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“Don Hawthorne,” I’m ushered into the building while the bouncer weeps beside me. So many muscles, yet he’s reduced to tears at the sight of a gun. What’s the point of all those hours in the gym?
Another barrage of bullets follows but they end once we’ve passed into the main hall. The lights are on and I get a good view of the place. The Nightwing hardly holds the standard of the Topaz. It seats thirty-odd tables and a handful of booths pointing towards a main stage and dancefloor. A cheap metal staircase leads to a second floor. The bar, though used as an announcement table for my men barking orders to the patrons, isn’t anything to write home about.
A few men lay dead, all suited in the dark blues of Barberetti’s organization. The Nightwings patrons are on the ground with their hands above their heads.
“Up there,” Emilio points to the staircase.
A small group of my loyalists move up first with their guns fixed to the top. I’m right behind them.
“You set me up,” Rocco shouts. His shrill voice has the earpiece producing distorted feedback that sends a shiver down my spine.
“I’ll kill you.” I don’t need the earpiece anymore. I can hear Rocco through the door, but with it comes the loud banging of two gunshots.
“Kick in the door,” I say. My man listens, his gun fixed on the entry point.
His boot hits the handle and wood splinters as the door flies inward. He shoots four bullets.
“What the fuck?” Rocco shouts.
I approach the door calmly. Donny’s at the desk opposite Rocco who’s holding a gun in his hand. Two of his crew lay dead, slumped on the ground with bullet wounds in their chest.
Donny reaches for a pistol on the table, discarded by the man my agent killed. He points it toward the door and fires three rounds.
A part of me believes the bullet struck me. The sensation of pain tears through my body and my breath becomes icy. My bones ache and my muscles scream while they fight to hold me upright. Serves me right, doesn’t it? A swift death to quell the sour taste I left in Alyssa’s mouth.
What is life without her, anyway? Every thought of her takes me back to our night together. A sullen reminder of the twisted man I am and all the wrong I’ve done to this world. She’s better off without me, but I’m worse without her. This cold hand is what I deserve most.
But from behind the door, a big man with a bigger gun strapped to his chest collapses to the ground. Maybe Donny isn’t as bad as I made him out to be.
The group who led me here enters the room and clears it as they do.
“What do you think you’re doing here, Cain?” Rocco asks. With multiple guns, including Donny’s, fixed on him, Rocco drops his weapon and falls into his seat.
“No, no,” I shake off his question and the fear of seeing my life flash before my eyes. “You took something beautiful from me, Rocco.”
“That prick enforcer? Or the stooges we gunned down?” Rocco huffs. “It’s a part of the business. You know it as well as me.”
This may have started with Bruno Tomassini’s death, but it led me down a far darker path. If Bruno didn’t die, I’d have never met Alyssa. A fate worse than death, but losing her after the fact is a pain I’d have rather never faced.
I take long, silent steps to Rocco’s desk in the center of the room.
“What do you think you’re doing here?” Rocco asks. He shoves his hands into his pocket and pulls out a cigarette. He lights up and throws the box onto the table. “You think you’re a big man? Throwing your weight on the little guy trying to make his name in this world?”
I’ve seen pictures of the old fuck before, but they must’ve been taken decades ago when Rocco was in his prime. He’s red-faced, potbellied and his good years are gone. The years of making a name for himself are long gone, and the grave is calling.
“You young blood’s are all the same,” Rocco waves a hand. “You think the world owes you something. Well, I’ll tell you what, buttercup, the world doesn’t owe you shit, and neither do I. Do you think this show of yours is going to deter me?” He smashes a proud fist into his chest. “Do you think you’ll twist my arm into submission?”
He draws a long puff on his cigarette, blowing the smoke in Donny’s direction.
“I’ll tell you what, you sorry mother fucker, there isn’t a way in hell I’m gonna get scared off by the likes of you.” Rocco brings a firm fist into the wood of his desk. It splinters and cracks.
“How long have you been rehearsing your speech?” I ask.
“The fuck did you just say to me?” The fist shifts to a flat palm and he smacks the wood again.
This time, as his hand impacts the desk, I bring the pronged end of the hammer into it. I feel his bones shatter as the prongs cut through flesh, pinning him into the desk. He howls in agony. True fear engulfs his blue eyes.
If he thought this song and dance was to frighten him, he was sorely mistaken.
