Fic: Wiseguy, "Contingency Plans", 1/2
Title: Contingency Plans
Fandom: Wiseguy
Pairing: Sonny/Vinnie
Rating: NC-17
Length: ~ 14,000 words
Summary: What if Sonny had managed to get out of the Rialto before the cops arrived?
Author's Notes: Thanks to sarren for the quick and awesome beta!
If you don't know this fandom, you should go have a look at astolat's awesome pimping posts, complete with episode summaries, pictures and clips. This is a great show, incredibly slashy, and the fandom has a lot of absolutely amazing fic. I promise it'll be worth your time!
If you just want to read the story, here's a quick and dirty summary of all you need to know to understand what's happening. .
Wiseguy is a series about Vinnie Terranova, an FBI cop who gets sent undercover to investigate mob boss Salvatore "Sonny" Steelgrave. Unfortunately, Sonny turns out to be a genuinely awesome guy in addition to being a criminal, and Vinnie obviously likes him way too much for his own good by the end of the pilot already.
I'm going to skip over many episodes of increasing slashiness right to the second-to-last one, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", where Sonny decides to get married to Theresa Baglia, daughter of another powerful mafia don, for largely bullshitty and/or political reasons that do nothing at all to make the episode any less slashy (although Sonny does clearly like his fiancé Theresa a whole lot).
Unfortunately, the other mob bosses, specifically Patrice the Cat, aren't at all happy about Sonny marrying into even more power in the Bronx. As Vinnie finds out, Patrice is planning to have Sonny shot at his bachelor party. But instead of telling Sonny, he tells his boss Frank.
Frank decides to have Vinnie plant a video camera in the party room to get as much evidence for the hit as possible, and then the cops are going to bust in and arrest everyone on conspiracy charges before Patrice can actually shoot Sonny. Vinnie, who is clearly in love and having second, third and seventeenth thoughts about delivering Sonny to the cops at this point, hems and haws for a bit, but finally agrees - making Sonny look like the victim is at least going to give him a chance in court.
Unfortunately, just about everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Sonny finds out about the hit, kills Patrice right in front of the hidden camera before Patrice can kill him, accuses Vinnie of being a traitor for not telling him what Patrice was planning, and then finds out that actually, Vinnie didn't betray him to Patrice, he betrayed him to the cops.
He flees before the cops get there, Vinnie in pursuit, and the two of them manage to accidentally get locked into the Rialto, an abandoned movie theater, where they start brutally beating each other up. And then the slash basically stops being subtext.
I have never before or again seen such a blatant declaration of true love between two men who aren't in a canonical relationship, and I have seen all of Starsky and Hutch, Due South and The Sentinel. Thankfully, someone uploaded this scene to youtube, so you can all see it for yourselves.
The story starts where this clip ends.
Contingency Plans
Sonny was still slumped against the jukebox, looking like death warmed over. Both his eyes were bruised and swollen, dried blood crusted thickly over the cut on his cheekbone. A half-empty bottle of wine was dangling limply from his fingers. Seemed like all the fight was drained out of him for now. Vinnie wasn't stupid enough to believe that the temporary cease-fire meant they were good, but he was tired enough to enjoy the peace while it lasted.
The last strains of "Nights in White Satin" faded from the jukebox, and some insipid pop song came on to replace it. Sonny reached up and shut it off. Silence settled over the room, thick and oppressive, a million unsaid words hanging in the air between them thick like smoke: Accusations that neither of them had the strength to make right now, apologies that wouldn't have changed anything.
"Okay, so what am I looking at here?" Sonny finally said, carelessly setting the bottle aside; it teetered and fell, spraying a last few drops of red wine over Sonny's white shirt, almost indiscernible among all the blood. Sonny paid it no mind. "Malhouse Amendment, right? Conspiracy? Okay, this ain't so bad. I can plead down to a year, maybe eighteen months, worst case; I can make this work for me. Senator Kinnick still owes me one, and they're gonna have the devil of a time making that kind of thing stick at all-"
He suddenly looked alive again, smacking a fist into his palm in newfound determination, that old spark of fire igniting under his skin. Vinnie felt like a murderer, snuffing it out; but it was just fucking cruel, letting Sonny believe he might get out of this.
"Sonny, they got video tape."
Sonny froze with his mouth hanging open, sudden, painful shock in his eyes; betrayal, as if Vinnie had hauled out and punched him again - no, worse than that. As if he'd rammed a knife into his chest. That was sure as hell what it felt like to Vinnie.
Sonny turned away jerkily, fists clenching by his sides. When he finally looked back up, breathing deeply, his face was blank. Dangerous.
"Where was the camera?"
"In the ceiling, in the ballroom. It was hooked up to a twelve hour deck."
Sonny took a deep breath, opening his mouth as if to say something, but then he just made a helpless gesture and shut it again, one hand clenching so hard Vinnie half expected to see blood dripping out from between his fingers.
"You know what the penalty in this state is, huh? Lethal injection. They strap you to a gurney, pump you full of morphine. Half the officials in the state watch it on closed circuit TV. You'd like that, wouldn't you," Sonny finally said, viciously. "But let me tell you something, Vinnie. It's not gonna happen. I'm not letting it happen."
He levered himself to his feet, stalking past Vinnie, towards the auditorium. Vinnie went after him, half-running to catch up. "Sonny? Hey, man, where you goin'?"
Sonny ignored him completely. He went for the locked back door, but this time he didn't bother with the handle, just threw himself against it, hard, his shoulder hitting the solid metal with a sound that made Vinnie wince. It rattled, but didn't give an inch. Neither did Sonny. He just threw himself at it again and again, snarling, an animal driven into a corner and coming out fighting.
"Sonny, stop it," Vinnie said, uneasily. Jesus Christ, that door was good and stable, Sonny was gonna smash his shoulder to a pulp. Sonny didn't listen, of course, goddamn stubborn bastard, just turned around and went for it with the other shoulder.
"Sonny -" he repeated, sharper this time, trying to catch his attention, and just then the door suddenly gave, crashing open. Sonny stumbled outside, catching himself awkwardly on the handle, just barely staying on his feet with a wordless noise of triumph.
The lock wasn't as solid as the door, Vinnie saw; just some flimsy metal bolt. The catch had broken off. Sonny was panting, rubbing his shoulder with a grimace of pain. This was his last chance to stop him, Vinnie realized; he didn't act now, Sonny would be gone for good. And that's when he discovered he couldn't be Sonny's Brutus after all. Judas, that was more like it. The one who'd sold him out, yeah, but he wasn't gonna be the one to put the knife in his back.
He closed his eyes in defeat, turned away. The last thing he remembered was something heavy hitting the back of his head, completely out of fucking nowhere; after that, everything went dark.
**********
He woke up in a moving car, spikes of agony pounding through his head like a bass beat. His hands were fastened behind the back of the seat, which forced his arms apart and back at a twisted angle human bodies just weren't designed to hold. They were already cramped and hurting like hell.
"Hey, Vinnie, you alive?" Sonny's voice came from the driver's seat. He rolled his head weakly to the side to look at him.
"I'm just great," he muttered sarcastically. "What the fuck you think you doin' here, Sonny? You try to take me hostage, Frank's gonna laugh in your face."
"Oh, that's not what this is," Sonny said, looking straight ahead. His voice sounded manic, gleeful, as comforting as a gun to the back. "You know too much, Vinnie. I leave you behind for the cops to find, you're gonna lead them straight to me."
"So you kidnap me instead? Yeah, that's gonna work out great," Vinnie muttered. Sonny ignored him. The car was purring along with a smooth, deep sound; Vinnie's body was sinking into supple leather when he leaned back.
"That's not the car you came in," he said. His head was still pounding, making it almost impossible to think straight.
Sonny laughed harshly. "What, you think I don't know how to jack a car, way I grew up?"
The console under the steering wheel was ripped open, Vinnie saw, exposed wires trailing out. "Yeah, you're a real hands-on kind of criminal," he said sarcastically, watching the corners of Sonny's mouth tighten in anger.
He'd been trained on dealing with hostage situations way back when he'd started with the OCB. Don't piss off the kidnapper had been somewhere near the top of the list of things to do, he remembered. He couldn't seem to care; couldn't even seem to find the energy to be afraid. It wasn't like he had much to lose at this point. The way things were standing right now, the smartest thing to do for Sonny would be to dump his body somewhere in the woods.
"You're not gonna get out of here, you know that, right?" he finally said, the silence chafing his already raw nerves. "They're gonna have roadblocks on every street out of Atlantic City."
Sonny snorted. "Why don't you shut up and let me worry about that," he said.
Sonny kept on driving for what felt like hours, but it couldn't possibly have been that long; they weren't even halfway across the city when he pulled into a small deserted warehouse, locking the door behind them.
The walls were lined with shelves and cardboard boxes, everything covered with canvas or taped carefully shut, thin layer of dust on top like the stuff hadn't been touched for months. A phone was mounted to the wall next to them. Sonny went straight for it, punching in a number from memory. "Sergio, it's me," he said. "I gotta get out of town; be here in ten minutes." He hung up and started pulling things from the shelves, clearly familiar enough with the place to know exactly where to find what he wanted.
There was a rack of guns hidden underneath a dusty drop cloth, a crate full of what looked like medical supplies, and, hell, a safe filled with stacks of money. Several hundred thousand dollars, from the looks of it. Jesus Christ. Sonny must have planned this a long time in advance.
