Willow sat under the pier and looked out at the crashing waves. She’d been sitting here for a while now and the sun was just coming up in the eastern horizon. This was her me time. She loved the sun waking up in the morning, watching it as it looked like it would rise from the ocean. Then she loved to come back here and watch it set as it sunk back down seemingly, into the ocean’s horizon.
Everything in between these two events was called life and she knew that sometimes…. life got away from you.
She’d seen enough of life getting away to last her a lifetime. And the more she saw the less she liked it. She did what was expected of her as a daughter. She studied hard in school, even went to college to try and make a difference by working with at risk kids. Then when she got married, she thought it would be forever.
It wasn’t her fault that it didn’t last, she wasn’t the one who cheated, but when it was over, it was over, at least for her. Months later when his lover left him high and dry and thousands of dollars lighter, and Steve asked her to come back to him, Willow told him no… flatly. He had his chance and they were through. There was no going back and she had learned this too, it was about time he learned it.
Yes, there was forgiveness in her, just not stupidity. She refused to be hurt by him again. They could not rebuild their life together, as to her, that time was long gone. It all had made her stronger, not that she cared to repeat the lesson, so she had told him no, with a huge emphasis on NO. He could be on his way to cheating and lying to someone else. End of that story.
He’d thought her to be extra hardcore on this, but she hadn’t cared a whit what he thought. His thought processes got him where he was in the first damn place.
It had disappointed her parents as they’d always liked Steve but she was sticking to her guns. He was the one who walked out on her when she needed him the most and that was also another turning point for her. One of her charges was a little girl of five years old. Nicole was her name and she was so cute. Her mom wasn’t in the picture and her dad had neglected her. The situation hadn’t ended well and when they laid that sweet baby girl in the ground, she’d walked away from her career. Her hands had been tied up with all the red tape she had to go through and then help had come too late for that precious girl.
Nicole would never grow up, fall in love, make a life or have babies. In fact, she’d barely lived long enough to pretend to have all that with dolls even. The system had failed and it had before this, but she had walked away after this atrocious huge fail to save a little girl’s life. The red tape had virtually strangled the poor kid and Willow refused to go through it yet again.
At the age of thirty five, she’d packed up her office and walked away from the whole mess. She went home and didn’t answer her phone for over a week. She was numb at the time. Disappointed and depressed. She barely got out of her pajamas that week. Refused any message and then outright turned her phone off. She never even answered her door, as she hadn’t cared who came, they were just going to tell her things that she had lived by and had failed her. Like… you will save the next one. You can make a change in someone’s life forever. You can make a difference. You can…
Well, she hadn’t been able to more times than she cared to remember. She still believed in helping people, just not within those confines and rules. She would find some other way to make people’s lives better. She hadn’t given up…she just took some time to rethink her approach. A week to take stock of her life. A week to think about what she really wanted.
She had a piece of land just outside of town that was simply sitting there. An inheritance from her grandfather ten years back…. the one thing Steve hadn’t taken in the divorce. His gold digger girlfriend had wanted everything she could get her hands on. He hadn’t seen through her disguise until she had taken him for everything she could get.
Now three years later, Willow was finally happy and doing something, she loved. She was working with dogs, training them to be service dogs, mostly for at risk kids but also for adults with PTSD. She loved doing this kind of work as it gave her a way to give back to those people who thought there was no one out there that could give them a reason to get out of bed.
A dog gave their whole heart and maybe that was enough to give a person who had nothing… a reason to live, a reason to face each and every day with a smile. So at thirty eight, she’d finally found her place in the crazy circle of life.
Willow was now about to move from her spot when she heard footsteps on the wooden pier above her head. Rather than bring attention to herself, she just sat there and finished watching the sun rise. She didn’t want to spoil her me time by moving and she wasn’t going to disturb anyone else by being where she was. This had been the whole point in the spot she’d chosen. No one could see her anyway.
Bits of dirt and sediment floated down on top of her as a second set of footsteps crossed the wooden planks above her head. She looked up and frowned. Then she heard their voices as the two men began to speak to one another.
“Is everything ready to get started?” one of them asked.
“It’s getting there. I have a few more things to get set up and I have to fudge a few more of the books so it will look like Leon has been skimming the proceeds for some time now, but by this time next week, we’ll be ready.” The voice she heard was distinctive as it had a nasal whine to it.
