Chapter 2 #2
Don’t miss. Don’t screw this up, I remind myself, slipping along the edge of the crowd like a shadow.
No one gives me a second glance—just another guy in a black button-down and jeans.
Tonight, I ditched my leather jacket for a suit coat to blend in.
My hand is already wrapped around the Glock’s grip.
Keeping low and silent, I trail the men and the girls, thumbing off the safety as I angle toward the employee corridor that leads to the rear exit.
The alley door yawns open, and humid night air hits me like a fist to the face.
I wait two heartbeats, then move—flat to the brick, forcing my breathing to slow, keeping my gun ready.
Finger on the trigger. All my life, my jobs have been simple: find the guy who skipped town, break his fingers, collect.
Put pressure where the ledger says to. This isn’t that.
This is girls in the back of a van on the way to a life from hell.
This will turn a dirty street job into a war movie, and war movies leave bodies.
I don’t flinch at the idea of killing—it wouldn't be my first kill—and I don’t expect anyone to mourn me if I don’t come back.
But Sophia Orsi in a whorehouse? That’s different.
That makes me see red. She is a mafia princess so far above these assholes—and me—that none of us should even be breathing the same air.
Men like me aren’t supposed to touch women like her.
We’re not supposed to even look. I’ll paint this alley with blood before I let them lay a hand on her.
I was raised to be useful, not noticed—raised to be the blade other men hide behind.
La Famiglia taught me how to shoot and how to be silent, but training is drills, and adrenaline is a different animal.
And I'm a realist enough to get that. These bastards are not even trying to be subtle about the trafficking. Right in front of me is a pedo van—white with blacked-out windows and plates just smeared enough to make some of the writing illegible. It’s parked thirty feet away at the mouth of the alley, and the engine is idling, waiting to swallow the girls whole.
One man stands by the sliding door, while another one sits in the driver’s seat. There could be more inside.
Sophia sees the van and freezes. The flicker of panic in her body language is unmistakable.
She twists, elbowing the guy holding her.
He grunts, she must have gotten him good, and snaps something at her—loud and threatening—but she only fights harder.
The other girls are screaming now, their heels slipping on the greasy concrete.
One of them tries to run but is stopped by a sharp backhand that drops her to her knees.
I move.
I know I have to make this quick and clean, that’s how it’s supposed to be.
In and out, a name on a list, a body in the dirt.
I never thought much about the ones I put down.
They were marks, debts, obstacles. Nothing more.
But this… this is different. Watching their hands on her, hearing her fight, that flips something open inside me I didn’t even know was there.
A darker part. A hunger. Deep and relentless.
This isn’t about the job anymore or even the rules of La Famiglia.
It’s about her. And for her, I don’t just want them dead, I want them to know it’s me ending them.
I want them to feel every ounce of terror they tried to lay on her.
I already sense that it will be much easier to let that demon run loose than it will be to shove it back in its cage once it tastes blood.
But tonight, for the first time, I’ll stop killing like a soldier and start killing like a man possessed.
And once I start, I'm pretty sure there’ll be no going back.
The first guy—closest to Sophia—takes a bullet through the base of the skull before he can turn. The bang of the shot echoes through the dirty back alley. His body crumples to the ground, but I don't wait to see her reaction. I'm already aiming for the second asshole dragging Guiliana.
He shouts—too late—and reaches for his gun, also too late. I shoot him through the throat.
He gurgles and drops. I don't look; there's no way he's going to get back up. Not unless there's a zombie apocalypse I wasn't told about.
The third guy spins and opens fire. I duck behind a dumpster as bullets zing past the metal edge.
"Stay down!" I shout at the girls.
The other girls scream and scatter—like prey—but Sophia doesn’t.
For an eighteen-year-old girl, she shows impressive composure as she crouches, wide-eyed, hiding behind the dead guy I dropped first. Smart girl.
I peek around the corner and pop off two more shots.
One hits the third guy in the shoulder as he stumbles back toward the van.
The driver’s shouting now, while another man inside the van slides the door open to grab the girls.
