces she divulged about Aleksei and her mother’s history with him that were sure to get a reaction.
Fantine felt like she was awake, but there was a haze over her eyes that made her question whether she had the faculties to make it through the night. She expected to nod off at any moment, but something willed her to stay conscious. Was this the guilt of her actions? Or was this what dread actually felt like? She tried like hell to avoid thinking back to the Twins. She wasn’t ready to face what she did to them—not yet.
Fantine wished she could slam her head into a wall. The jolt would help her get back from this auto-pilot mode she felt stuck in. The train finally arrived when she was only moments away from going through with it. She opted to nap for the duration of the trip—she needed it. Her tickets secured to the little metal clip in front of her seat, Fantine curled up and used her back pack as a pillow. She set an alarm on her phone for a half an hour from then—she couldn’t risk sleeping when the train pulled into Penn Station.