Burn this City by Aleksandr Voinov
25
Considering how quickly Sal Rausa bristled and how volatile he was, it was strange to see him calmly take in what Jack had confessed. Because it was a confession—if he was going to die, that wasn’t something he wanted to take with him wherever he’d go, if there was a place to go to. Better to leave it all behind with the one man who’d wrestled all his other secrets from him. Sal hadn’t been after these private secrets, but it seemed only fitting that he should have this one too. It was too heavy for Beth.
And it was nice to not be judged for his choices or for what he was. He could see easily how Rausa had maintained his position at the top. That kind of acceptance went a long way toward building loyalty among people. Made men were as complex, fallible, and weak as the rest of the population, so giving them support and not sweating the small stuff helped making it all work. In every way, Sal was the direct opposite to Andrea.
Jack finished the protein shake and capped the bottle again. He was already feeling less queasy, though the headache was lingering.
“Can I ask a question?”
Sal sat down on the same couch and nodded. “Sure.”
“Did your wife know about you?”
Sal’s eyes darkened, but his smile was soft and tinged with sadness. “She made me the man I am. Emotionally. Sexually. Before her, I figured the best sex was wild and passionate and hot and wherever and as often as possible, and only with women. I was probably compensating for the stuff I was suppressing, though my method was different from yours.” He absentmindedly rubbed his chest. “She was bi, like me. Kinky, like me. Man, she could take you apart and put you back together without all the shit you were carrying. She could make you stronger. Better. She wouldn’t accept lies … and gave you the courage to figure out who you were, sexually. As a person. I miss her every day.”
That raw emotion was in his voice and face again, a mix of love, pain, fondness and longing. Jack understood the yearning, though his was different. His was for something he’d never had, and he envied Sal that he’d known those emotions. And now Jack would never have a chance to feel the same. He reached out and touched Sal’s arm. “She sounds very special.”
“She was my best friend. My advisor. My soul. My heart. I’d have died for her in an instant. I didn’t think love like that was even possible. Until her I was nothing but a boy dabbling in crushes. I had no idea how close you can become to a person. That thing they tell you in church? About becoming one flesh? Having and holding each other? She taught me that that’s the truth and the goal.” Sal’s eyes filled with tears, but he blinked them away, and he cleared his throat. “And since then … I’ve made do. I’ve had my hook-ups. I try to be honest with my lovers, all of them, and act in a way that she would have approved of. Those lessons can’t be unlearned. I’m not like her at all—I’m not leaving my lovers better than they were before, but I do my best.”
Jack reeled at the sheer amount of vulnerability Sal displayed, and his heart hurt, imagining what it might have been like, having something like that and then losing it. So young, so unnecessarily. He’d seen and felt the anger, but this was what fueled it. That intense pain, from an inseparably deep, apparently selfless love. “I’m truly sorry for your loss.”
Sal pressed his lips together, but also didn’t push Jack’s hand away.
“I could help you find out who did it.” It was a flash of an idea, but if anything, Jack had much better chances to get to the bottom of it. And it might just buy him his life. Here was something Sal surely wanted, and that no amount of drugs or torture could give him, because for that, he’d have to capture and torture those who did know. Jack remembered Sal had asked him while he’d been drugged, and he also remembered his response: I don’t know. But at least that meant that Sal knew now that Jack had had nothing to do with it. “If it was one of ours, I can find that out.”
“To head off the war and save Andrea’s miserable fucking hide?”
“No, to help you put your demons to rest.” Sal’s eyes flashed, and Jack added quickly, “Or at least calm them down. I have no idea if revenge actually does help—I’ve never been in that situation, but I understand that you have to do what you have to do. Find the guy who gave the order, and the man who pulled the trigger.”
“To prevent the war?”
Yes, ideally. Kill two or three men, instead of risking all-out war that could cost all of them everything. But he’d tried that argument multiple times before and had only hit granite and rage. If he managed to divert all that rage toward the parties that were actually guilty, maybe Sal would no longer feel the need to burn Port Francis to the ground and salt the earth on which it stood.
“Make that decision later.” Of course, it was still a breathtaking betrayal of the Lo Cascio.
Sal bared his teeth in a not altogether friendly smile. “You’re still not giving up.”
“Let’s focus on the cause. You want revenge; I’ll give you the murderer. Take it from there.”
Before he could push Sal to consider it, the door opened and Enzo walked in. Sal’s focus returned to his capo, and he stood. “Any news?”
“Well, yeah.” Enzo locked the door behind him and shed the jacket, only pausing briefly to hang it up. “Time to make that call?”
That question seemed to sober Sal and refocus him the same way as it might if it were a reminder to call in a bomb threat or deliver a blackmail or ransom demand. He glanced at Jack, features sharpening again, then walked off, picked up his phone and left through the front door.
“The call?”
Enzo gave him a quizzical look, as if asking, We friends now? But shrugged. “Next step. Now that we’re done with you.”
Yep. They were done with him. Now everything was truly out of his hands.