“It better be,” the other voice grumbled. “My boss is beginning to ask questions and I have no answers for him yet. If we can’t get Vincinti set up and soon, he is going to know this is all lies.”
“He is a hard man to try and take down and we’re only going to get one chance to do this right. We need to run both Leon and his fucking son out of Boston if we want to take over. Once we do that and get settled, then we go after the Sinner’s.” He scoffed. “Once we get our own men in place we can make money hand over fists with a protection rachet. We’ve been collecting secrets no one wants known and we can use that to get started. So far, we’ve four of the biggest businesses in town. They have no idea what’s coming. Well, not yet anyway. If we get strong enough, not even the police will be able to stop us. We can kill who we want when they don’t toe the line.”
“Don’t forget my men as well,” the other man threatened. “You’re going to need us on the streets to keep the peace. Once the Sinners are rousted out, we’ll step in and take over their operations. This is for both of us not just you, you know. My bosses agreed to this with the stipulation the streets would be theirs once Vincinti family is out. You take over the mob and we get the streets. That was our deal.”
“I’m well aware of our deal.” The other man growled.
Then one of them began to cough just as a huge cloud of smoke floated over the edge of the pier. “Damn it man, those things are gonna kill you!”
“These are specially made hand rolled Cubans.”
“Yeah well, don’t get used to the taste. If Leon finds out what we’re doing before we spring this trap, neither one of us will live very long,” the other man warned.
“Nah, you worry too much my friend. Leon isn’t going to know what hit him when we get done. The Council will not take too kindly to being cheated.” He laughed aloud. “By the time they get done with him, the streets will run red with Vincinti blood.”
Willow sat there in stunned silence. Were they really talking about taking Leon Vincinti down? Even she had heard of this man. Oh sweet Jesus, this was really bad… She couldn’t let anyone know what she’d just overheard or her life would be forfeit. All she could hope for was that they wouldn’t notice she was even here.
Just then, something dropped from above her and she heard one of the men swear just as she heard something plop near her in the mud.
“God dammit.”
“What did you do now?” the other man asked.
“I dropped my lighter. Fuck me.” He growled.
“It’s just a lighter and it’s probably gone by now.”
“That was a special lighter. My grandfather gave it to me and everyone knows its mine. I have to get it back.”
“Just leave it,” the other man replied gruffly. “It’s probably sinking in the muck under the pier and you’ll never find it now. Besides, we can’t be seen together and daylight is upon us. If people see us together, they will know us. We’re supposed to be enemies remember?”
“You are right, we can’t be seen together. Especially with what’s about to happen. Chao, my friend. Meet again, next week?”
“Of course, maybe we will be ready to put our plan into action.”
Willow sat there as still as she could for a long time. The sun was climbing in the sky before she made a move. She crawled over to where the lighter had dropped and picked it up. She had to dig it out of the mud and she didn’t know why she picked it up but she did.
Very carefully, she made her way out from under the pier and over to her truck. She got in and locked the doors behind her. Looking around, she wondered if anyone had seen her. God, she hoped not. How could this have happened? She had just been minding her own business. Dammit, now she would be spooked for weeks over this. She pulled out slowly and drove herself home. She kept looking in the rear view mirror, praying there was no one following her.
She turned into her own driveway and wished for the first time in her life that she’d had the foresight to put a gate up. Well, she would rectify that now, as soon as she could and get extra security of some kind. Her easy going life was just turned upside down by one lone conversation and she felt a bit breathless as she arrived at her place.
She pulled around the back of her house and hid the car away. Hiding it in a group of trees, she knew the car couldn’t be seen. Then she ran for the back door. Once she was inside, she made sure all her doors were locked. Then she found her Zeus and Molly and sat down on the floor against the wall hugging her dogs to her.
She had never felt so frightened. Not even when she had faced off a rather violent dad that one time. She had put him down with a baseball bat and called the police. But this was different, this was a major crime syndicate clusterfuck, with many involved that were far above the type of criminal she had ever faced in Social work.
Now, she sat hugging her dogs so close, she was surprised they could even breathe.
Zeus was a big black German Shephard and Molly was snow white Labrador. They were her first service dogs. She’d fallen in love with both of them on sight and they trained so easily that she opened her heart to get even more dogs to train.
