“Bacon,” I answered stoically. “It was better than that shit pasta I find in your family’s bins.”
His face faltered before he quickly gathered himself and his disgust grew. Sickly, I relished in it, despite the beating I knew was coming. “Cut him,” he spat, elbowing the tall lanky boy beside him. I think they called him Bony. I smiled on the inside. He had nothing on me.
Bony produced a flick knife from his stylish jeans, inspecting the blade. I should have flinched. I didn’t. Nothing I faced fazed me at that point in my life. “Get on with it,” I goaded him, stepping forward. His lip curled, and his arm shot forward. My eyes slammed shut, yet I didn’t move anything else, as I felt the blade sink into the flesh of my cheek and drag a few inches down.
The gang cheered, clearly thrilled with today’s work, and I opened my eyes, feeling warm dampness sliding down my face, meeting the corner of my mouth. I flicked my tongue out and licked up some blood, reacquainting myself with the coppery taste.
“You’re sick, man,” Pedro spat.
“Want a taste?” I reached up to my cheek and dragged my finger down through the stream of blood, presenting it to him.
The rage in his eyes thrilled me as he advanced forward, ready to land a few brutal thumps to my face. I was more than ready. Every minute of my life, I was ready. What I endured at home made it easy to take whatever this piece of spoiled shit threw my way.
Pedro pulled his fist back, but the sound of screeching tires halted him in his tracks, and we all turned in unison to see a beat-up old Merc speeding toward us. Pedro and his gang split. Me? I stood and watched as two more cars entered the alley, two other Mercs, but these ones brand new. One raced up behind the old Merc, and one came in from the other end of the alley, blocking it in.
I stepped back into the shadows and watched as six huge, suited men stepped out of the two new Mercs, three men from each car. Despite it being December, they all wore sunglasses. And straight faces. They were all mean-looking motherfuckers. One opened the back door of one of the cars, and then another man emerged, this one distinctly separated from the others in a cream linen suit. He took his time, straightening out the few creases in his jacket before he swept a hand through his hair. He looked important. Powerful. Fearless. Respected. It was obvious to me, even as a ten-year-old, that he’d earned it. He wasn’t simply a bully. I was instantly in awe of him.
I watched in fascination as he strolled toward the old Merc and opened the driver’s door. Then I heard a plea for mercy.
And then I heard a loud bang. A gunshot.
I blinked a few times, mesmerized, as the cream-suited man coolly shut the door of the old Merc and started to wander casually back to one of the cars. I looked across to the old Merc and saw blood splattered everywhere, a body slumped over the steering wheel.
“Deal with it,” the cream-suited man said, lifting his trousers at the knees to get back into the car.
It was then I saw it. A man across the way through some caged fencing, scrambling up onto a high wall that looked over the alleyway. And in his hand, a gun. He looked like bad news. Too tatty and dirty to be with the smart-suited men in the shiny new Mercs, and before I could register my mouth moving, I was shouting, “Hey, Mister. Hey!”
The cream-suited man paused, looking my way along with the other well-dressed men. His blue eyes shone at me. I was a kid, yes, but I knew evil when I saw it. I looked at it most days, though what was staring at me in that moment was a different kind of menacing. My young mind couldn’t put a finger on exactly what it was that was different. It just . . . was.
I raised my hand and pointed to the wall. “He has a gun.” When I looked back to the wall, I found the guy pointing his firearm down into the alley, right at the cream-suited man. One shot fired. Just one, and it didn’t come from the man high up above us. Like a sack of shit, the rogue on the wall plummeted and hit the concrete on a deafening thud, and I stared at his mangled form splattered on the ground, his neck twisted on his body, his head at a freaky angle. His eyes were open, and in them I saw a familiar evil. The kind of evil I saw every day.
I didn’t look away until a shadow crept over me. Peeking up, I came face to face with the cream-suited man. He was even bigger close up, even scarier. “What’s your name, kid?” he asked. He had an accent, just like I’d heard when I’d snuck into the cinema. American.