He doesn’t even look up. When he answers, he’s under the cabinet moving heavy objects. “I came for you.”
His voice emerges just before the sharp Zee! of a power drill slices through the air. I flinch sharply both from his answer and the noise.
“Me?” My eyebrows pull in a frown.
I’ve been in Miami five years overseeing this arm of his drug smuggling operation. I tell myself I’m not as bad. I’m not a dealer, and I never even touch the merchandise. We’re not supposed to touch it. We receive shipments of poppy and opium from cargo ships out of Turkey. Then we ensure they get onto cargo ships headed to South America and the Caribbean. That’s it. No further involvement.
Davis got greedy. He saw the rise in prescription drug addicts and thought he’d line his own pockets by stealing just a little here and there.
Davis is a fool.
I’m a bigger fool.
When these guys go down, I’m going right along with them.
“Since your eyes have failed me, I’m going to see if your body is still worth anything.”
My stomach turns at the suggestion. “I don’t do that. I’ve never done that…”
“Now you do.” He pushes past me, but I follow right behind.
“You promised—”
All at once he’s in my face again, seething with fury. “I promised not to take the boy. You promised to guard my lines. Which check are we going to cash?”
My chest is tight with fear. My little brother Cameron isn’t as little as he was when I started working for Blix. Back then he was only sixteen, but now, at twenty-two, he’s old enough to be one of Blix’s foot soldiers. Men who are always one screw up away from a cruel and horrifying death. I won’t let that happen to him.
“What do I have to do?” I’m quiet, resigned.
He touches my cheek with the tip of his finger, tracing a line to my ear and into my hair. “So easy to control.” He twists a lock of my pale blonde hair around his finger. “So beautiful. Your assets are wasted here.”
“It’s where I want to be.” Far from my past.
“Too bad.” That flicker of gentleness is gone and I hear a car pulling up outside. “We’ll discuss your new assignment tomorrow.”
Ice is back in my stomach. I don’t want to be here when the torture starts. I don’t want to hear it, but I don’t have a way to leave. Doors open and slam shut, and I hear Davis’s fast-talking pleading. Soon they’ll turn into high-pitched screams for mercy.
He won’t find it.
“I will say,” Blix pauses, giving me one last bit of his time. “It’s a job you might enjoy.”
I will not. I don’t say the words out loud. I barely have time to think them before Davis’s voice enters the back room. He laughs nervously, trying to buy time.
“Blix, it’s me! Your right hand. Your pal! I wouldn’t—AHH!” His voice breaks, and I know Taz has jerked his arms back, looping them behind his back and tying them with yellow, nylon rope, as per usual. “Blix! Wait!”
He’s still pleading when the deafening Zee! of the power drill cuts through the night.
Blix’s voice is loud, flat. “Thirteen suppliers across the Caribbean have been shorted in the last six months. They will each receive a piece of you as retribution, and to show I have zero tolerance for theft.”
“It wasn’t theft!” Davis’s voice is hoarse as he tries to shout over the power drill. “I got you a better price here in town. In South Beach!”
“I’m going to start by removing the kneecaps.”
The noise of the drill goes louder. Taz’s meaty chuckle is cut off by Davis’s raving screams. I run for the back door, pushing through to the outside and sliding down the wall until my ass hits damp grass. My knees are bent, my face slick with tears, and I wrap both my arms over my head, trying to block out the screams.
It’s not enough. It’s never enough to kill that sound. I can only pray one day the person screaming isn’t me.
Resignation