Chapter 7
Hollis
I should feel better than I do as I sit in my truck outside of the hotel I followed Alessio Severino and his men to last night. It isn’t the exhaustion making me twitchy, but the barely controlled anger making my skin tingle.
It took years and countless mistakes before I was able to get control of my temper.
It took focus to learn how to channel it rather than letting it have authority over my actions.
Right now, I’m having a very hard time reminding myself that I’m more helpful to people alive than going out in a blaze of glory that wouldn’t even make the news.
I doubt anyone will report on Marcello’s death, not even in Chicago where the family reigns supreme. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lucian didn’t pay media outlets for airtime, making his youngest son look like an angel rather than the psychotic man he was.
My head dips, heavy on my shoulders, but sleep right now isn’t an option.
I’m already regretting that I didn’t get out of the truck and try to sneak up and see Alessio’s face as he stood over his brother’s dead body.
The windows of the SUV were too tinted to see anything in the darkness last night, and I only saw him in profile for the briefest of seconds when they returned to the hotel in the early hours of the morning.
That’s what has to be wrong. Not seeing him break down, not seeing him beg God to take him rather than his little brother is why I don’t feel even partially vindicated.
One-third of the Severinos’ monsters has been wiped from the face of the earth, and I should feel relief or something akin to justice, but I don’t.
The beast inside of me doesn’t feel at all satisfied.
That woman’s reminder last night that she was only a child when Ellie was tortured, raped, and murdered, has to be why.
I know there’s a twelve-year age difference between Alessio and Marcello.
Unless the family is even more fucked up than I thought, Marcello would’ve been safe at home, probably watching cartoons when his older brother sealed his fate.
I’m twitchy, fighting the urge to storm into the hotel and take all the bastards out.
Ending Marcello has done nothing more than let some of those demons I’ve fought for years fly freely.
Killing one piece of shit doesn’t serve the justice Ellie deserves.
As much as I’ve tried to fight thinking of her more than just in passing, I can’t keep from picturing her bringing her finger to her lips, a reminder this was a secret when she’d sneak me an extra cookie when she was babysitting.
I remember her brave face despite the tears in her eyes when she told me all boys except me were stupid.
I realize now that was after a breakup and her feelings were hurt.
There aren’t many people that die the way she did that were deserving of it, so saying she didn’t deserve what happened to her would be fruitless.
Marcello’s death was earned, and honestly, he probably should’ve suffered.
If I stopped to think about what I was doing, I might have done things differently, but I still have the chance with Alessio.
There’s still an opportunity there. I pray that after I’m done with him, I can finally lay Ellie to rest in my head.
I can’t change the past. I can’t go back in time and intervene by telling Ellie not to accept a ride home from school from her classmate.
I can’t stop Patrick from putting his gun in his mouth.
I can’t prevent my father from dying of cirrhosis of the liver because he drank his pain away.
I certainly can’t let it go. I guess we all deal with her death in our own ways.
Those men were weak, too moral to seek vengeance. It’s lucky Ellie had me.
I perk up, my hands clenching the steering wheel when I see Alessio in a fresh suit come out of the hotel.
Other than looking a little tired with more shadows around his eyes than I saw in the club last night, he looks fine.
His jaw twitches as he glances around, never looking in the direction of my truck.
His head is held high, a cocky, indignant look on his face.
I picture it shattering into a million pieces with a shotgun blast despite not having a shotgun with me on this trip.
I pull my hands from the steering wheel, the off chance that he’ll get away before I can do something coming to life inside of me.
One hand is on my gun, the other on the door handle because I have to do something.
I want to take him, torture him, have him beg for his life before killing him, but I’m outnumbered.
I’m logical most of the time, and I know that it’s very unlikely that I can kill all his men and get him to a place where I can live out all my sinister dreams as I cut away pieces of him.
Killing him quickly wouldn’t offer the same thrill, but it will have the same conclusion.
Then I see her.
She’s no longer covered in pieces of Marcello. She’s no longer wide-eyed and shocked.
Her head is held just as high, revealing the smooth column of her throat.
Her dress today is less revealing than the one she was wearing last night, but the way it clings to her breasts is no different.
She’s vulnerable right now. Her body on display would make it easy to strike out and hurt her too.
Her makeup is perfect, her eyes bright and shining, lipstick as flawless as her skin.
It’s a slap in the face, both her air of indifference and Alessio’s freshly pressed suit. It tells me both of them were less affected by what happened last night than I’d hoped. I wanted to watch the Severino family crumple with the loss of their youngest male, but it seems it’s business as usual.
I realize I’ve lost my chance to go after him by simmering in my hatred, as he climbs into the back of the SUV after the woman enters.
I have no doubt they verified the safety of Alessio’s armored vehicle after I so easily broke the window on the other one last night.
Getting to him the same way I did his brother would be impossible.
For some reason, I can’t stop picturing her face when they pull away from the hotel.
I have no clue who the woman is, but she walked in with Alessio last night and walked out with Marcello.
She has to be important to them in some way.
I doubt Alessio would keep a whore around after the death of his brother.
If anything, they would close ranks and only allow those closest to his family around.
Yet, she had Alessio’s hand on her back at the club, but she was getting ready to suck Marcello off in the alley. Sexual kink and perversion wouldn’t surprise me. It’s her presence after tragedy struck the family that’s confusing.