Sonny caught him staring and raised an eyebrow. "What, you thought I never expected this deal might go to shit one day? This kind of job, you gotta have contingency plans." He slipped a gun into the waistband of his pants, threw two more guns and several handfuls of ammo into a duffle bag already half-filled with clean clothes and grabbed a clean shirt before he zipped it closed. Then he suddenly paused, looking back at Vinnie with a bitter snort. "Didn't think you'd be the one to bring the bloodhounds on my trail, is all."
He tugged his blood-stained shirt off and started cleaning and dressing the numerous cuts and scrapes on his chest and face, swearing under his breath, then came down to Vinnie's side of the car and started doing the same for him. Vinnie jerked, once, at the first touch, Sonny's hands unbuttoning his shirt. The cramped muscles in his shoulders sent a fiery stab of pain all the way down his arm at the motion. After that, he gritted his teeth and held still for it, even though Sonny wasn't exactly trying to be gentle, and the iodine stung like a motherfucker.
The garage door rattled open suddenly. Vinnie instinctively turned towards the sound, and Sonny used the moment of distraction to release his hands and cuff them back together in front before Vinnie could so much as try to pull free. He needn't have bothered with stealth. Vinnie's arms were completely numb from the twisted position, and the blood returned into the abused joints with a bright flare of agony. Vinnie grunted and curled forward around the pain. God. Every movement made it worse, his muscles clenching up in angry protest.
Sonny watched him twitch and curse for a long moment, and then swore and started digging his thumbs into Vinnie's shoulders, kneading the spasming muscles into submission. It fucking hurt, all the more so because Sonny was obviously more than a little torn between soothing and adding to the pain, but it did help.
When the pain finally subsided into a dull throbbing, Vinnie sagged back into the seat, closing his eyes for a second. God, he was exhausted. It wasn't even late afternoon yet, but the day felt like it had been dragging on for a million years.
"Don Steelgrave?" a hesitant voice said from behind them, obviously unsure whether the interruption would be welcome. Sonny straightened and turned, spreading his arms in welcome, the tense line of his shoulders making a lie of his cheerful tone of voice.
"Ey, Sergio! Come stai? Thanks for coming, man, you gotta get us out of here." He enveloped the guy in a one-armed hug, pounding his back affectionately. Sergio shuffled his feet, looking more than a little intimidated. Vinnie recognized him. Sergio Zaccanello. He drove the delivery van for the hotel restaurant. Smart choice for a get-away driver - he wasn't connected, wasn't close enough to the family that the OCB would be watching him, and the guy would chew his own leg off before he'd betray Sonny to the cops.
His daughter had been in a traffic accident a few months back, gotten under the wheels of a semi; the doctors in the free clinic had said she'd never walk again, if she survived at all. Sonny had found out somehow, had flown in some famous specialist from Miami, taken over the hospital bills, the whole nine yards; three months later, he'd been there to see her take her first staggering steps into her father's arms. Sid had complained about it at the time, Vinnie remembered, all that expense for the daughter of a two-bit truck driver two steps beneath the lowest rung of the operation. But then he'd never really understood the way Sonny ran his business. Sonny liked to take care of his people where he could. It had earned him a lot of loyal men who'd have his back no matter what.
Sergio grabbed the two duffels bags, stowing them somewhere in the back of the truck, then came back out. "All right, Don Steelgrave - all ready to go. Will signor Terranova be coming with us?" His eyes flicked nervously to the cuffs on Vinnie's wrists, the bruises on his face. He'd known Vinnie as Sonny's right-hand man, the one he trusted above all others, and obviously didn't know what to make of this.
Sonny's face twisted, seeing it. He laughed, a harsh, ugly sound like nothing Vinnie had ever heard from him before. He grabbed Vinnie by the arms and hauled him roughly out of the car. "Signor Terranova is going to stay right by my side where I can keep an eye on him. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, isn't that what they say, Sergio?"
"Um, that's right, Don Steelgrave," Sergio said nervously.
They followed him into the back of the truck, squeezing past tightly stacked boxes and crates of vegetables, right up to the back wall - or rather, what was pretending to be the back wall, Vinnie saw after a moment. It had a small door with its hinges well-hidden in the paneling. If it hadn't been opened a crack, he would never even have seen it.
"It's, it's going to be very cramped, with two men," Sergio said, shuffling his feet. Sonny clearly intimidated the hell out of him, no matter how friendly he was being.
"We'll manage, Sergio, don't you worry - you just get us out of here," Sonny said, smiling, and then he practically shoved Vinnie to his knees and through the small door, crawling in after him.
The space between the real back wall and the fake partition couldn't be much wider than 30 inches. If you were thinking security, it was a smart arrangement. A cop checking out the truck would probably never even notice the small difference between the outside and the inside. Crammed in there with a pissed-off Sonny, it was a nightmare. The small space had never been intended to hide more than one person, and with the two of them and Sonny's bags, they barely had room to turn around. There wasn't a position that wouldn't leave them pressed together in some way.
Sonny shoved him down to lie on his side, stretching out behind him and dragging one of the bags beneath his head. "Settle down, Vinnie; it's gonna be a long drive," he said with vindictive satisfaction. Behind them, the door to the compartment was slammed shut, and then he heard the shifting of crates and boxes, Sergio grunting while he shifted the heavy containers around, boxing them in to hide the door.
Vinnie took a deep breath and forced his knotted muscles to relax. Thank God he'd never been claustrophobic, or he'd be a complete headcase now. Their tiny compartment wasn't completely dark, a little bit of light was filtering in through slits high up in the wall, reassuring him that they wouldn't run out of oxygen. It was still uncomfortable as hell, though, confined in the tiny space. He was pressed up right against Sonny, who was already shifting around in search of a more comfortable position, even twitchier than usual with him still pissed off like this.
The floor was hard and promising to get harder the more time passed; the truck's shocks could stand a renewal, judging by the way every pothole made itself felt as a kick right to Vinnie's bones. His bruises were starting to hurt something fierce. Sonny couldn't be feeling any better. He was shifting, cursing under his breath. All that wouldn't have been half as bad, though, without the anger clouding thick in the air between them, poisoning the atmosphere.
They drove for what felt like hours, neither of them saying anything, and despite the discomfort, Vinnie felt himself beginning to drift off. The deep, rhythmic hum of the truck's engine, more felt than heard, was strangely soothing, and he hadn't slept in more than a day; had slept none too well the days before the wedding, either, come to think of it. His body was shutting down, demanding a rest from everything he'd put it through during the last days, and with nowhere to go and nothing to do but brood, he didn't fight it.
**********
Strangely enough, he felt better when he woke up. His body was still stiff as hell, and getting up was gonna hurt, but the insistent pounding behind his temples had subsided, and he felt a little less like something chewed up and spit out by a pit-bull. Sonny had stopped moving, too, resting quietly behind him. He couldn't have gotten much more sleep than Vinnie had, these last few days.
Truth be told, he felt more relaxed right now than he'd been in a long time. It wasn't that he liked how completely he'd failed at doing his job, but he hadn't exactly liked the thought of Sonny dying strapped down to a gurney, either. Part of him couldn't help but be relieved. Wasn't him who'd decide whether they'd live or die, now; no lies to keep straight, no cover to protect, no master plan to work towards.
Sonny shifted behind him for a time, probably trying to find a position that wasn't cutting off the blood flow to at least one limb. Finally he ended up stiffly settling an arm over Vinnie, simply because there wasn't much space left that wasn't already occupied by either of them. Vinnie let himself drift, somewhere halfway between sleeping and awake, relaxing into the warmth radiating from Sonny's body, his even breaths against the back of Vinnie's neck. He slowly became aware that he was getting hard, but even then, it took some more time for the information to really get anywhere - and then he was suddenly wide awake, every muscle in his body going rigid in sudden alarm.
He tried to shift to his stomach, slowly, carefully, hoping maybe he wouldn't wake Sonny; didn't work out that way, of course. It wasn't like anything had worked out the way he'd wanted it to, today. Sonny shifted with him, his arm sliding down until his wrist landed directly on Vinnie's erection. Vinnie squeezed his eyes shut, felt Sonny go rigid behind him.
"What's this, Vinnie," Sonny drawled, in that deceptively casual voice Vinnie had learned to fear; the cat playing with the mouse before it struck. Jesus Christ, but he'd been stupid. Sonny's stillness behind him, that hadn't been sleeping. Sonny fidgeted even in his sleep, and more so when he was relaxed. The only time he ever went still was when he was so pissed he had to fight the urge to go right for the jugular. Vinnie had seen this before, a few rare times. It had scared the shit out of him even then, aimed at someone else, with Vinnie safely at his back.
He should have seen this coming. Sonny didn't like to be confined at the best of times, never dealt well with boredom or inaction. Being stuck in a tiny dark space with a guy who'd betrayed him, nothing to do but think about everything he'd lost today, his money, Theresa, his whole fucking life - the rage must have been building up for hours, pent up with nowhere to go, and now Vinnie had presented him with an outlet.
Sonny shifted, pinning Vinnie more tightly underneath his body, his hand pressing against Vinnie's fly, hard enough to hurt. Vinnie clenched his teeth against the sound that wanted to escape. In Sonny's eyes, Vinnie had betrayed him, humiliated him, and now he was gonna get his own back; Vinnie, who'd grown up with vendettas and the good old mob law of an eye for an eye, got where he was coming from. Wasn't much he could do but lie still and take whatever Sonny was gonna dish out, either; but damn if he was gonna give him the satisfaction of showing fear.
"This turn you on, Vinnie?" Sonny whispered, viciously, hot breath directly against Vinnie's ear. "You like this, all pinned and tied up for me? Bet you got a lot of that in prison. You miss that, huh? That why you told me about the video, cause you know your cop friends can't give this to you? Did you?"
