Chasing Stars - A Midnight Mafia Novel

Chapter Nine

"Smile sunshine." Nash insisted.

"I don't smile when I'm fifty feet in the air." I forced out through pants.

"Hardly even thirty feet up." Nash said casually. "Green peg, Kate-pie, put your foot on the green peg."

"I am!"

"That's purple, you're about to do a split."

Without having hands to move the hair from my face I blew it hard. "Don't be jealous just because you can't do a split." I muttered despite the fact that I couldn't actually do a split either.

"Sassy." Nash said and began climbing higher.

I watched him for a few moments before looking down to my feet. He was right, my foot was on a purple peg. I followed his instructions and put my right foot on the green peg, grabbed a yellow one in my hand and pulled myself up further too.

I sometimes thought Nash's investigation was a joke. I mean here we were a whole month later and rather than doing anything productive we were rock climbing. He only brought me here because he knew I was a shitty climber and he was still sore at me for beating him in go-carts last week.

To Nash's defense it was difficult to build a case with my help when I was really not offering any help. I agreed to wear a wire for Nash so he could gain his own evidence but I couldn't tell him anything I knew of Alessio myself. Not that I had much to tell anyway. Alessio still kept my life as separate as he could from the mafia. I knew he was trying to protect me, and rather than do the same for him I was here...

I suppose I was playing both sides of the field in a way. I was helping Nash but at the same time I wouldn't tell him anything about Alessio. In some odd way I felt as though I was still maintaining some sort of loyalty to Alessio even as I was tying the noose around his neck. I had told Nash nothing, not how Alessio and I had met, not of his apparent joint with the Gambino, not the names of any of the other men I had met during our relationship. I couldn't. I couldn't say anything about Alessio and I certainly wouldn't be able to testify against him. But I had agreed to wearing the wire. Alessio's own words would be what did him in, his own actions. I couldn't say he didn't deserve jail time. I had spent my entire life listening to Uncle Sammy and Dad preach right and wrong, even when their own kids got involved in organized crime and lost their life.

Alessio was wrong. What he did was wrong. The people he hurt and killed. It was wrong. And for that I would do the right thing. Was it any worse than spanking a toddler? When you break into the cookie jar before dinner you get your rear end swatted, and when you take hundred, perhaps even thousands of innocent lives you do jail time. Right?

So yes. I would help Nash. Because it was the right thing to do. But I wouldn't leave Alessio's side either. If he would have me, I would stand by him. Through the courts, through the jail time. Monster that he may be, I did love him. I would hold his hand as I kicked the chair out from under him, kiss his forehead as I pulled the lever on the giotine, whisper sweet nothings into his ear as I twisted the knife.

I was a diabetic eating an entire double chocolate fudge cake myself. I knew that. I knew this was suicide. I knew he would probably have me killed for this. I knew when I tried to hold his hand in support he could very well cut mine off. But I had to do it. For all of those people. I kept the folders in my car and looked through them when I was feeling especially shitty about my betrayal.

I mean, I was doing the right thing. Right?

"I get that way when the air gets so thin and all." I called up to Nash who was scaling the wall with ease. He stopped, giving me time to catch up.