Grayson
. . .
TWENTY-ONE
I’ve been summoned yet again, like a dog called back by its owner, and I go like the obedient little pet I am.
Every time I step foot in this rotting building, the further I sink into oblivion.
I hate it here to my very core. What they stand for.
What they make us do while they sit in their fancy clothes with their fancy friends and treat our lives like we are disposable.
I’m taping my hands when I feel someone approaching. My muscles stiffen on instinct, my body going into fight or flight mode. They relax a fraction when I recognize the voice.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Emilio Moretti, or Moretti, as most call him, jokes, slapping me on the shoulder.
He’s still been digging, looking for any way to get me out of this mess. It’s hard to keep my emotions in check and not demand answers from him. I know he’s on my side. He’s one of the good guys.
His words were joking, but his face portrays something else that twists my stomach. “Out with it,” I rasp, wanting to rip the band aid off.
He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s not looking good, brother.”
“Explain.”
Moretti reaches into his suit jacket, pulling out a folder. He extends it hesitantly my way, and I rip it from his hands. My heart drops to the floor with what I see.
“No,” I whisper, dragging my thumb across the photo. My hard eyes find Moretti’s. “How?”
He shrugs like this is normal to him. “They have eyes and ears everywhere, Grayson. I told you to be careful. Nowhere is safe. No one is safe. This is a warning for pushing back. I’m doing all I can on the inside, but you just need to be patient.
The more you try and pull away until we have a solid plan, the more they are going to show you who’s in charge. ”
I throw the folder across the locker room and scream as the pictures all flutter to the ground. Pictures of me…and Maisie…kissing in the rain. They know. They are taunting me. I’ve asked too many questions, pushed too many buttons. Now, they are threatening me with Maisie.
This is exactly why I didn’t want to get myself involved with her, but I couldn’t hold back any longer. I thought maybe I could live in a happy little sanctuary for just a little bit until I figured out a solution. I got ahead of myself, too full of myself and the ability to escape them.
I needed Maisie to know how I felt about her.
I could see it in her eyes, standing on the side of the road, that she was at her last straw.
If I did or said the wrong thing, there would be no more pursuing her from the shadows.
We would go back to strangers, and she would pack up her life in a couple months and never look back.
I was too selfish to let that happen. I may not have been ready for her yet, but I knew she needed to know she was different.
That, the consequences be damned, I needed to taste her, feel her.
So it would be harder for her to walk away from me if I had to pull back a bit until I was out from under the mafia's thumb.
Until I knew she was safe.
Moretti’s hand finds my shoulder, halting the shakes that have taken over.
“Hey, we will figure this out. I promise. But you need to be careful until then. Got it? I don’t want to scare you, but when they make a threat, they follow through tenfold.
You don’t want to know the types of things I’ve seen them do to a man…
or woman…or child. They don’t discriminate. ”
“FUCK!” My fist finds one of the old rusty lockers, denting the door. It sends an ache all the way up my arm that helps take my focus away from the pain in my heart. I look over my shoulder at Moretti, giving him a solemn nod. “I understand.”
Moretti dips his head at me in goodbye before striding towards the exit to get ready to watch the fights. “Kick ass out there and make them pay.”
I’m losing.
My head is distracted, thinking about a certain angel's lips on mine. Her taste. Her sweet scent. But, most importantly, the threat against her life.
Each swipe of my opponent's knuckles across my cheek helps take the pain away, if only for a second. I want to feel this pain. I deserve it after what I’ve dragged Maisie into. How could I be so stupid with her life, so careless?
My swollen eye catches Matteo in the large crowd—he looks beyond pissed at me.
What am I doing? If I lose this fight, I could die.
If I lose this fight and live, Maisie could die.
I know Matteo won’t take nicely to losing money because of me.
He would retaliate. And now, I know exactly who his first victim would be.
My eyes harden, ducking just in time when I see the shadow of a fist coming full force at my face.
I need this fight to be over so I can go home and figure this all out.
They already know about Maisie, so now, I feel like I need to keep her close.
Keep her hidden. Or, do I need to pull away, let them see the distance between us?
Fuck, I don’t know what to do anymore. I wish I could go back to that day Matteo approached me and tell him to fuck right off, but I was desperate and tired of watching my baby sister slip away right before my eyes.
I couldn’t handle seeing her in pain anymore.
So, I traded her pain for mine. I saved her, and I will never regret that decision.
I just wish there would have been another way, because now, she’s in just as much danger.
They all are.
All the pent up anger from my situation stirs low in my stomach until it has no choice but to expel itself in the form of my fists. Both my eyes are swollen, dripping blood from the beating my opponent rained down on me for the past ten minutes while I wallowed in my self-pity.
That’s over now.
My arms and legs are bruised and sluggish, but I don’t let it stop me. I’m numb to the pain. I ignore it all and attack my opponent like a crazed man. My fists collide with any part of his body I can find, not discriminating, just needing blood.
First, his face. Then, his stomach. His groin, then his face again. An unending loop of assault until I get lost in the blood lust. His face is unrecognizable at this point, but that doesn’t stop me. I’m pretty sure they blew the whistle a while ago, but my fists don’t stop.
They wanted to make me into a monster. Well, they got what they wanted. I’m no longer a man, my soul sucked away the first time I stepped in this ring. The only thing to bring back a shadow of that man was meeting Maisie.
My fist draws back again, but it’s grabbed before I can land another blow. I’m ripped off my dead opponent and thrown across the ring. I can barely catch my breath, feeling more beast than man.
Matteo pats me on the back, a giant smile on his face. I can’t hear a single word he says, but the joy on his face makes me sick to my stomach. Moretti’s eyes find me next, and I don’t like the emotions reflected on his face. Pity. Sadness, like he’s looking at a lost man. Like he’s repulsed by me.
I can’t take this anymore.
I rush out of the ring, back to the locker room, before anyone can talk to me or congratulate me.
I drop to my knees and heave into the dirty toilet, almost not making it in time.
I heave until there’s nothing left in my stomach.
Even then, I don’t stop, gagging at the feeling of my bloody hands slipping across the porcelain seat I’m draped over.
I sit there for thirty minutes, dry heaving into the toilet until my stomach aches from flexing so much.
I don’t feel the pain when my chest slips and my head hits the concrete floor.
I don’t feel the headache in the back of my head, a lump instantly swelling.
I don’t feel a goddamn thing but self-loathing as I lie like a dead man in my own vomit and blood, staring at the cracked ceiling, counting the little stars that dance in my vision.
At some point, I manage to drag myself up, only for one reason. The pain and memories are starting to come back, and I can’t handle it. There’s only one thing I know to numb it all, one thing to take it all away. My parents taught me that.
My truck bounds down the backroads at breakneck speed. I’m not thinking straight, lost in my haze. I come to a screeching halt at the local store. I grab as much booze as I can fill my arms with and drop a hundred on the register, not waiting for change before I’m running back to my truck.
Roxy would have my neck for entering the ranch this fast, but I don’t care. I finally pull up to my cabin, not even pulling the truck all the way up to my house before I’m out the door and running up my steps.
I drop to my knees when I see the bandana Maisie wore over her face that first day in the barn, now tied around my door handle by barbed wire.
A warning.
They’ve been here. They want me to be their good, obedient boy. They want me to roll on my back and do as they say. If not, they will take her. I don’t think I could live with myself if that happened. I wouldn’t want to.
The whiskey bottle in my hand finds my lips before I even make it inside, chugging a quarter of it in one go. I don’t feel it go down, same as I don’t feel the barbed wire when I throw my door open.
All I feel is losing myself until I see the bottom of the whiskey bottle.
It tastes like freedom.