His voice rose sharply on the last two words, like a slap to the face. Vinnie flinched, then forced himself to stillness again, prison instincts kicking in hard. Don't react, don't let them see how much they're getting to you; don't give them any ammunition.
Sonny's grip on him tightened. "You gonna answer me, Vinnie?" he said. "You want this? That what you wanted all along, for me to bend you over, give it to you good?"
His hips were pressed against Vinnie's ass; he wasn't even hard. This was all revenge, no lust. Wouldn't make a bit of difference in the end, Vinnie knew, except that it was always more painful if you pissed them off.
His muscles were seizing up in panic at the feel of Sonny's cock against his ass. Wasn't anything much he could do, though. His cuffed hands were trapped underneath his body, secured by his and Sonny's combined weight. There wasn't any space to kick, with them lying pressed together like this. He was caught between Sonny's body and the wall, completely helpless, shoved face-down onto the narrow bunk, face pressed into the musty pillow, someone holding him down tightly, effortlessly subduing his struggles with the sheer mass of his body, every nerve in his body screaming to get away.
He must have made a sound, then, or maybe something about the way he was all but trying to crawl through the wall finally penetrated through the rage; whatever it was, Sonny flinched away as if he'd been burned, letting go and pulling back. Vinnie heaved himself onto his back, wrapping the chain over his right fist like a set of brass knuckles; and then it finally registered that Sonny wasn't fighting anymore. He was sitting up against the wall, face buried behind his fists.
"Fuck," he said, after a long moment. "Vinnie, calm down, I'm not gonna -" he broke off, hands lowering, made a helpless gesture, and then said, sounding more annoyed than anything, "Look, I was pissed, I wasn't thinking, okay? I'm not gonna do that to you."
It was as close to an apology as he was gonna get, Vinnie knew. He settled himself against the wall, knees drawn up against his body, not quite ready to relax from the defensive posture. But he was pretty sure he was safe now. Should have known all along that Sonny wasn't gonna go through with it, really. He could be ice-cold and fucking scary, and he wasn't a man you wanted to cross, but he wasn't a rapist.
There was a tense silence between them after that, both of them pressed against the wall on their respective sides of the truck.
After an hour or so, the truck slowed to a stop. Someone was talking outside. Vinnie couldn't make out what they were saying, but he recognized the tone of voice - police. They'd reached the roadblock.
Sonny had obviously come to the same conclusion, because suddenly he was moving, lightning-quick, pulling a knife from somewhere and pressing the tip tight against Vinnie's throat. "One sound, and you're dead before your buddies out there come anywhere near me, you got it?" he hissed.
"Got it," Vinnie said, as quietly as he knew how; he would have nodded instead, but the knife was pressed so tightly against the skin beneath his Adam's apple that every movement would have split the skin.
The truck's rear doors opened with a metallic clatter, and then they heard the sound of heavy boots in the truck. Sonny was as tense as a live wire next to him, barely breathing. The knife against Vinnie's neck was practically vibrating, he was gripping it so hard.
The guards were shifting boxes and crates around, being thorough. One came right up to the separating wall, banging a fist against it. Sonny jerked, pulling the knife to the side just in time to keep from cutting Vinnie, probably less worried about his neck than about the sound he might have made.
The steps finally receded endless minutes later, the doors banged shut, and then the truck pulled back onto the highway. Sonny let out a deep breath, his hand falling away from Vinnie's neck, bonelessly, almost dropping the knife - he sat like that for a long moment, enough time for the truck to put some distance between them and the roadblock, and then he started laughing, banging a fist against the wall in triumph.
"We did it!" he yelled. "Hey, Sergio, you hear me? We did it!"
They hadn't, actually, not yet; they passed a second roadblock, and then the border, two more long minutes of tense silence with a knife at his throat. Vinnie was actually pretty impressed - the feds were being thorough. Sonny getting away, that was high-profile. They weren't gonna let him go without a fight. Sonny was winning it, though, goddamn smooth bastard.
Some twenty minutes after the border the truck turned onto an unpaved road, clattering through a bunch of holes that rattled Vinnie's teeth in his skull. Finally they pulled to a stop, and a moment later the door to their compartment banged open. Vinnie blinked into the sudden light until the blurry shape resolved itself into Sergio's beaming face. "Don Steelgrave? We made it! We're in Virginia."
The deserted side road turned out to be the first one in a long row of designated stops where they walked the cramps out of their legs and changed vehicles. Sergio flushed and blustered when Sonny handed him a stack of bills from his bag, hands waving up a storm, stammering "Oh, no no no! Is not necessary! I am honored I have been able to help…" but Sonny just closed his hand around the bills.
"I won't hear it, Sergio - you take that money, put that smart kid of yours through college."
Sergio's face lit up like a Christmas tree, and he was still stammering "Grazie - Grazie, Don Steelgrave! Good luck!" when a second inconspicuous truck pulled up next to them. Probably wouldn't wash the hand Sonny had touched ever again, Vinnie thought sarcastically. But really, he knew better than anyone the kind of effect Sonny had on people. Look at him, fleeing the goddamn state with a wanted felon; and if there wasn't much he could have done about it, he certainly hadn't tried that hard, either.
The next two days would forever be a blur of discomfort and boredom in Vinnie's mind. They kept driving on and on with never more than fifteen minutes' break to move around a little, occasionally changing from one nondescript truck to the next, hiding out in back - they didn't hole up in hidden compartments any more, but Sonny clearly wasn't comfortable showing his face where other drivers might see it, either.
The trucks were all driven by people even Vinnie hadn't known were connected to the organization in any way, each of them loyal to a fault and obviously thrilled to be able to repay whatever favor they owed the great Salvatore Steelgrave. It was a good escape plan, he had to give him that, well thought out and organized without a flaw; the kind of ace he really should have expected Sonny to have up his sleeve. What it wasn't was comfortable, especially not for an unplanned-for prisoner.
At the end of the second day, Vinnie's muscles had cramped together into a solid mass of pain, his eyelids were sticking together with bleary exhaustion, and the cuffs had rubbed a raw band of fire around his wrists.
Sonny looked hardly any better. He was cranky and keyed-up, fidgeting as much as their close confines would allow; tapping an uneven staccato beat against the wall, shifting from his knees to his side to sitting up, only freezing into sudden stillness to stare at Vinnie for minutes at a time, muttering under his breath. It was driving Vinnie fucking crazy, and making him nervous to boot. He still wasn't quite sure Sonny wasn’t going to decide to just up and dump his corpse by the side of the road.
When the truck finally slowed to a stop again, Sonny practically crawled over Vinnie to get out as fast as possible. Vinnie was barely a hair's breadth behind him.
Just the cool night air on his face felt fucking amazing - he hadn't been much more relieved when he was getting out of goddamn prison. Sonny was pacing up and down like a maniac, stretching his arms and legs with muttered curses.
This wasn't their usual sort of rest spot, Vinnie saw; instead of some deserted country road, they were parked in front of a run-down motel. Apparently Sonny had decided they were far enough away, or maybe that enough time had passed, that he felt a little safer. He caught the set of keys Andrew, their latest driver, tossed at him, and got them both into the room farthest away from the reception without being seen.
Vinnie let himself drop onto one of the two beds, stretching his arms and groaning with relief at the unexpected comfort. God, just the thought of a night on a real bed, not to mention a shower...
Andrew was watching him while Sonny took his turn in the bathroom, pointing his gun right between Vinnie's eyes and glaring like he'd like nothing more than to put a bullet right there. Vinnie stared back coldly, not all that worried. If Sonny wanted him dead, it wouldn't happen this way.
The bathroom didn't have a window, so at least they let him close the door for his turn; still, showering with his hands cuffed in front of him wasn't the sort of experience he'd want to repeat. It was inconvenient as hell, for one thing, and the water burned like fire on his raw wrists, right where he couldn't really get them dry with the cuffs in the way.
When he got out, dressed in a fresh pair of Sonny's pants but wearing no shirt because that was just another thing you couldn't get done with your hands chained together, Sonny was on the phone, looking like ten kinds of storm clouds.
"- and Theresa, what about Theresa?" he was saying, pacing the two steps in every direction the phone cord would allow.
Whatever the answer was, he didn't like it. His face twisted, and he turned his head to the side to mime spitting at the floor. "Pah! Goddamn pigs! What do they need to question Theresa for, huh? Feds playing power games, that's what! Coming for me on my wedding day, arresting my fiancé, what's next, they gonna start coming for us in church?"
A second's pause, and then, "Yeah, no, forget the hotel; tell me what happened to Hunch. And Mahoney, what's with Mahoney?"
Vinnie leaned against the wall, watching him warily. Calling home was the sort of thing that got fugitives arrested. But then he doubted Sonny would be dumb enough to call anyone the feds might know to tap, and none of Sonny's people would rat him out. This call wasn't gonna be dangerous for anyone but maybe Vinnie, who was gonna have to put up with his mood afterwards.
Sonny finally threw the phone back into the cradle with a crash, standing with his hands clenched and his sides heaving for a long moment; then he whirled around and punched the wall, hard.
Vinnie flinched at the sound of what he hoped was just the drywall cracking. Sonny didn't seem to notice the pain. He was pacing again, muttering to himself, hands twitching at his sides like they wanted to wrap around someone's throat. Vinnie wasn't surprised when he finally came for him.
