Chapter 8 #2
He turns to the others like they’re his audience now, arms open like a preacher. "You believe this shit? This little rat thinks he gets to choose where he goes."
One of them laughs, nervous and forced. The rest stay silent.
They’ve seen what I’ve done for this crew.
They know I’ve bled for it, killed for it, and buried men for it.
I’ve never disobeyed an order, never flinched, never hesitated, and never talked to anybody—not even when the cops put me in juvie for a couple of years.
I always kept to the code of silence: Omertà—the unwritten code of the Cosa Nostra.
But that doesn’t matter to Carlos. Not now.
Not ever. Loyalty means nothing to a man who only understands control.
He pulls a knife from inside his jacket.
Long. Thin. Surgical. My pulse ticks up, but I don’t move.
I don't even allow my eyes to follow him when he walks behind me again—slower this time.
Suddenly, he grabs a fistful of my hair and jerks my head back so hard my neck cracks. I grit my teeth, but I don’t grunt. I'm not giving him the satisfaction.
"You want to be your own man?" he snarls. "Fine. But let’s mark the occasion."
The blade bites before I register the first swing.
It cuts down from my eyebrow, across my cheek, all the way to the corner of my lip.
Hot fire rips through my face, and I taste the metallic blood instantly as it runs warm down my cheek into my mouth.
The second cut comes just as fast. Crosswise this time.
From the bridge of my nose toward my ear. Deep. Jagged. Personal.
My body wants to shake, but I force it still.
I won’t scream. I won’t give him that. Carlos steps away, breathing harder now, knife still in his hand, my blood dripping from the tip in slow taps against the concrete.
He sneers. "Let that be your one and only lesson, you little shit. Nobody quits me. Nobody."
He leans in close, the cigar smoke curling around the edges of my vision, and his breath is hot against the raw wound of my cheek.
"You're lucky I'm not going to kill you.
But remember. You're mine. And always will be. I put a roof over your head when no one else would. You owe your life—and your loyalties—to me.”
Then he straightens, wipes the blade on my shoulder like I’m filth, and kicks me hard enough in the back that I faceplant on the cold cement.
He turns his back and walks out like it’s nothing, the others following slowly.
A few glance back at me, unsure now. Mario, the closest thing I have to a friend, looks almost sick.
These men expected me to cry. To beg. Maybe even break.
I stay down while my blood drips steadily onto the floor. My chest rises and falls, slow and controlled, every breath razor-edged.
I begin to laugh, low and dark. The sound bounces off the empty walls like an omen.
This isn’t defeat.
This is rebirth.
He thinks he marked me.
He thinks he humiliated me.
He thinks he still owns me.
But all he did was give me a face the world won’t forget.
An X over the old me.
A warning to anyone who ever tries to own me again.
This isn’t the end.
This is the beginning.
And one day soon, he’ll wish to God he’d finished the job.
I'm not sure how long I lay there on the wet concrete floor, watching the water mix with my blood, plotting my next step.
I manage to get up on my feet, with my hands bound behind me, but I can't get out of the locked room.
I'm not sure if Carlos will send men back to finish the job, or if I'm supposed to die alone in this rat-infested dump, but I won't sit back and wait for either.
The door is steel, as my feet can attest to after I try kicking it in a few times.
The windows are high, but they look like my only option.
I make my way over to a pile of rubbish when the door squeaks open.
I turn to find Mario, holding a knife in his hand.
I get into a defensive stance, but Mario holds his hands up. "I come in peace."
"Sure," I laugh.
"Fine," he drops the knife and kicks it over to me. "Have it your way."
It's not elegant, but I get back down and cut the zip ties. Mario just stands there, watching.
"Did Carlos send you?" I finally ask.
He shakes his head. I shake out my hands and use the knife to cut my shirt into strips. Some for my face, others for the cuts on my arms that I got while getting the zip ties off. Tilting my head, I wait for him to go on.
"You want out because you want to build something," Mario states.
Something in his voice makes me curious. If he didn't come back on Carlos's orders, he's here on his own. Risking his neck to help me. Nobody helps anybody in our business without wanting something in return, especially when the help they offer is risky.
"Carlos won't be happy with you helping me," I toss out, trying again to figure out his intentions.
"If Carlos wanted you dead, you'd be dead.
He won't care one bit that I came." His words strike a chord in me.
He's right. So why does Carlos not want me dead?
Before I have a chance to think that through, he continues, "I've been watching you.
You're good with finding people's weaknesses, patterns, and shit like that. "
"Yeah, what about it?"
"I think Smiley is talking to someone. I can't prove it." He shrugs.
I listen. Because when a man who has worked for the Cosa Nostra as long as he has wants to tell you something, you shut up and open your ears. Mario is in his forties, and he's one of Carlos's higher-up loan sharks. Smiley is one of his middlemen.
"You think you can figure it out?"
"Can you stitch me up?"
"Won't be pretty," he admits. "Your handsome face won't be as handsome anymore."
"Well fuck, I heard chicks dig scars."
He laughs and puts his arm out. I lean on him, as a sign of trust, not because I can't walk on my own two feet, although I'm pretty sure Carlos's fuckers broke a rib or two. "Let's go see Doc Brown, and after that, we'll have a drink, and I’ll tell you more."
That's the best offer I've had all day. "I don't have anything better to do."