Brad gets in the car, along with Ringo, and starts the engine. I hear a gunshot in the distance as we pull away, and two more just as we round a corner.
“Feel better?” Brad asks, looking at Danny in the rearview mirror.
Danny doesn’t reply, but he takes my hand from my lap and puts it in his, holding it as he stares out of the window.
And I wonder what it must feel like to put an end to someone who has affected you so terribly.
“The person who raped you . . . who was it?”
“You know nothing.”
“I know everything.”
I couldn’t look away from him as he took the power back. Vengeance. He does know. Maybe not everything, but he understands violation. He understands destruction. He knows hate.
And tonight, while he fought hate, I was there silently cheering him on. And when he sought me, I let him take my hand. He took comfort from me.
Chapter 13
DANNY
* * *
A weight has lifted from my shoulders. One that has sat there for years and pulled me down, no matter how hard I tried to ignore it. A weight on one’s shoulders suggests the presence of a problem. For me, it’s always represented a need. A need for vengeance. A need to look that motherfucker in the eye and know in that moment he felt how he wanted me to feel all those years ago. It doesn’t matter that I was never scared. It doesn’t matter that he couldn’t hurt me. The point is, he wanted me to feel scared. He wanted to hurt me. He wanted me to look in the mirror every day and remember how I got my scar. The latter is the only one he achieved, and unlucky for Pedro, it just made his death more brutal.
When we pull up at my mansion, Rose still hasn’t murmured a word. I’m thrown that she didn’t bolt having been given the perfect opportunity. Instead, she came into the alleyway and watched me calmly carve that man up. And when I was done, I found she was rapt. Riveted. I could almost hear her silently encouraging me. I could sense her . . . peace. For me?
Brad opens the car door for me, and I get out, looking down at my hands. They’re stained red, as is my shirt. “I need a shower,” I tell him, climbing the steps to the door. “Meet me in the office in half hour. Have the men there.”
I start to pull my tie loose as I ascend the staircase and work the buttons of my shirt as I wander down the corridor. By the time I’ve made it to my room, I’m bare-chested. Dropping everything I’ve stripped off into a heap by the door, I kick my shoes off and head for the bathroom, removing my trousers as the water warms.
The spray has never felt so good, and I stand under it for an age, arms limp by my side, head dropped, watching the red-stained water swirling around my feet as the last of that weight is washed from my body and pours down the plughole. His face, the fear, the moment he realized who I was. Magic. I close my eyes and see my father’s face on the day I met him. The tiny smirk he gave me when I proudly boasted it hadn’t hurt when Pedro’s sidekick sliced my cheek open. How Pops looked into my eyes and told me the next time I see Pedro, kill him. Well, I did, Mister. You brought him into my path, and I did what you told me to do. And it felt good. Right.
Final.
I’m still lost in my thoughts when I hear movement behind me, and I slowly cast my eyes over my shoulder, finding Rose is naked by the door. Her clothes are in a pile at her feet.
I’ve killed two men today. One quickly and cleanly, the other I made a bloodied mess of. She saw both and hardly twitched. She’s fucking immune to my world. She also had a chance to escape in between each kill. Yet she didn’t. I don’t have the energy right now to try and figure out what that means. The woman is a fucking enigma.
Turning back to face the tile, I continue relishing the shower raining down on me. It’s still not clear around my feet, red tinging the water. “Come to clean me down?” I ask, feeling her closer. My voice is rough, short, and unfriendly. Not that it will penetrate Rose’s thick skin.
I feel her hand slip between my hip and my arm, reaching for the shower cream on the shelf before me. Her cheek meets my shoulder as she stretches, her wet breasts pushing into my back. The temperature in the stall goes from hot to scorching, and I reach for the wall before me, resting some weight on my braced arm.