He dodged the first blow and deflected the second, and then they were off their feet and wrestling for position on the floor. Vinnie had been in prison for long enough to know something about fighting with his hands chained, but Sonny was a dangerous enemy at the best of times, and it was enough of a handicap to make the fight pretty damn one-sided.
He didn't have the range to get a good punch in, and the chain kept getting in the way more often then it was useful as a weapon. He might have had a chance to get it around Sonny's neck if he'd been quicker, but he'd blown that. All he could do now was avert as many blows as possible and protect the vulnerable parts of his body from the rest as well as he could.
He got one good blow in, more by chance than anything else, Sonny's hand sliding off the still damp skin off his shoulder when he tried to brace himself, bringing him into striking range. Sonny reeled back and off him, and then came back at him like an angry pit-bull, ramming a knee into Vinnie's belly. He pinned him down when he curled up around the pain, gasping for air.
Vinnie stilled. No sense in fighting anymore, with Sonny's full weight on him, his knee on the chain between his wrists. Sonny had him pinned like a butterfly, while his own hands were still free.
They stared at each other for a long moment, both of them panting, neither of them willing to be the first to look away; not that Vinnie didn't know how stupid any sort of contest of wills was, at this point. Jesus Christ, what was he even still trying to prove? He was losing this one; he'd been nothing but off-balance since the night of the wedding, stumbling along behind Sonny because you couldn't resist that kind of momentum.
God, he was pissed now, though, his entire body hot with the adrenaline in his blood. He was goddamn sick of Sonny's attitude. Wasn't his fucking fault Sonny had gone around breaking the law till the OCB sat up and paid attention, and he was fucking tired of Sonny trying to shove all the blame for the fallout on him.
He deliberately broke eye-contact with a contemptuous snort, knowing it would piss Sonny off; and then he lost that train of thought entirely when he looked down and noticed that Sonny was hard.
He was suddenly brutally conscious of their positions, his half-naked body pinned under Sonny's, the goddamn scene from the truck all over again. If he touches me now, I'll break his arm, he thought viciously, glaring at Sonny through the red haze clouding his vision.
Sonny didn't. He held Vinnie down for a moment longer, muscles bunching with tension, and then he abruptly got up and off him, crossing the room in three angry steps and throwing himself into the room's single chair. Vinnie could almost see the fight draining out of him. Sonny rubbed his face with the heels of his hands.
"Goddamn you, Terranova. I trusted you," he said finally.
Oh, that was just too fucking much. Vinnie's voice was shaking with a frustrated rage that had been building up, somewhere deep down, since he'd seen Sonny put that wire around Patrice's neck.
"Yeah? You were awfully quick to believe I'd sell you out to Patrice, then," he said viciously. "Where was all that trust when I needed it, Sonny? I had the cops standing by to bust in at a quarter to seven, you were never in any danger! Goddamn it, you were supposed to be the victim! I was dealing you the best cards that I could. But instead you had to indulge your bloodlust, take things out of my hands. That what you call trust, Sonny, huh?"
"Oh, don't you even start with me!" Sonny yelled, getting to his feet. "What was I supposed to think, you slinking around behind my back, Aldo of all people having to tell me that Patrice was gonna burn me - and for God's sake, are you trying to tell me I was wrong not to trust you? I shouldn't have trusted you from the start! It's not even just that you're a cop, it's everything - every single goddamn thing you ever said to me, every second that I thought we were friends, that was all a lie. You spent the past year being the most important person in my life, the one I trusted above all others, my right-hand man - and that was a lie, too! How the hell can you look me in the eyes and talk about trust?"
And the hell of it was, Vinnie couldn't. He lowered his eyes, away from the hurt in Sonny's face; stared at his ragged fingernails, the dark line of the cuffs around his wrists. Sonny knew how to hit where it hurt, and he wasn't pulling his punches. But half this stuff wouldn't hurt so much if Sonny were right, if he'd never cared. But he had - the friendship, that had been real. He'd cared the way you never, ever allowed yourself to care for a target, and now he was paying the price. Just like he'd known he would, eventually. And Sonny was paying right along with him.
He sighed, rubbing a hand across his face. "You know, it never occurred to me that we'd be friends," he said quietly. "But we were, okay? My feelings for you, that was never the cover." It was hard to say. He felt awkward, exposed. The words caught in his throat, and anyway, they weren't enough; wasn't anything he could say to make up for the way he'd betrayed Sonny's friendship. But Sonny had a right to know that that part had been real, at least.
Sonny looked at him for a long moment, not saying anything, then he shook his head, turning away. "Go get some sleep, Vinnie. 's gonna be another rough day tomorrow," was all he said, but something in his face had eased.
**********
Things were a little easier after that. Sonny finally unchained his damn hands; wasn't like he could go anywhere, locked in the back of a moving truck. It still didn't mean either of them were very comfortable. The crappy streets were jolting them around on the hard floor, and fog was seeping through the slits near the ceiling, covering everything in a thin sheen of clammy wetness. Vinnie found himself edging closer to Sonny just for the warmth the guy was putting out, still wary of getting smacked down but too cold to care. Sonny didn't say anything and didn't shove him away either, so they ended up sitting stiffly next to each other, their shoulders and legs just barely touching. Vinnie was still shivering a little, but it didn't seem like a great idea to get any closer than that.
And then Sonny broke the unspoken truce. "So how much of it was true?" he suddenly said into the silence.
"What?" Vinnie said, looking up; he'd been picking at a loose thread on his jeans, listening to the snatches of staticky radio coming through from the cab of the truck.
"The stuff you told me. About you. You know, except for the prison time, and you bein' a cop. The little stuff, how much of that was true?"
"Pretty much all of it," Vinnie said. "This is me, Sonny - there's no secret Vinnie you never got to see. Lies work better if there's truth behind them, you know? It's all real. The prison time, too." He shrugged. "All twelve months of it."
Sonny's eyes widened. "You're kidding. They put you in the joint for real?"
"Yeah, sure did," Vinnie said, and Sonny snorted in disbelief.
"Jesus Christ, Vinnie. What the hell kind of boss sends you to prison for a year for cover?"
Vinnie shrugged. He'd asked himself that same question a million times in the joint; but now, knowing Frank and knowing just what kind of risk he'd let himself in for, taking this job, he got the reasoning behind it. The way everyone knew everyone else in the mob, he wouldn't have made it a week without someone blowing his cover over a big, obvious lie like that. Didn't mean he had to like it. That time in prison was always gonna be a cancer in the back of his mind. In any case it wasn't something he ever wanted to talk about, not even with Sonny; certainly not with the way things were standing between them right now.
"They wanted you bad, man," was all he said.
"So why me?" Sonny asked. "Why not Patrice, or, hell, even Mahoney?"
"Fishing for compliments?" Vinnie asked dryly. "Hell, Sonny, you may not have been the baddest fucker in that bunch by a damn sight, but you sure were about the most efficient, and you were rising up fast."
Sonny growled. "So, what, I was making too much money and not paying enough taxes? Is that what it came down to in the end?"
"Not for me, it didn't," Vinnie said sharply. Not for him or Frank, anyway, and who the fuck even cared what Daryl had thought; Sonny sure as hell wouldn't.
He expected Sonny to counter him, maybe try to justify himself. Sonny surprised him, though, looking at him sort of sideways and finally saying, grudgingly, "Yeah, I know that. You never cared about money. Never quite made sense to me what you were even doing in the family, guy with your smarts, and your morals."
It felt a little like forgiveness. Sonny wasn't the sort of hypocrite who'd pretend he had a conscience like a lily, not unless you pissed him off into defensiveness. And maybe he knew Vinnie well enough by now to understand why he'd picked the job he had.
They stared into nothing for a bit, uncomfortably. The thing about playing confessional in a tiny little room like this was, you couldn't just up and walk away after; you had to sit there with all this intense stuff hanging in the air between you.
Finally Sonny cleared his throat, shuffling his legs a little. "So, you think we're gonna make it to the motel before dark?" he said, and Vinnie grabbed the trivial little thread of conversation like a lifeline.
"Maybe we could, in a proper car, but someone had to find us the rustiest bakery truck in the tri-state area," he said, and Sonny smacked him in the shoulder. It broke the worst of the tension. Vinnie found himself breathing easier, leaning in a little to close the gap that had opened up between them. The places where they were touching felt like the only spots of warmth on his body.
Sonny fished one of the duffle bags closer with his foot, angling it into Vinnie's direction. "Here, grab an extra sweater or something, for God's sake. I can hear your teeth chattering from here."
"What are you, my mother?" Vinnie said, but it didn't come out quite as sharply mocking as he'd planned. It was stupid to be pleased about the gesture. Sonny took care of people, that was just what he did, it didn't mean anything much. Sure beat a punch to the face, though.
**********
Perversely, the less hostile Sonny got, the more uncomfortable Vinnie became with the situation. Every olive branch Sonny reached out to him made the uneasy feeling worse.
He'd been content to let himself be dragged along in the wake of Sonny's determination, still shaken and numb from watching all his careful plans shatter to pieces. But suddenly it felt like he was waking up from a dream only to find that the waking world wasn't making any more sense. He was running away to Mexico with a wanted felon, for God's sake. How the hell had his life come to this?
He should be making much more of an effort to get away, at the very least; they were far past the point where he honestly thought Sonny would shoot him for the attempt. He didn't think he had it in him to betray Sonny a second time, but he had no business playing the complacent captive, either, and certainly not to be talking and joking with the man now that the need for deception was over.
And yet, he couldn't bring himself to make any kind of move. Losing Sonny's friendship had felt like having a limb torn away; he found he didn't have the strength to make the cut a second time.