I keep back some distance as I follow them, grateful for the heavier traffic in downtown that helps me stay off their radar. The SUV pulls up to a restaurant as I drive past them, circling the block before finding a parking spot of my own.
It’s a stupid choice, one that may land me in water hotter than I can get out of, but I climb out of my truck and head into the restaurant.
The hostess at the front frowns at my jeans and t-shirt.
It’s very clear that I don’t fit in with the unspoken dress code.
Another mistake is drawing attention to myself.
“Trabajo,” I tell her, asking for work.
She nods, waving me toward the kitchen without a word.
I’m fluent in Spanish, something I worked hard on after deciding to enter into this line of work, but I don’t want this woman to know that I speak the language.
People say a lot of shit they shouldn’t when they think they’re in the presence of people who can’t understand what they’re saying.
It’s as if it thrills them to spill secrets in front of unknowing witnesses.
Our trip to the kitchen doesn’t put me directly in Alessio’s line of sight, but I’m still able to track them to the far corner of the restaurant.
I slow my steps as I watch him shake hands with Raul Cortez, leader of the same cartel he met with at the club last night.
I want to flip the nearest fucking table at witnessing Alessio’s business-as-usual behavior only twelve hours after I blew his brother’s brains out.
I flinch as something is pressed into my chest, and it’s troubling that I’m losing focus and getting sloppy. I look down and see the hostess that escorted me back in this direction.
“Siéntate ahi,” she says, pointing to a booth off to the side. Sit there.
I grip the paper pressed against my chest as she takes a step back, knowing it’s a job application. I mimic writing, asking for a pen.
She pulls one from the waist apron she’s wearing as she rolls her eyes. They must be really hard up for help. Normally I’d be turned away for looking unpresentable and not coming in prepared.
“Gracias,” I tell her, drawing another frown to her face as I accept the pen and take a seat in the booth.
I don’t know how my luck keeps holding out, but I can see Alessio in his spot across the restaurant.
I only look up a few times, making sure I’m not drawing attention to myself as I fill in the lines on the application with fake information. I don’t put anything off the wall because I don’t want to be memorable.
Alessio’s meeting with Raul doesn’t last very long, and I have no doubt that the terms of whatever contract they’re working on have already been ironed out and this is just the official final agreement.
Raul stands, his cartel guards shifting, as he shakes hands with Alessio before walking away. Severino doesn’t even show enough respect to stand as this happens. Although I can’t see his face from my angle, I imagine that Raul isn’t very impressed with the hint of disrespect.
The Mafia leader is less eager to leave as he scoots further into the booth, and then she’s there—the woman who has seen so much, she didn’t even bother to scream as she was covered in her lover’s blood.
Her eyes dart to the side, but never look directly over at me. She nods as he speaks to her, and I take a moment to really look at her, trying to just see rather than let my feelings about the bitch take over.
Her right leg bounces, jostling the tablecloth.
Her hands are twisted together in her lap, and despite her back being as straight as a board—something that tells me she’s not only trained but cultured—there’s still a tension in her shoulders that tells me she’s not exactly comfortable right now.
I don’t know if it’s grief or fear that’s making her give off these subtle clues, but something is going on with her.
I follow her eyes across the restaurant when she looks up, watching as another man approaches the table.
He hands a stack of papers to Alessio, and I hate that I can’t see what it is from my vantage point.
Alessio tilts the papers in her direction, and she shakes her head at what she sees.
Satisfied, Alessio distributes the papers to the men surrounding him, keeping one before handing the remainder to the man that provided them to him.
Alessio stares down at the sheet in his hands before ripping it in half.
Whatever he sees enrages him, the tips of his ears turning bright red even though his face remains a mask of calmness.
I spend the next half hour working through the application and tracking them as they sit and have a drink. I don’t know if it’s in response to what has happened or if Alessio would normally drink whiskey before noon. I’m too busy trying to keep my eyes off the woman to pick apart his actions.
When she slides out of the booth, Alessio standing up after her, I drop my head.
I know I have a little time to stick around, too curious about what was on the paper, because they didn’t leave the hotel with their luggage. It tells me that they don’t intend to check out today.
I wait until the efficient busboy clears the table before slipping him a twenty on his way back to the kitchen as I pull the ripped paper from his tray.
He shakes his head like I’m insane, but he tucks the money into his pocket before darting away.
The rough drawing I’m staring at makes no sense.
I watched her approve this image, but I’m not staring down at a crude drawing of my face. The guy in the picture looks nothing like me, and there’s no mistaking her lie because off to the right are the words blond hair, blue eyes, American.
My hair is nearly black, my eyes only one shade lighter, so damned dark most days you can’t tell the difference in pupil versus iris. The only part she got right was American.
There was no reason for her to lie. It’s not like I’m trying to get away with what I did.
Someone who feels guilty wants that. Someone who wants to remain anonymous wants that.
I want the Severino family to know what I did before they come to the same end.
I want them to be well aware of exactly why I’m seeking justice and that even seventeen years later, they aren’t safe from the evils they’ve participated in.
It doesn’t make me happy that if Alessio’s men spot me they’ll look right past me because she lied about my description. This bitch is going to get some poor guy, matching this description, killed. She’s just as damned evil as the rest of them.
Does she get her thrills this way? Does it turn her on to watch destruction in her wake?
My jaw flexes, annoyance and anger threatening to bubble over as I shove the fucking paper in my pocket and leave the restaurant.