“No,” she says clinging to me. “No. I just want to go home. I want you to take me home. You.”
“I need you to wait in the car for me. I need to take care of this before I can take you home.”
She shakes her head, her nails dig into the back of my neck. Her eyes are saucers, her terror palpable.
“Nat.” I know she hates being called that, but she doesn’t even acknowledge it. Her gaze keeps bouncing to the man I’m going to hurt and each time, more tears well inside her eyes. “I need to take care of this. I need you to wait for me out in—”
“Do it,” she says. She locks her eyes on the man and there’s a darkness inside them that wasn’t there before.
“You don’t want—”
She shifts her gaze to mine. “I want you to do it.”
I study her. She doesn’t even blink, but returns her gaze to the man. She knows what I’m going to do.
“Look away,” I say.
“No.”
“Natalie, there are things you can’t unsee.”
“Don’t you understand?” she asks, looking up at me. “I want to see. I need to.”
Her eyes are stone.
I nod. Salvatore’s watching us. I read what he’s thinking on his face. This is fucked up.
When I walk to the brute on the floor, I take out my pistol and cock it and, without a word, I shoot his other knee. As loud as his scream is, I still hear Natalie’s over it.
She wants to see.
She wants to see what I’m capable of.
What a monster I can be.
“Sergio,” Salvatore puts a hand on my shoulder. “I can finish this.”
I shrug it off. “No.” I crouch down next to the man. “You want to die slow or you want to die fast? Because you’re dying tonight. It’s just up to you how.”
“Please. Please. Mr. Suit. He hired me to watch the pretty girl. I didn’t touch her. I didn’t touch her. It’s the rules.”
I know he’s mentally not all there, but I don’t give a fuck. See, this is what makes me a monster. I have no compassion. Not when someone takes what’s mine. Not when someone hurts what’s mine.
“What’s his name?”
He shakes his head, confused. “Mr. Suit.”
I’m losing patience. I grip his filthy T-shirt. Drag him up by the collar of it. “What the fuck is Mr. Suit’s name, asshole?”
He starts crying, sobbing. “Mr. Suit,” he says over and over again.
“Fuck.” I stand up, turn to look at Natalie.
She’s immovable, sitting on the foul bed, fisting the filthy blanket. I don’t think she’s blinked or taken a breath.
I turn back to the guy, take my pistol and point it between his eyebrows.
I don’t hesitate.
She wants to see. She’ll see.
I pull the trigger—once, twice—twin holes in his forehead, between his eyes.
Overkill. but it’s quick. My form of mercy. He’s dead in an instant.
“Call a fucking cleaner.” I holster my gun and, with blood on my hands, gather Natalie up into my arms, and she doesn’t resist. I carry her to the car, cradle her in the backseat. Salvatore slides into the driver’s seat and a moment later, we’re driving away.23NatalieTwo weeks have passed since that terrible night. My mind is in chaos but I won’t stop to sort through the thoughts. To see again what I saw that night. I won’t think about what happened. I won’t feel the man’s hands on me. Won’t hear the sound of a silenced gun fired. I close my eyes against the picture of Sergio standing over the man, gun in his hand, cocked. Aimed. Fired. Not once, but twice. With perfect precision.
Did he even notice the blood that stained his coat? His hands? The blood he smeared on me when he held me.
I shudder.
The sound is strange, the silencer not quite silent enough. One millisecond and a life is snuffed out.
I don’t feel sorry for that man or for the others who died that night.
I think about the driver who was killed because of me, and even him, I keep thinking that he chose this. He chose this life. Does that make me like them?
The image of Sergio that night, furious like I’ve never seen him, is burned into my eyelids. Cruel and lethal. So fucking lethal.
He tried to send me away. Didn’t want me to see. But I wanted to see. I wanted to know exactly. Needed to.
What I heard in his father’s house, it pales in comparison to what I witnessed that night.
“Miss.”
I blink. The man behind the counter looks annoyed. “Sorry.” I empty my basket of things I don’t need—magazines, candy, cold medicine—not to bring attention to the one thing I do. The pregnancy test.
I’m sure now. The test is extra. I’m late. My body feels different, more achy and tender. And I can’t keep food down morning, noon or night.