Part Two
Fandom: Wiseguy
Pairing: Sonny/Vinnie
Rating: NC-17
Length: ~ 14,000 words
Summary: What if Sonny had managed to get out of the Rialto before the cops arrived?
Author's Notes: Thanks to sarren for the quick and awesome beta!
If you don't know this fandom, you should go have a look at astolat's awesome pimping posts, complete with episode summaries, pictures and clips. This is a great show, incredibly slashy, and the fandom has a lot of absolutely amazing fic. I promise it'll be worth your time!
If you just want to read the story, here's a quick and dirty summary of all you need to know to understand what's happening. .
Wiseguy is a series about Vinnie Terranova, an FBI cop who gets sent undercover to investigate mob boss Salvatore "Sonny" Steelgrave. Unfortunately, Sonny turns out to be a genuinely awesome guy in addition to being a criminal, and Vinnie obviously likes him way too much for his own good by the end of the pilot already.
I'm going to skip over many episodes of increasing slashiness right to the second-to-last one, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", where Sonny decides to get married to Theresa Baglia, daughter of another powerful mafia don, for largely bullshitty and/or political reasons that do nothing at all to make the episode any less slashy (although Sonny does clearly like his fiancé Theresa a whole lot).
Unfortunately, the other mob bosses, specifically Patrice the Cat, aren't at all happy about Sonny marrying into even more power in the Bronx. As Vinnie finds out, Patrice is planning to have Sonny shot at his bachelor party. But instead of telling Sonny, he tells his boss Frank.
Frank decides to have Vinnie plant a video camera in the party room to get as much evidence for the hit as possible, and then the cops are going to bust in and arrest everyone on conspiracy charges before Patrice can actually shoot Sonny. Vinnie, who is clearly in love and having second, third and seventeenth thoughts about delivering Sonny to the cops at this point, hems and haws for a bit, but finally agrees - making Sonny look like the victim is at least going to give him a chance in court.
Unfortunately, just about everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Sonny finds out about the hit, kills Patrice right in front of the hidden camera before Patrice can kill him, accuses Vinnie of being a traitor for not telling him what Patrice was planning, and then finds out that actually, Vinnie didn't betray him to Patrice, he betrayed him to the cops.
He flees before the cops get there, Vinnie in pursuit, and the two of them manage to accidentally get locked into the Rialto, an abandoned movie theater, where they start brutally beating each other up. And then the slash basically stops being subtext.
I have never before or again seen such a blatant declaration of true love between two men who aren't in a canonical relationship, and I have seen all of Starsky and Hutch, Due South and The Sentinel. Thankfully, someone uploaded this scene to youtube, so you can all see it for yourselves.
The story starts where this clip ends.
Contingency Plans
Sonny was still slumped against the jukebox, looking like death warmed over. Both his eyes were bruised and swollen, dried blood crusted thickly over the cut on his cheekbone. A half-empty bottle of wine was dangling limply from his fingers. Seemed like all the fight was drained out of him for now. Vinnie wasn't stupid enough to believe that the temporary cease-fire meant they were good, but he was tired enough to enjoy the peace while it lasted.
The last strains of "Nights in White Satin" faded from the jukebox, and some insipid pop song came on to replace it. Sonny reached up and shut it off. Silence settled over the room, thick and oppressive, a million unsaid words hanging in the air between them thick like smoke: Accusations that neither of them had the strength to make right now, apologies that wouldn't have changed anything.
"Okay, so what am I looking at here?" Sonny finally said, carelessly setting the bottle aside; it teetered and fell, spraying a last few drops of red wine over Sonny's white shirt, almost indiscernible among all the blood. Sonny paid it no mind. "Malhouse Amendment, right? Conspiracy? Okay, this ain't so bad. I can plead down to a year, maybe eighteen months, worst case; I can make this work for me. Senator Kinnick still owes me one, and they're gonna have the devil of a time making that kind of thing stick at all-"
He suddenly looked alive again, smacking a fist into his palm in newfound determination, that old spark of fire igniting under his skin. Vinnie felt like a murderer, snuffing it out; but it was just fucking cruel, letting Sonny believe he might get out of this.
"Sonny, they got video tape."
Sonny froze with his mouth hanging open, sudden, painful shock in his eyes; betrayal, as if Vinnie had hauled out and punched him again - no, worse than that. As if he'd rammed a knife into his chest. That was sure as hell what it felt like to Vinnie.
Sonny turned away jerkily, fists clenching by his sides. When he finally looked back up, breathing deeply, his face was blank. Dangerous.
"Where was the camera?"
"In the ceiling, in the ballroom. It was hooked up to a twelve hour deck."
Sonny took a deep breath, opening his mouth as if to say something, but then he just made a helpless gesture and shut it again, one hand clenching so hard Vinnie half expected to see blood dripping out from between his fingers.
"You know what the penalty in this state is, huh? Lethal injection. They strap you to a gurney, pump you full of morphine. Half the officials in the state watch it on closed circuit TV. You'd like that, wouldn't you," Sonny finally said, viciously. "But let me tell you something, Vinnie. It's not gonna happen. I'm not letting it happen."
He levered himself to his feet, stalking past Vinnie, towards the auditorium. Vinnie went after him, half-running to catch up. "Sonny? Hey, man, where you goin'?"
Sonny ignored him completely. He went for the locked back door, but this time he didn't bother with the handle, just threw himself against it, hard, his shoulder hitting the solid metal with a sound that made Vinnie wince. It rattled, but didn't give an inch. Neither did Sonny. He just threw himself at it again and again, snarling, an animal driven into a corner and coming out fighting.
"Sonny, stop it," Vinnie said, uneasily. Jesus Christ, that door was good and stable, Sonny was gonna smash his shoulder to a pulp. Sonny didn't listen, of course, goddamn stubborn bastard, just turned around and went for it with the other shoulder.
"Sonny -" he repeated, sharper this time, trying to catch his attention, and just then the door suddenly gave, crashing open. Sonny stumbled outside, catching himself awkwardly on the handle, just barely staying on his feet with a wordless noise of triumph.
The lock wasn't as solid as the door, Vinnie saw; just some flimsy metal bolt. The catch had broken off. Sonny was panting, rubbing his shoulder with a grimace of pain. This was his last chance to stop him, Vinnie realized; he didn't act now, Sonny would be gone for good. And that's when he discovered he couldn't be Sonny's Brutus after all. Judas, that was more like it. The one who'd sold him out, yeah, but he wasn't gonna be the one to put the knife in his back.
He closed his eyes in defeat, turned away. The last thing he remembered was something heavy hitting the back of his head, completely out of fucking nowhere; after that, everything went dark.
**********
He woke up in a moving car, spikes of agony pounding through his head like a bass beat. His hands were fastened behind the back of the seat, which forced his arms apart and back at a twisted angle human bodies just weren't designed to hold. They were already cramped and hurting like hell.
"Hey, Vinnie, you alive?" Sonny's voice came from the driver's seat. He rolled his head weakly to the side to look at him.
"I'm just great," he muttered sarcastically. "What the fuck you think you doin' here, Sonny? You try to take me hostage, Frank's gonna laugh in your face."
"Oh, that's not what this is," Sonny said, looking straight ahead. His voice sounded manic, gleeful, as comforting as a gun to the back. "You know too much, Vinnie. I leave you behind for the cops to find, you're gonna lead them straight to me."
"So you kidnap me instead? Yeah, that's gonna work out great," Vinnie muttered. Sonny ignored him. The car was purring along with a smooth, deep sound; Vinnie's body was sinking into supple leather when he leaned back.
"That's not the car you came in," he said. His head was still pounding, making it almost impossible to think straight.
Sonny laughed harshly. "What, you think I don't know how to jack a car, way I grew up?"
The console under the steering wheel was ripped open, Vinnie saw, exposed wires trailing out. "Yeah, you're a real hands-on kind of criminal," he said sarcastically, watching the corners of Sonny's mouth tighten in anger.
He'd been trained on dealing with hostage situations way back when he'd started with the OCB. Don't piss off the kidnapper had been somewhere near the top of the list of things to do, he remembered. He couldn't seem to care; couldn't even seem to find the energy to be afraid. It wasn't like he had much to lose at this point. The way things were standing right now, the smartest thing to do for Sonny would be to dump his body somewhere in the woods.
"You're not gonna get out of here, you know that, right?" he finally said, the silence chafing his already raw nerves. "They're gonna have roadblocks on every street out of Atlantic City."
Sonny snorted. "Why don't you shut up and let me worry about that," he said.
Sonny kept on driving for what felt like hours, but it couldn't possibly have been that long; they weren't even halfway across the city when he pulled into a small deserted warehouse, locking the door behind them.
The walls were lined with shelves and cardboard boxes, everything covered with canvas or taped carefully shut, thin layer of dust on top like the stuff hadn't been touched for months. A phone was mounted to the wall next to them. Sonny went straight for it, punching in a number from memory. "Sergio, it's me," he said. "I gotta get out of town; be here in ten minutes." He hung up and started pulling things from the shelves, clearly familiar enough with the place to know exactly where to find what he wanted.
There was a rack of guns hidden underneath a dusty drop cloth, a crate full of what looked like medical supplies, and, hell, a safe filled with stacks of money. Several hundred thousand dollars, from the looks of it. Jesus Christ. Sonny must have planned this a long time in advance.
