AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He looks up at me with his mouth hanging open, looking lost. They always get like this when faced with actual violence—the rats of the world, the abusers, the sadistic freaks. They always look so shocked that there’s somebody bigger and meaner or more fucked up.
I raise my fist, and he flinches and covers up. “What do you want me to say?”
“Tell me about it,” I growl. “Explain the business model to me. I’m interested.”
“It’s just… supply and demand. Get the product and sell it.”
“The product.It.” For some reason, I think of a future daughter, mine and Mia’s. “Ritchie, I want to give you a choice now. You can agree to get into the trunk of my car, or we can do it so it will be much more uncomfortable for you.”
He looks at me, his eyes wide, shaking all over. He said it himself. They know me as the devil on the West Coast, but he didn’t truly understand until now.
“Decide,” I snap, shaking him.
He swallows. All those tough-guy moments in his life, all that bravado, all the bullshit. It all comes down to this. He’s a shit-scared bully, just like Vito, just like any piece of shit that uses women and kids to make money.
“I’ll… come,” he says, sounding like he’s just lost every bit of self-respect he ever had.
“You’ll have to sit tight for a while,” I tell him, nodding toward my car. “I’ve got a meeting. Then we’ll take a drive.”
“Dante…” He stops, looking at me, his hands at his sides, holding on awkwardly from where I wrenched it. His head is bleeding slightly. He looks dazed. It’s helping me, making him more docile. “Am I going to make it out of this? I never touched her. I never knew her.”
I grin, patting him on the arm, trying to make him believe I could ever take his side, even for a second. “I need you. I don’t want to hurt you. You’re going to be my hostage, Ritchie. That’s all. Or you can try to fight me here.”
He’s in no shape to do that. I lead him across the street toward my car.
“Get in the passenger seat for now. Then I’ll pull over, and we’ll get you in the trunk.” I pat him on the back, causing the weasel to flinch. Yet he was so tough when it was a kid he was facing off against. “Or try something, Ritchie.”
He gets in the car. I get into the driver’s seat, thinking of this man, a younger version, shaking a “little girl Mia,” glaring at her, saying vicious things, filling her mind with hate.
My phone buzzes again. Both texts are from Ma.
WHERE ARE YOU?
DID THAT SEND?
Usually, I’d smirk at her attempts to text, but I’m feeling too damn serious.
Ritchie disgusts me. A real man would’ve fought. He’s a real, big bad wolf, but only tough when he can afford to be.
“Aren’t you going to ask me if Tony is going to make it out alive,” I say.
Ritchie swallows audibly. He slowly seems to be coming to his senses, but that’s making him more afraid, more aware, not braver. He’s a rodent caught in a trap.
“He’s Leonardo Mareno’s brother.”
“That won’t be enough,” I snarl. “He’s going to pay for what he did. Nobody hurts my woman and gets away with it. Nobody.”
“Uh…”
“But you didn’t hurt her, Ritchie. You said it yourself. You just did what’s best for the Family. Just sit back. Relax. Don’t get excited.”
He leans against the window. I’m speaking at him aggressively, and it deflates him. He knows how pathetically powerless he is. He knows I’m just saying empty words. He knows that the hurting-Mia rule damn well includes him, too.
“When do I get in the trunk?” he whispers, sounding pathetic and defeated.
This is where the darkness comes in. This is where it drills into me and makes me question if I’m a bad man. I’m enjoying this too much because I know what sort of person he was before. Puffed-up and intimidating, staring down at a child.
“Soon,” I tell him gruffly.
