Chapter 37 #2
“He might not be a crime boss yet,” I argue, wondering why the hell I’m trying to convince them that killing the guy who was about to end me was a bad idea, “but he’s got an army behind him. They told me so the first time those assholes took me.”
Liam sniggers. “Yeah. And do you know what that army is?”
I shake my head.
“The Devil soldiers.”
“He’s got maybe a few dozen loyal men from the mafia days,” clarifies Dane.
“Everyone else are soldiers. How do you think we’re walking free, despite the way Quill left us to die in his apartment?
Some of the Coltello men came and saved us while we were locked up at Devil Tower.
And they gathered a number of other soldiers, too. ”
“So all the Devil soldiers are on his side?” I ask in disbelief.
“Not all. Some of them went with Tragen and sided with the Moretti group. Others stayed loyal to Devil. Well, loyal is a big word.”
“Right. Contracts. For you, it’s all about contracts. All about money.” I shake my head in disbelief. “So who’s paying you now?”
“No,” answers Dane, “you’ve got it all wrong.
Contracts are how we function, but at the end of the day, that’s not what matters.
No one really understands the soldiers. Not even Tragen.
He’s our commanding officer, but he was convinced we think the same way as him.
We don’t. He’s got the power. We’re nothing but his soldiers. That changes everything.”
I frown in confusion. “So…”
“So, the Devil soldiers follow whoever we’re told to follow,” explains Liam. “At least, on face value. When push comes to shove, like it did in this case, something else matters far more to us.”
I suddenly remember one of the rare times Quill shared something about his soldier training. He told me it wasn’t just about learning to kill. It was deeper than that. It was about learning to be brothers. Blood brothers.
“You’re loyal to each other,” I guess. “Brothers. The three sides are trying to pit you against each other, but you’d never betray a fellow soldier.”
Liam can’t quite suppress a grin, as if I’ve just told him the funniest thing ever. “Wrong again. None of us gives a shit about anyone else. We’d betray each other in a heartbeat. No. The one thing that matters to us, the one thing that motivates us… is fear.”
“Fear,” I echo, back to feeling perplexed. “But you’ve got guns. You’re strong. You’re—”
“That’s the thing Tragen and the other leaders never understood,” cuts in Dane.
“Every single second of every day, the threat of death looms over us. Fuck up a contract, you’re dead.
Answer back, you’re dead. Another soldier fucks up, and he’s standing beside you, you’re dead.
Death is the punishment for everything, big or small.
It’s turned us into killing machines. Robots.
All because we’re trained by fear. And the paradox is that when we end up facing death, we’ve become such machines we accept it without even thinking. Despite being terrified.”
“You don’t look like you’re accepting it now,” I point out.
“That’s because what faces us now isn’t death,” says Liam. “It’s much worse.”
I stare at him. “So what is it?”
“Quill Nelson.”
The words are so surprising I let out a loud snort. “Wait, what? What the fuck?”
Liam leans in, and I shrink back again, but now, it’s in disgust more than terror. Though I still can’t really understand a thing, I do suddenly trust them. At least, enough to believe that they won’t hurt me.
“Quill Nelson is a fucking psychopath,” he hisses. “And he’s found out what we did to you. He found out that the rest of the soldiers stood by and watched. And do you know what, Piper? We are all, every single last one of us, shitting our pants right now.”
A little thrill bubbles up in my chest as I slowly start to grasp the subtext. Quill. My Quill. He scares them.
He scares them a whole lot more than the mafia or Devil. It sounds crazy, but I believe it, coming from them. Not so soft after all, my husband.
I don’t know what that says about me, that I’m proud to be married to a man who terrifies the most hardened criminals. But there’s no denying that’s just what I am.
“He’s not the kind of man who puts a bullet in the head of the men who’ve wronged him,” continues Liam. “I would rather die at the hands of Coltello, Moretti’s men, or Devil, than to live at Quill Nelson’s.”
I nod slowly. “So you think helping me will save you from that fate.”
They glance at each other, and then Liam asks nervously, “Won’t it?”
I hesitate. The truth is, I’m not entirely sure if anything could save them. But I’m aware that saying so is a terrible idea. “Yes. It definitely will.”
Liam’s face relaxes, and I breathe easier too, seeing that my words have convinced him. Then I spot Dane’s troubled expression, and a new pang of anxiety creeps into my stomach.
“Alright, come on,” he says brusquely.
His hand shoots out to close around my arm, and I recoil. “I can get up by myself.”
But when I try to, I feel suddenly lightheaded. I stumble backward, and Dane hooks his arm around me again. Fuck. I hate this so much. I hate him so much.
I bite down on a cry as he lifts me up, lying me over his shoulder. His hand stays resolutely around my calves, pinning me to him but not touching any intimate part of me. And yet, his touch, no matter where it lands, burns me.
He carries me back toward the car, where the third soldier is waiting at the wheel. I guess they really were telling the truth. The soldiers are loyal to no one and nothing. Their only drive is fear.
Dane plops me into the backseat, and even though I cringe back when he gets in next to me, I guess it’s better than Liam being close to me.
I remember enough from that night to know that Liam was really the initiator.
Dane seemed to step in mostly to fix the situation.
Though vague memories remind me that he did participate somewhat.
I shiver, my mind trapped by the painful memories crowding back. Luckily, the panic attack I had last time I saw them doesn’t seem about to repeat itself. I guess everything that’s just happened has put me in quite a different mindset than before.
I sag back onto the seat, my body relaxing despite itself. I just don’t have the energy to stay tense.
The car drives for a little ways, through increasingly narrow roads, and a weird unsettling feeling rises up in me when we at last stop in what looks like the middle of nowhere. A desolate shack looms before us, and Dane once more lifts me up, gently but firmly, carrying me toward it.
“What is this place?” I ask nervously. “Is Quill here?”
None of them answer. We enter the one-room cabin, which looks abandoned. I guess they must have found it by chance, driving over here, and decided it would make a good place for… whatever happens next.
There isn’t a single piece of furniture. Just four rotting walls and a busted up window.
Dane puts me down in a corner of the room, while Liam fumbles with the sweater he’s just removed, trying to make it fall over the window by sticking it through the uneven cracks in the wall.
Meanwhile, the third soldier, still wearing his mask, stands stiffly near the door. He hasn’t said a word this whole time.
At last Liam manages to get his makeshift curtain to work, and the room is plunged into darkness.
Soon, nothing is visible except the glint of the gun in the masked soldier’s hand, as it’s lifted, pointing straight toward me.
“Uhm, what the fuck,” I say nervously.
Dane walks over to me, and I can just make out the flip phone he hands me.
“You’re going to do exactly what we say,” he threatens, “or you’re dead.”