Sonny caught him staring and raised an eyebrow. "What, you thought I never expected this deal might go to shit one day? This kind of job, you gotta have contingency plans." He slipped a gun into the waistband of his pants, threw two more guns and several handfuls of ammo into a duffle bag already half-filled with clean clothes and grabbed a clean shirt before he zipped it closed. Then he suddenly paused, looking back at Vinnie with a bitter snort. "Didn't think you'd be the one to bring the bloodhounds on my trail, is all."
He tugged his blood-stained shirt off and started cleaning and dressing the numerous cuts and scrapes on his chest and face, swearing under his breath, then came down to Vinnie's side of the car and started doing the same for him. Vinnie jerked, once, at the first touch, Sonny's hands unbuttoning his shirt. The cramped muscles in his shoulders sent a fiery stab of pain all the way down his arm at the motion. After that, he gritted his teeth and held still for it, even though Sonny wasn't exactly trying to be gentle, and the iodine stung like a motherfucker.
The garage door rattled open suddenly. Vinnie instinctively turned towards the sound, and Sonny used the moment of distraction to release his hands and cuff them back together in front before Vinnie could so much as try to pull free. He needn't have bothered with stealth. Vinnie's arms were completely numb from the twisted position, and the blood returned into the abused joints with a bright flare of agony. Vinnie grunted and curled forward around the pain. God. Every movement made it worse, his muscles clenching up in angry protest.
Sonny watched him twitch and curse for a long moment, and then swore and started digging his thumbs into Vinnie's shoulders, kneading the spasming muscles into submission. It fucking hurt, all the more so because Sonny was obviously more than a little torn between soothing and adding to the pain, but it did help.
When the pain finally subsided into a dull throbbing, Vinnie sagged back into the seat, closing his eyes for a second. God, he was exhausted. It wasn't even late afternoon yet, but the day felt like it had been dragging on for a million years.
"Don Steelgrave?" a hesitant voice said from behind them, obviously unsure whether the interruption would be welcome. Sonny straightened and turned, spreading his arms in welcome, the tense line of his shoulders making a lie of his cheerful tone of voice.
"Ey, Sergio! Come stai? Thanks for coming, man, you gotta get us out of here." He enveloped the guy in a one-armed hug, pounding his back affectionately. Sergio shuffled his feet, looking more than a little intimidated. Vinnie recognized him. Sergio Zaccanello. He drove the delivery van for the hotel restaurant. Smart choice for a get-away driver - he wasn't connected, wasn't close enough to the family that the OCB would be watching him, and the guy would chew his own leg off before he'd betray Sonny to the cops.
His daughter had been in a traffic accident a few months back, gotten under the wheels of a semi; the doctors in the free clinic had said she'd never walk again, if she survived at all. Sonny had found out somehow, had flown in some famous specialist from Miami, taken over the hospital bills, the whole nine yards; three months later, he'd been there to see her take her first staggering steps into her father's arms. Sid had complained about it at the time, Vinnie remembered, all that expense for the daughter of a two-bit truck driver two steps beneath the lowest rung of the operation. But then he'd never really understood the way Sonny ran his business. Sonny liked to take care of his people where he could. It had earned him a lot of loyal men who'd have his back no matter what.
Sergio grabbed the two duffels bags, stowing them somewhere in the back of the truck, then came back out. "All right, Don Steelgrave - all ready to go. Will signor Terranova be coming with us?" His eyes flicked nervously to the cuffs on Vinnie's wrists, the bruises on his face. He'd known Vinnie as Sonny's right-hand man, the one he trusted above all others, and obviously didn't know what to make of this.
Sonny's face twisted, seeing it. He laughed, a harsh, ugly sound like nothing Vinnie had ever heard from him before. He grabbed Vinnie by the arms and hauled him roughly out of the car. "Signor Terranova is going to stay right by my side where I can keep an eye on him. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, isn't that what they say, Sergio?"
"Um, that's right, Don Steelgrave," Sergio said nervously.
They followed him into the back of the truck, squeezing past tightly stacked boxes and crates of vegetables, right up to the back wall - or rather, what was pretending to be the back wall, Vinnie saw after a moment. It had a small door with its hinges well-hidden in the paneling. If it hadn't been opened a crack, he would never even have seen it.
"It's, it's going to be very cramped, with two men," Sergio said, shuffling his feet. Sonny clearly intimidated the hell out of him, no matter how friendly he was being.
"We'll manage, Sergio, don't you worry - you just get us out of here," Sonny said, smiling, and then he practically shoved Vinnie to his knees and through the small door, crawling in after him.
The space between the real back wall and the fake partition couldn't be much wider than 30 inches. If you were thinking security, it was a smart arrangement. A cop checking out the truck would probably never even notice the small difference between the outside and the inside. Crammed in there with a pissed-off Sonny, it was a nightmare. The small space had never been intended to hide more than one person, and with the two of them and Sonny's bags, they barely had room to turn around. There wasn't a position that wouldn't leave them pressed together in some way.
Sonny shoved him down to lie on his side, stretching out behind him and dragging one of the bags beneath his head. "Settle down, Vinnie; it's gonna be a long drive," he said with vindictive satisfaction. Behind them, the door to the compartment was slammed shut, and then he heard the shifting of crates and boxes, Sergio grunting while he shifted the heavy containers around, boxing them in to hide the door.
Vinnie took a deep breath and forced his knotted muscles to relax. Thank God he'd never been claustrophobic, or he'd be a complete headcase now. Their tiny compartment wasn't completely dark, a little bit of light was filtering in through slits high up in the wall, reassuring him that they wouldn't run out of oxygen. It was still uncomfortable as hell, though, confined in the tiny space. He was pressed up right against Sonny, who was already shifting around in search of a more comfortable position, even twitchier than usual with him still pissed off like this.
The floor was hard and promising to get harder the more time passed; the truck's shocks could stand a renewal, judging by the way every pothole made itself felt as a kick right to Vinnie's bones. His bruises were starting to hurt something fierce. Sonny couldn't be feeling any better. He was shifting, cursing under his breath. All that wouldn't have been half as bad, though, without the anger clouding thick in the air between them, poisoning the atmosphere.
They drove for what felt like hours, neither of them saying anything, and despite the discomfort, Vinnie felt himself beginning to drift off. The deep, rhythmic hum of the truck's engine, more felt than heard, was strangely soothing, and he hadn't slept in more than a day; had slept none too well the days before the wedding, either, come to think of it. His body was shutting down, demanding a rest from everything he'd put it through during the last days, and with nowhere to go and nothing to do but brood, he didn't fight it.
**********
Strangely enough, he felt better when he woke up. His body was still stiff as hell, and getting up was gonna hurt, but the insistent pounding behind his temples had subsided, and he felt a little less like something chewed up and spit out by a pit-bull. Sonny had stopped moving, too, resting quietly behind him. He couldn't have gotten much more sleep than Vinnie had, these last few days.
Truth be told, he felt more relaxed right now than he'd been in a long time. It wasn't that he liked how completely he'd failed at doing his job, but he hadn't exactly liked the thought of Sonny dying strapped down to a gurney, either. Part of him couldn't help but be relieved. Wasn't him who'd decide whether they'd live or die, now; no lies to keep straight, no cover to protect, no master plan to work towards.
Sonny shifted behind him for a time, probably trying to find a position that wasn't cutting off the blood flow to at least one limb. Finally he ended up stiffly settling an arm over Vinnie, simply because there wasn't much space left that wasn't already occupied by either of them. Vinnie let himself drift, somewhere halfway between sleeping and awake, relaxing into the warmth radiating from Sonny's body, his even breaths against the back of Vinnie's neck. He slowly became aware that he was getting hard, but even then, it took some more time for the information to really get anywhere - and then he was suddenly wide awake, every muscle in his body going rigid in sudden alarm.
He tried to shift to his stomach, slowly, carefully, hoping maybe he wouldn't wake Sonny; didn't work out that way, of course. It wasn't like anything had worked out the way he'd wanted it to, today. Sonny shifted with him, his arm sliding down until his wrist landed directly on Vinnie's erection. Vinnie squeezed his eyes shut, felt Sonny go rigid behind him.
"What's this, Vinnie," Sonny drawled, in that deceptively casual voice Vinnie had learned to fear; the cat playing with the mouse before it struck. Jesus Christ, but he'd been stupid. Sonny's stillness behind him, that hadn't been sleeping. Sonny fidgeted even in his sleep, and more so when he was relaxed. The only time he ever went still was when he was so pissed he had to fight the urge to go right for the jugular. Vinnie had seen this before, a few rare times. It had scared the shit out of him even then, aimed at someone else, with Vinnie safely at his back.
He should have seen this coming. Sonny didn't like to be confined at the best of times, never dealt well with boredom or inaction. Being stuck in a tiny dark space with a guy who'd betrayed him, nothing to do but think about everything he'd lost today, his money, Theresa, his whole fucking life - the rage must have been building up for hours, pent up with nowhere to go, and now Vinnie had presented him with an outlet.
Sonny shifted, pinning Vinnie more tightly underneath his body, his hand pressing against Vinnie's fly, hard enough to hurt. Vinnie clenched his teeth against the sound that wanted to escape. In Sonny's eyes, Vinnie had betrayed him, humiliated him, and now he was gonna get his own back; Vinnie, who'd grown up with vendettas and the good old mob law of an eye for an eye, got where he was coming from. Wasn't much he could do but lie still and take whatever Sonny was gonna dish out, either; but damn if he was gonna give him the satisfaction of showing fear.
"This turn you on, Vinnie?" Sonny whispered, viciously, hot breath directly against Vinnie's ear. "You like this, all pinned and tied up for me? Bet you got a lot of that in prison. You miss that, huh? That why you told me about the video, cause you know your cop friends can't give this to you? Did you?"
