Chapter 1 #3
He stumbles over, catching himself on the bar, complaining loudly. “Hey! Pay attention, dick.” Judging from the waft of his breath that makes it to me, that’s gotta be his eighth scotch of the night.
I was right. This guy is a coglione. Loafers, khakis, and a short-sleeved sweater the color of expired mayo, with a zipper over his chest for some reason.
“My thoughts exactly,” I purr, chest vibrating either from the words, or the thought of what comes next.
He still doesn’t pick up the danger in the room, and keeps his back to me.
“Brayden?” I ask, and the creep who never learned consent finally turns around.
“No, Dylan.”
“Close enough.”
“Yo, what’s your—” Dylan’s blurred out eyes have finally caught up with the rest of him and they land on my pecs beneath a casual button-down shirt I changed into after my last shift.
“Problem?” I finish his sentence, then indulge in another slow sip, relishing in the fire it brings.
The woman steps back from him, taking her chance to put some distance between them.
“No problem, man, mind your own business.” Dylan holds up his hands, taking a half a step back and nearly stumbling.
“I was minding my own business,” I tell him, leaning my head to one side. “Until you couldn’t respect this young lady’s wishes.”
Dylan’s eyes flash to the woman, and he gestures to me. “You know this guy?”
Her eyes make a quick scan of my upper body, landing on my face, and she shakes her head softly.
“Do I need to know someone personally for you to show some common decency?”
It could end right here. All he has to do is leave the girl alone, call his driver, and fuck back off to Lower Manhattan.
Instead, he chooses route number two.
My favorite one.
“Okay, pal,” Dylan says, with the kind of passive aggressiveness that tells me no one has ever taught him manners. He thinks money means you don’t need it.
When I smirk, he eyes me more closely, like he’s looking for proof I won’t fuck him up. Maybe he mistakes my tattoos for some sort of hipster fuck like he’s probably friends with, who never shuts up about his favorite matcha or riding his unicycle.
My tattoos come from a different sort of lifestyle.
Where I come from, we love the chance to teach some respect. Predators like him who end up behind bars learn a lot about respect from guys like me. Just doing my part to spread the word in the free world, sort of like an outreach program.
Keeping my gaze locked on him, one hand reaches out to the bar top to grasp the empty rocks glass he left there. Dylan follows the motion, watching uneasily as I close my hand around the glass until it breaks with a crack that’s muffled by my palm and the noise of the other patrons.
The jump he gives when it shatters into large pieces is fucking delicious. An appetizer for the main course. Really whets the appetite.
“What the fuck, man?” he asks, panic leaking into his voice now. When he looks back at me, the confusion on his face turns to fear, and I smile back at him.
“I want you to remember to pay attention,” I tell him, commanding his focus to stay on me with every syllable.
My left hand, the one holding the large chunks of glass, pulls back in and I wrap all five fingers and my palm around his upper arm, pressing the shards into his flesh until I feel it give.
He starts to scream, but it quickly melts into a whimper when I only grip him harder the more he struggles.
“Pay attention to how your partner reacts to you,” I tell him.
The glass cuts into his arm further, and I feel the wet warmth of blood trickling down my palm.
Dylan slams his eyes shut, squeezing them tight, whimpering.
“It’s not nice when someone can’t take a hint, is it?” I ask, voice pitched low so only he—and maybe she—can hear me. “When you don’t want someone to touch your body, but they won’t get the message?”
He shakes his head from side to side, and I release some pressure on his arm. More blood runs down us both.
“Are you going to stop making women uncomfortable?”
He nods, eyes still pinched shut.
“Okay then.” I release his arm, and he sucks in a large gasp of air, immediately looking down to his limb and moaning at what he sees.
With a toothy grin, I tell him, “That’s all I wanted, Dylan.”
He scowls at me, face pale as he looks back down to pick out some pieces of glass still sticking out of his flesh.
“Let’s make sure the message really sticks,” I whisper.
And then I pour a good finger of my remaining tequila over the damage.
This time, he can’t hold back the scream, but it sounds like dessert to me.
Grabbing a napkin from the bar, I pour the last drops of my drink over my left palm, hoping to sterilize any cuts I might’ve gotten, before dabbing it with a napkin and turning to head out.
“Wait,” comes a breathless voice, and a soft hand on my arm. She squeezes me once before I turn around.
The woman he had cornered steps around Dylan’s hunched, shrieking form, and steps to my side.
“Wanna buy me a drink for your trouble?” she asks, eyes dancing in the low light.
“What I want is for you to get some mace,” I tell her. “Monsters are everywhere in this city. Don’t be afraid to protect yourself from them.”
That’ll pretty much do for one night, I think. Just a couple of walks and a subway ride later, and I’m climbing the steps to my fourth-floor walk-up in a shitty neighborhood of the South Bronx.
Is it close to the bodega in the Upper West Side or the restaurant in the Village? Nah.
But thanks to my second job, I can afford the whole place to myself, even if it’s nothing special. Nicer than one place I stayed for four years and seven months, that’s for sure.
Bonus is that it’s also not near my family business, they stick to Brooklyn.
All in all, today wasn’t a bad day. Haven’t had one of those in the seven years I’ve been a free man. I’m still chuckling over Aurora showing back up, with a husband who wouldn’t know humor if it bit him in the ass. At least he knew good food when he tasted it.
What rips the lingering smile from my face is the note taped to my front door, in thin, slanted handwriting that sends chills down my spine.
AMANTE
Opening the thick, folded paper, I see just an address, and a time.
An invitation.
A demand to be there.
My dad used to come home to these some days. “Paper can’t be wire tapped,” he used to tell me. “An address and time with no other details doesn’t prove shit.”
But I know exactly what this means.
I no longer have the blessing I need to be free of the life. They’re rescinding the deal. Going back on their word to let me live my life and calling on me to serve, like my father before me.
But there’s not a chance in hell I’m going back to that life.
Looks like my time in New York has come to an end.
It doesn’t take me an hour to pack everything I own in a couple of bags and head to the all-hours bus station.
Fate must’ve been looking out for me today, giving me an out right before I needed one, because I’ve got somewhere safe locked and loaded.
Smoky Heights, here I come.