Scarred Regrets (Bellandi Crime Syndicate 5)

60

BRADLEY BENNETT

Something moved in the shadows.

Twining through the darkness, a figure lurked at the edges of the buildings as I walked down the suspiciously empty streets. People were few and far between in a city where nightlife never seemed to end, and the violence of the seedy underground claimed the streets after dark.

People disappeared every day, but those people weren’t like me, with the knowledge of what criminals could look like or how little a person’s exterior appearance mattered when it came to the evil that lurked inside.

I’d seen evil. I’d done evil. I would be evil until my dying day.

I quickened my pace, moving through the city streets as rapidly as I dared without raising suspicion. The motel would offer safety, a sanctuary for the night before I could flee over the border the next morning. My cartel connections had promised to shelter me from the Bellandi spies that fucking Paolo De Luca had placed at the border, in effect trapping me within the country where he hunted me.

If I had any regrets in life, it was that I hadn’t fucking slit his throat when I was done with him the night I’d killed his parents. He and that useless sister of his would have been worth a pretty penny on the market, and I’d let my greed cloud my vision.

I could never have anticipated what the boy would grow into, what he’d become as he aged and trained under Franco fucking Bellandi.

I jumped in place as a can emerged from the shadows of an alley, rolling across the street in front of me. The broad form of a man stepped out of the darkness, his face shrouded in mystery as he angled it down so that only the shock of blue eyes found me.

As much as I feared the boy who had a grudge worth killing for, he wasn’t the blue-eyed menace waiting for me in the mouth of the alley.

All thoughts of not alerting my pursuer fled, leaving me to race forward as fast as my feet could carry me. I’d lost nearly one hundred pounds in the years since those involved in his misery of a childhood had started to disappear, one by one, until only I remained.

Fear kept me going; fear kept me from eating and from indulging in the tastes that had once been worth risking everything. Knowing Scar was out there, waiting for a sign of me, kept me from behaving in any way that he would have recognized.

My feet pounded across the sidewalk, racing toward the motel at the end of the road. Fear pulsed through my veins as my heart raced, feeling like it might explode free from my chest and end it all before I could reach the safety of my room.

I pulled my key card from my pocket with fumbling fingers as I approached, somehow managing not to drop it as I sputtered for breath. Swiping it through the locking mechanism on the door, I danced on my feet as I waited for it to turn green.

Pulling down the handle and shoving my way through, I heaved a breath of relief when I stepped into the safety of the room and closed the door behind me. I fought to draw air into my lungs, moving to the window to glance out at the figure who stayed on the other side of the parking lot.

He watched with his arms crossed over his chest, and I would have sworn his lips tipped up into a cruel, satisfied grin. Confusion overwhelmed me, making me question everything I’d thought I knew.

“Hello, Officer Bennett,” a male voice said behind me. I spun, finally seeing the figure lurking in the darkness around the arm chair beside the bed. He leaned forward, and the dark eyes I’d loved to see filled with pain, with tears flowing, shone in the streetlight streaming in through the window where the curtain had gotten caught when I’d released it. “I’ve been looking for you,” he added, standing slowly until he reached full height.

The little boy I remembered so fondly was gone, replaced by a massive behemoth of a man who towered over me. I whimpered, turning back for the door and pulling it open hastily as Scar closed the distance between us.

I collided with the broad chest of the man who had chased me toward the motel, his blue eyes gleaming as he pushed me back into the room with two hands and followed after me. He closed the door behind him, leaning against it and looking entirely too relaxed.

“Who the fuck are you?” I asked, staring back and forth between Scar and the man I suspected I should fear just as much.

“A man who does not take kindly to people who hurt children,” he said simply.

“Take off your clothes, boy-o,” Scar said, mirroring the words I’d used far too often when he’d been a child.

I shook my head, images of everything he could have planned for me flashing through my mind. A warm, wet spot spread across the front of my pants, humiliation adding to the adrenaline making me want to flee.

Scar only smiled. “It’s time to play.”