His voice rose sharply on the last two words, like a slap to the face. Vinnie flinched, then forced himself to stillness again, prison instincts kicking in hard. Don't react, don't let them see how much they're getting to you; don't give them any ammunition.
Sonny's grip on him tightened. "You gonna answer me, Vinnie?" he said. "You want this? That what you wanted all along, for me to bend you over, give it to you good?"
His hips were pressed against Vinnie's ass; he wasn't even hard. This was all revenge, no lust. Wouldn't make a bit of difference in the end, Vinnie knew, except that it was always more painful if you pissed them off.
His muscles were seizing up in panic at the feel of Sonny's cock against his ass. Wasn't anything much he could do, though. His cuffed hands were trapped underneath his body, secured by his and Sonny's combined weight. There wasn't any space to kick, with them lying pressed together like this. He was caught between Sonny's body and the wall, completely helpless, shoved face-down onto the narrow bunk, face pressed into the musty pillow, someone holding him down tightly, effortlessly subduing his struggles with the sheer mass of his body, every nerve in his body screaming to get away.
He must have made a sound, then, or maybe something about the way he was all but trying to crawl through the wall finally penetrated through the rage; whatever it was, Sonny flinched away as if he'd been burned, letting go and pulling back. Vinnie heaved himself onto his back, wrapping the chain over his right fist like a set of brass knuckles; and then it finally registered that Sonny wasn't fighting anymore. He was sitting up against the wall, face buried behind his fists.
"Fuck," he said, after a long moment. "Vinnie, calm down, I'm not gonna -" he broke off, hands lowering, made a helpless gesture, and then said, sounding more annoyed than anything, "Look, I was pissed, I wasn't thinking, okay? I'm not gonna do that to you."
It was as close to an apology as he was gonna get, Vinnie knew. He settled himself against the wall, knees drawn up against his body, not quite ready to relax from the defensive posture. But he was pretty sure he was safe now. Should have known all along that Sonny wasn't gonna go through with it, really. He could be ice-cold and fucking scary, and he wasn't a man you wanted to cross, but he wasn't a rapist.
There was a tense silence between them after that, both of them pressed against the wall on their respective sides of the truck.
After an hour or so, the truck slowed to a stop. Someone was talking outside. Vinnie couldn't make out what they were saying, but he recognized the tone of voice - police. They'd reached the roadblock.
Sonny had obviously come to the same conclusion, because suddenly he was moving, lightning-quick, pulling a knife from somewhere and pressing the tip tight against Vinnie's throat. "One sound, and you're dead before your buddies out there come anywhere near me, you got it?" he hissed.
"Got it," Vinnie said, as quietly as he knew how; he would have nodded instead, but the knife was pressed so tightly against the skin beneath his Adam's apple that every movement would have split the skin.
The truck's rear doors opened with a metallic clatter, and then they heard the sound of heavy boots in the truck. Sonny was as tense as a live wire next to him, barely breathing. The knife against Vinnie's neck was practically vibrating, he was gripping it so hard.
The guards were shifting boxes and crates around, being thorough. One came right up to the separating wall, banging a fist against it. Sonny jerked, pulling the knife to the side just in time to keep from cutting Vinnie, probably less worried about his neck than about the sound he might have made.
The steps finally receded endless minutes later, the doors banged shut, and then the truck pulled back onto the highway. Sonny let out a deep breath, his hand falling away from Vinnie's neck, bonelessly, almost dropping the knife - he sat like that for a long moment, enough time for the truck to put some distance between them and the roadblock, and then he started laughing, banging a fist against the wall in triumph.
"We did it!" he yelled. "Hey, Sergio, you hear me? We did it!"
They hadn't, actually, not yet; they passed a second roadblock, and then the border, two more long minutes of tense silence with a knife at his throat. Vinnie was actually pretty impressed - the feds were being thorough. Sonny getting away, that was high-profile. They weren't gonna let him go without a fight. Sonny was winning it, though, goddamn smooth bastard.
Some twenty minutes after the border the truck turned onto an unpaved road, clattering through a bunch of holes that rattled Vinnie's teeth in his skull. Finally they pulled to a stop, and a moment later the door to their compartment banged open. Vinnie blinked into the sudden light until the blurry shape resolved itself into Sergio's beaming face. "Don Steelgrave? We made it! We're in Virginia."
The deserted side road turned out to be the first one in a long row of designated stops where they walked the cramps out of their legs and changed vehicles. Sergio flushed and blustered when Sonny handed him a stack of bills from his bag, hands waving up a storm, stammering "Oh, no no no! Is not necessary! I am honored I have been able to help…" but Sonny just closed his hand around the bills.
"I won't hear it, Sergio - you take that money, put that smart kid of yours through college."
Sergio's face lit up like a Christmas tree, and he was still stammering "Grazie - Grazie, Don Steelgrave! Good luck!" when a second inconspicuous truck pulled up next to them. Probably wouldn't wash the hand Sonny had touched ever again, Vinnie thought sarcastically. But really, he knew better than anyone the kind of effect Sonny had on people. Look at him, fleeing the goddamn state with a wanted felon; and if there wasn't much he could have done about it, he certainly hadn't tried that hard, either.
The next two days would forever be a blur of discomfort and boredom in Vinnie's mind. They kept driving on and on with never more than fifteen minutes' break to move around a little, occasionally changing from one nondescript truck to the next, hiding out in back - they didn't hole up in hidden compartments any more, but Sonny clearly wasn't comfortable showing his face where other drivers might see it, either.
The trucks were all driven by people even Vinnie hadn't known were connected to the organization in any way, each of them loyal to a fault and obviously thrilled to be able to repay whatever favor they owed the great Salvatore Steelgrave. It was a good escape plan, he had to give him that, well thought out and organized without a flaw; the kind of ace he really should have expected Sonny to have up his sleeve. What it wasn't was comfortable, especially not for an unplanned-for prisoner.
At the end of the second day, Vinnie's muscles had cramped together into a solid mass of pain, his eyelids were sticking together with bleary exhaustion, and the cuffs had rubbed a raw band of fire around his wrists.
Sonny looked hardly any better. He was cranky and keyed-up, fidgeting as much as their close confines would allow; tapping an uneven staccato beat against the wall, shifting from his knees to his side to sitting up, only freezing into sudden stillness to stare at Vinnie for minutes at a time, muttering under his breath. It was driving Vinnie fucking crazy, and making him nervous to boot. He still wasn't quite sure Sonny wasn’t going to decide to just up and dump his corpse by the side of the road.
When the truck finally slowed to a stop again, Sonny practically crawled over Vinnie to get out as fast as possible. Vinnie was barely a hair's breadth behind him.
Just the cool night air on his face felt fucking amazing - he hadn't been much more relieved when he was getting out of goddamn prison. Sonny was pacing up and down like a maniac, stretching his arms and legs with muttered curses.
This wasn't their usual sort of rest spot, Vinnie saw; instead of some deserted country road, they were parked in front of a run-down motel. Apparently Sonny had decided they were far enough away, or maybe that enough time had passed, that he felt a little safer. He caught the set of keys Andrew, their latest driver, tossed at him, and got them both into the room farthest away from the reception without being seen.
Vinnie let himself drop onto one of the two beds, stretching his arms and groaning with relief at the unexpected comfort. God, just the thought of a night on a real bed, not to mention a shower...
Andrew was watching him while Sonny took his turn in the bathroom, pointing his gun right between Vinnie's eyes and glaring like he'd like nothing more than to put a bullet right there. Vinnie stared back coldly, not all that worried. If Sonny wanted him dead, it wouldn't happen this way.
The bathroom didn't have a window, so at least they let him close the door for his turn; still, showering with his hands cuffed in front of him wasn't the sort of experience he'd want to repeat. It was inconvenient as hell, for one thing, and the water burned like fire on his raw wrists, right where he couldn't really get them dry with the cuffs in the way.
When he got out, dressed in a fresh pair of Sonny's pants but wearing no shirt because that was just another thing you couldn't get done with your hands chained together, Sonny was on the phone, looking like ten kinds of storm clouds.
"- and Theresa, what about Theresa?" he was saying, pacing the two steps in every direction the phone cord would allow.
Whatever the answer was, he didn't like it. His face twisted, and he turned his head to the side to mime spitting at the floor. "Pah! Goddamn pigs! What do they need to question Theresa for, huh? Feds playing power games, that's what! Coming for me on my wedding day, arresting my fiancé, what's next, they gonna start coming for us in church?"
A second's pause, and then, "Yeah, no, forget the hotel; tell me what happened to Hunch. And Mahoney, what's with Mahoney?"
Vinnie leaned against the wall, watching him warily. Calling home was the sort of thing that got fugitives arrested. But then he doubted Sonny would be dumb enough to call anyone the feds might know to tap, and none of Sonny's people would rat him out. This call wasn't gonna be dangerous for anyone but maybe Vinnie, who was gonna have to put up with his mood afterwards.
Sonny finally threw the phone back into the cradle with a crash, standing with his hands clenched and his sides heaving for a long moment; then he whirled around and punched the wall, hard.
Vinnie flinched at the sound of what he hoped was just the drywall cracking. Sonny didn't seem to notice the pain. He was pacing again, muttering to himself, hands twitching at his sides like they wanted to wrap around someone's throat. Vinnie wasn't surprised when he finally came for him.