But these two dogs she couldn’t give up. They’d been with her since day one and now, they were part of her. She sat there all morning with her back to the wall with her dogs. She called her partner’s, Jonah and Cam to take care of the dogs this morning.
They were so surprised by her request they had to ask if she was okay. They both knew she loved working with the dogs and had done so every day for the last three years. When she told them she as all right and that she just had things to do, they were silent for a moment but accepted her reason.
The morning was almost over when she heard the sound of a vehicle in her driveway. She began to sweat as she turned and peeked over the bottom of the windowsill. She didn’t know the vehicle so she stayed where she was as a man got out of the car. The car was a sporty red Mustang and when he shut off the engine, the whole place was eerily quiet. The man looked more like a thug than anything. He had a pair of tight jeans on and white t-shirt with the arms rolled up. There was a pack of smokes caught up in the sleeve. He had a tattoo that took up most of his forearm but as he was far away, she couldn’t tell what it was.
He came up to the porch and began looking in through the windows but Willow pressed against the wall and she knew he couldn’t see her. He knocked on the door but she gave her dogs a quiet signal and no one made a sound. She heard him walk around the house and she heard him rattle the back doorknob.
She motioned for the dogs to stay hidden and she waited him out. Finally, ten minutes later, she heard the car start up again and she peeked over the windowsill to watch him leave her driveway. She didn’t know who the man was but anyone could have seen her car in the parking lot. Did the two men on the pier figure out that she’d been there?
She sat down again, and exhaled heavily. She didn’t know what to do. She could just ignore what she’d heard but that might not save her if that man came back, nor would it save her from a drive by. With no reason known, she would be the victim of a drive by and the police would never know why. Nor would her parents. They would lay the blame on her for leaving the city and living in a rural area.
To her, it didn’t make any sense but they felt she should have taken Steve back and lived with his infidelity. Now that she realized her vulnerability by being alone. When she hadn’t reconciled with Steve, her parents told her they were disappointed in her. They were just a little old fashioned but that was on them, not her. Her marriage had been falling apart for years and this was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. That hadn’t been the first time Steve had cheated on her and she was just done with him.
Now, she was finally doing something she loved and she couldn’t go back to a place where she wasn’t happy. She sat there and thought about something she had been struggling with since she got home.
Should she warn Leon against the threat she’d overheard? Did she really want to get mixed up in a power struggle in the mob? She hadn’t seen the faces of the men involved in the conversation, although she possibly could identify one of the voices she heard this morning.
She looked down at her hand and was surprised to see her fingers were still curled around the item she’d picked up from the mud under the pier just before she left. She opened her fingers slowly and uncovered the cigarette lighter. It wasn’t just a non-descript lighter, but instead it looked like it could mean something to someone. First off, it looked really expensive and gold plated. Hadn’t the guy said his grandfather gave it to him? Damn, she couldn’t remember now.
She did remember the threat against Leon and what the two men hoped to achieve with taking him out of his seat of power though. She shivered when she thought about that. Unseating him would bring nothing but chaos to Boston. The streets would no longer be safe. At least with the Vincinti’s in charge things were safe, as there wasn’t the violence and crime that other towns had. Yes, they were mob but she’d never heard bad things about that family. But how could she know what they were really like?
As much as she hated being involved in this situation, she knew she had to at least warn the man what was coming. She’d have to do it anonymously as she didn’t want anyone hunting her down and she certainly didn’t want to find a bullet with her name on it.
But how? She didn’t have a connection to Leon Vincinti and she wasn’t about to ask anyone, especially when it was one of his own doing the nasty to him. She didn’t know who she could trust, besides how do you tell a mob king there was someone close to him who wanted to dethrone him?
Oy vey! This could get very bad, very quickly.
Willow finally got up from her fearful sitting and began to pace. She wrung her hands as she thought about what else she could do other than what she was thinking about doing. Without thinking, she grabbed her phone book and looked under the V’s for Vincinti.
She sat there and was stunned to see that there was actually a listed phone number in the book for the man. A mobster that could be found in the damn phone book? Wow. She stared at the number for a long time before she reached for her phone. Her hands shook as she dialed the number.
It rang three times before someone picked it up and said, “Hello.”
