She continues, “I’m grateful that you brought me with you… and for lunch.”
I know where this is going, and I’m going to pump the breaks on it right the fuck now.
“Stop,” I snap, “I’m not the good fucking guy in this story. Just because I didn’t leave you on the bathroom floor and gave you food doesn’t mean I’m a decent person. You’re still alive because you’re a good fuck, and nothing more. Don’t twist things. I’m not the knight in this story. I’m the fucking villain, and if you don’t stop with the bullshit, I’ll show you just how dark things can get.”
Her brows furrow, and where I thought fear would fill her eyes, I instead find confusion and maybe even a little anger. “I wasn’t saying you were good. I was saying I’m thankful for your help and for feeding me. It sounds to me like you’re the one twisting things.”
I don’t even think, all I do is react when I reach out and wrap my hand around her throat. She jumps, a startled gasp escaping her lips, and her sandwich falls to the floor. My hold is tight but not hurtful, which is surprising since I feel like strangling her right now.
Her pulse hums beneath my fingers.
“I’m not going to take your talking back anymore.” I give her delicate little throat a warning squeeze. It would be so easy to finish her off, to end this before it can become something bigger, but I can’t do it. I’m not even sure I could if I wanted to. The idea of seeing her eyes vacant, her body unmoving. It squeezes the life out of my fucking heart. I’m cruel, and I’ve done some bad shit but killing an innocent for nothing. That’s not me.
“When I release your throat, you’re going to shut up and sit there. I don’t want to hear a peep out of you. Understand?” I sound like I’ve swallowed a bucket of gravel.
The warning hits where it should, and she nods, shifting her gaze down fearfully. I release her throat and pull my hand away. Fallon shifts in her seat, but only slightly, and remains staring at the floor as if she’s been punished. Hopefully, she takes my warning as a promise and keeps her mouth shut the rest of the ride. For whatever reason, she acts as if she has less reason to fear me, and I can’t have that. I need her to understand who is running the show.
Putting the car in reverse, I pull out of the parking spot and back onto the road. I follow the GPS directions, and thirty minutes later, we arrive.
I park exactly where Lucca instructed me to. I check the time again and realize I’ve barely made it. Lucca was very specific about me being here at four-o-clock sharp.
“What are we—” I glare at Fallon, cutting her off mid-sentence. She presses her lips together and flares his nostrils like a bull. If she’s smart, she’ll keep her mouth shut.
Looking away from her, I drag my gaze back to the road.
A few minutes later, a school bus pulls up right in front of the street corner I’m supposed to watch. Great, now I can’t see a fucking thing. It’s always something, I swear.
Luckily, the bus swiftly takes off again. That’s when I see her. Red hair, gray jacket, slender figure, petite—just how Lucca described her.
But that can’t possibly be her? This girl is just a kid, no more than maybe fifteen or sixteen-years-old. What the fuck?
Lucca doesn’t have a sister, at least not that I know of. They don’t look like they are related at all, not with her fiery red hair. So why the fuck is he watching her? My stomach churns at the thought. Lucca is a good guy, by mob standards, that is.
We’ve done some fucked up shit in our line of work, but we don’t deal in underage girls. We don’t recruit from the streets as young as some others do. Some families shove guns into ten-year-old boys’ hands and have them do their dirty work. Julian won’t stand for shit like that, and neither do I.
Fucking up kids’ lives, that’s a whole other kind of evil, an evil that I’m not okay with.
Lucca has some explaining to do. Whatever is going on with this girl better not be what I’m thinking. I let the girl walk down the sidewalk a few feet before I put the car in drive and start following her slowly while keeping my distance. I don’t want to draw attention to myself. She doesn’t seem to notice me, and when I get closer, I can see why. She has earbuds in her ears, probably blasting so loud, she can’t hear a thing.
The girl turns into the front yard of the house Lucca told me she would go to. So far, everything he has said lines up. I stop the car once more, watching her pull a key from her jacket pocket and unlock the door.