He dodged the first blow and deflected the second, and then they were off their feet and wrestling for position on the floor. Vinnie had been in prison for long enough to know something about fighting with his hands chained, but Sonny was a dangerous enemy at the best of times, and it was enough of a handicap to make the fight pretty damn one-sided.
He didn't have the range to get a good punch in, and the chain kept getting in the way more often then it was useful as a weapon. He might have had a chance to get it around Sonny's neck if he'd been quicker, but he'd blown that. All he could do now was avert as many blows as possible and protect the vulnerable parts of his body from the rest as well as he could.
He got one good blow in, more by chance than anything else, Sonny's hand sliding off the still damp skin off his shoulder when he tried to brace himself, bringing him into striking range. Sonny reeled back and off him, and then came back at him like an angry pit-bull, ramming a knee into Vinnie's belly. He pinned him down when he curled up around the pain, gasping for air.
Vinnie stilled. No sense in fighting anymore, with Sonny's full weight on him, his knee on the chain between his wrists. Sonny had him pinned like a butterfly, while his own hands were still free.
They stared at each other for a long moment, both of them panting, neither of them willing to be the first to look away; not that Vinnie didn't know how stupid any sort of contest of wills was, at this point. Jesus Christ, what was he even still trying to prove? He was losing this one; he'd been nothing but off-balance since the night of the wedding, stumbling along behind Sonny because you couldn't resist that kind of momentum.
God, he was pissed now, though, his entire body hot with the adrenaline in his blood. He was goddamn sick of Sonny's attitude. Wasn't his fucking fault Sonny had gone around breaking the law till the OCB sat up and paid attention, and he was fucking tired of Sonny trying to shove all the blame for the fallout on him.
He deliberately broke eye-contact with a contemptuous snort, knowing it would piss Sonny off; and then he lost that train of thought entirely when he looked down and noticed that Sonny was hard.
He was suddenly brutally conscious of their positions, his half-naked body pinned under Sonny's, the goddamn scene from the truck all over again. If he touches me now, I'll break his arm, he thought viciously, glaring at Sonny through the red haze clouding his vision.
Sonny didn't. He held Vinnie down for a moment longer, muscles bunching with tension, and then he abruptly got up and off him, crossing the room in three angry steps and throwing himself into the room's single chair. Vinnie could almost see the fight draining out of him. Sonny rubbed his face with the heels of his hands.
"Goddamn you, Terranova. I trusted you," he said finally.
Oh, that was just too fucking much. Vinnie's voice was shaking with a frustrated rage that had been building up, somewhere deep down, since he'd seen Sonny put that wire around Patrice's neck.
"Yeah? You were awfully quick to believe I'd sell you out to Patrice, then," he said viciously. "Where was all that trust when I needed it, Sonny? I had the cops standing by to bust in at a quarter to seven, you were never in any danger! Goddamn it, you were supposed to be the victim! I was dealing you the best cards that I could. But instead you had to indulge your bloodlust, take things out of my hands. That what you call trust, Sonny, huh?"
"Oh, don't you even start with me!" Sonny yelled, getting to his feet. "What was I supposed to think, you slinking around behind my back, Aldo of all people having to tell me that Patrice was gonna burn me - and for God's sake, are you trying to tell me I was wrong not to trust you? I shouldn't have trusted you from the start! It's not even just that you're a cop, it's everything - every single goddamn thing you ever said to me, every second that I thought we were friends, that was all a lie. You spent the past year being the most important person in my life, the one I trusted above all others, my right-hand man - and that was a lie, too! How the hell can you look me in the eyes and talk about trust?"
And the hell of it was, Vinnie couldn't. He lowered his eyes, away from the hurt in Sonny's face; stared at his ragged fingernails, the dark line of the cuffs around his wrists. Sonny knew how to hit where it hurt, and he wasn't pulling his punches. But half this stuff wouldn't hurt so much if Sonny were right, if he'd never cared. But he had - the friendship, that had been real. He'd cared the way you never, ever allowed yourself to care for a target, and now he was paying the price. Just like he'd known he would, eventually. And Sonny was paying right along with him.
He sighed, rubbing a hand across his face. "You know, it never occurred to me that we'd be friends," he said quietly. "But we were, okay? My feelings for you, that was never the cover." It was hard to say. He felt awkward, exposed. The words caught in his throat, and anyway, they weren't enough; wasn't anything he could say to make up for the way he'd betrayed Sonny's friendship. But Sonny had a right to know that that part had been real, at least.
Sonny looked at him for a long moment, not saying anything, then he shook his head, turning away. "Go get some sleep, Vinnie. 's gonna be another rough day tomorrow," was all he said, but something in his face had eased.
**********
Things were a little easier after that. Sonny finally unchained his damn hands; wasn't like he could go anywhere, locked in the back of a moving truck. It still didn't mean either of them were very comfortable. The crappy streets were jolting them around on the hard floor, and fog was seeping through the slits near the ceiling, covering everything in a thin sheen of clammy wetness. Vinnie found himself edging closer to Sonny just for the warmth the guy was putting out, still wary of getting smacked down but too cold to care. Sonny didn't say anything and didn't shove him away either, so they ended up sitting stiffly next to each other, their shoulders and legs just barely touching. Vinnie was still shivering a little, but it didn't seem like a great idea to get any closer than that.
And then Sonny broke the unspoken truce. "So how much of it was true?" he suddenly said into the silence.
"What?" Vinnie said, looking up; he'd been picking at a loose thread on his jeans, listening to the snatches of staticky radio coming through from the cab of the truck.
"The stuff you told me. About you. You know, except for the prison time, and you bein' a cop. The little stuff, how much of that was true?"
"Pretty much all of it," Vinnie said. "This is me, Sonny - there's no secret Vinnie you never got to see. Lies work better if there's truth behind them, you know? It's all real. The prison time, too." He shrugged. "All twelve months of it."
Sonny's eyes widened. "You're kidding. They put you in the joint for real?"
"Yeah, sure did," Vinnie said, and Sonny snorted in disbelief.
"Jesus Christ, Vinnie. What the hell kind of boss sends you to prison for a year for cover?"
Vinnie shrugged. He'd asked himself that same question a million times in the joint; but now, knowing Frank and knowing just what kind of risk he'd let himself in for, taking this job, he got the reasoning behind it. The way everyone knew everyone else in the mob, he wouldn't have made it a week without someone blowing his cover over a big, obvious lie like that. Didn't mean he had to like it. That time in prison was always gonna be a cancer in the back of his mind. In any case it wasn't something he ever wanted to talk about, not even with Sonny; certainly not with the way things were standing between them right now.
"They wanted you bad, man," was all he said.
"So why me?" Sonny asked. "Why not Patrice, or, hell, even Mahoney?"
"Fishing for compliments?" Vinnie asked dryly. "Hell, Sonny, you may not have been the baddest fucker in that bunch by a damn sight, but you sure were about the most efficient, and you were rising up fast."
Sonny growled. "So, what, I was making too much money and not paying enough taxes? Is that what it came down to in the end?"
"Not for me, it didn't," Vinnie said sharply. Not for him or Frank, anyway, and who the fuck even cared what Daryl had thought; Sonny sure as hell wouldn't.
He expected Sonny to counter him, maybe try to justify himself. Sonny surprised him, though, looking at him sort of sideways and finally saying, grudgingly, "Yeah, I know that. You never cared about money. Never quite made sense to me what you were even doing in the family, guy with your smarts, and your morals."
It felt a little like forgiveness. Sonny wasn't the sort of hypocrite who'd pretend he had a conscience like a lily, not unless you pissed him off into defensiveness. And maybe he knew Vinnie well enough by now to understand why he'd picked the job he had.
They stared into nothing for a bit, uncomfortably. The thing about playing confessional in a tiny little room like this was, you couldn't just up and walk away after; you had to sit there with all this intense stuff hanging in the air between you.
Finally Sonny cleared his throat, shuffling his legs a little. "So, you think we're gonna make it to the motel before dark?" he said, and Vinnie grabbed the trivial little thread of conversation like a lifeline.
"Maybe we could, in a proper car, but someone had to find us the rustiest bakery truck in the tri-state area," he said, and Sonny smacked him in the shoulder. It broke the worst of the tension. Vinnie found himself breathing easier, leaning in a little to close the gap that had opened up between them. The places where they were touching felt like the only spots of warmth on his body.
Sonny fished one of the duffle bags closer with his foot, angling it into Vinnie's direction. "Here, grab an extra sweater or something, for God's sake. I can hear your teeth chattering from here."
"What are you, my mother?" Vinnie said, but it didn't come out quite as sharply mocking as he'd planned. It was stupid to be pleased about the gesture. Sonny took care of people, that was just what he did, it didn't mean anything much. Sure beat a punch to the face, though.
**********
Perversely, the less hostile Sonny got, the more uncomfortable Vinnie became with the situation. Every olive branch Sonny reached out to him made the uneasy feeling worse.
He'd been content to let himself be dragged along in the wake of Sonny's determination, still shaken and numb from watching all his careful plans shatter to pieces. But suddenly it felt like he was waking up from a dream only to find that the waking world wasn't making any more sense. He was running away to Mexico with a wanted felon, for God's sake. How the hell had his life come to this?
He should be making much more of an effort to get away, at the very least; they were far past the point where he honestly thought Sonny would shoot him for the attempt. He didn't think he had it in him to betray Sonny a second time, but he had no business playing the complacent captive, either, and certainly not to be talking and joking with the man now that the need for deception was over.
And yet, he couldn't bring himself to make any kind of move. Losing Sonny's friendship had felt like having a limb torn away; he found he didn't have the strength to make the cut a second time.
Part Two