Big mistake. I sprint out from behind my cover, bullets be damned, and fire three quick rounds at him before firing three more into the windshield.
Spiderweb cracks bloom, and the driver’s silhouette slumps forward.
The man I hit in the shoulder scuttles toward the alley wall, leaving a wet red smear as he tries to reach the pistol he dropped.
I step forward without a word and put a bullet through the back of his skull.
No hesitation. No flourish. Just trash removal.
With a quick press of a button, I release the magazine while my other hand is digging into my pocket for a fresh one.
Slapping the mag in, cocking the Glock, is second nature while my body pivots on muscle memory toward the van.
I know Gerald’s still here. Cowards don’t die first; they hide.
And rats always pick the gutters. My eyes sweep the alley.
There, a flicker of movement near the front passenger wheel.
I approach slowly with my gun raised, my boots crunching on the glass and blood-slick gravel.
"Gerald," I call out in a quiet voice, almost conversational. "You got thirty seconds to make peace."
A panicked snarl follows a low grunt as he springs out from behind the bumper, knife in hand, charging me like a wild dog. Pathetic.
I shoot him, but not to kill. No, that’s too easy for a piece of trash like him.
He deserves to suffer. Something inside me that I’ve kept clipped and clean for years—the part that savors the smell of fear, the part that likes stories to end with silence—uncoils like a spring.
Up until tonight, I’ve been efficient: locate, disable, disappear.
Personal never made it onto the ledger. But seeing him put his hands on Sophia snapped something wide open.
The disciplined soldier slid back, and something raw stepped forward, fueled with a hunger for blood that I know deep down will never be satisfied.
I want to spend hours with him. I want him to beg and count it out loud, second by second.
I hardly recognize the voice that answers that want; it sounds older, crueler, and it answers to her name.
Regrettably, there’s no time for hours. The van’s engine rattles, the girls are crying, and sirens sound in the distance—someone must have called the cops—reality is snapping at my heels, bringing me back to the present.
One round takes out his left knee. He screams and collapses sideways, the knife skittering from his hand.
I walk toward him slowly and deliberately, like death itself, then kneel beside him.
"You traffic women," I say in a low, calm voice.
He gasps, his hands grasp at his ruined leg. "You—fuck, you don’t know what you're interfering with—"
"I do," I interrupt. "I know exactly what you are."
I lean in and grab his face, forcing him to look at me. "Do you know what it’s like for a girl who disappears into one of your basements? For her family? Her sisters? Her body, if she ever comes back?" He flinches. Good. "You’re not just a pain in the ass to my boss, Gerald. You’re an infection."
He starts blubbering. Begging. "I don’t touch them. I didn’t—I just move the girls. That’s all, I just—"
I make a tsking sound, before I shove the barrel of my gun into his mouth. His eyes bulge. I lean in and whisper, "Your kind doesn’t bleed enough for what you take."
I pull the trigger.
The shot’s muffled, but the silence afterward is thunderous.
I wipe the barrel on his jacket and rise.
The girls slowly reassemble from where they scattered, hugging each other, whispering.
Their teary eyes look wildly around as they step over the bodies I left on the ground.
But all I see is Sophia, her wide eyes locked on me.
Not horrified, but watchful. She doesn’t show any fear when I approach.
I give the alley one last scan and call it. We're clear.
"Come on," I tell the girls, even though my eyes are glued to Sophia. "I’m getting you out of here."
She takes my hand. Hers is so small, so fragile and trembling.
"Thank you," she looks up at me with those crystal-clear green eyes, and I'm done for.
"Yes, thank you," Camilla sidles up next to me, batting her eyelashes, a deep, luring smile spreads over her lips. But I don't care. I only have eyes for Sophia, even as the other two girls approach me, each one a beauty in her own right.
"I have to call this in," I tell them. Their faces fall. They know they fucked up, and they know they'll catch hell from their fathers and brothers. But that's not my problem. I'm not about to leave this mess behind. They wanted an adventure; they got caught. Now it's time to pay the piper.