I wait for him to come back, and he sits down. He stares at me hard.
"What?" I ask.
"Do you have the names of anyone else? Even street names, I can work with those. Do you know which people might be after you and had the money to put multiple hit calls out for your name?"
I frown at him. "They're too big, you won't be able to kill them."
He shakes his head. "I don't care. The scum need to die. I have more ways to kill people than just with bullets. Tell me, Gwen, or write them down."
There's that shiver again. The tone in his voice, him saying my name. I'll be using that later for when I have alone time with the shower wand. "Please hand me the notepad."
He reaches over next to him and pulls the notepad from the shelf. It's faster to write them out, spelling out each name with signs will just take too long. I don't know why I'm doing this. He's not going to be able to do anything. That's why nothing has happened to them yet. Harold was the only man they could touch. He wasn't as high profile as the others. Not only that, he didn't have enough money to get the cops off his back.
My hand trembles as I write some of them. There are a couple on the list that the mere thought of them fills me with terror. Ripping the page off I hand it to him. He looks over it and his eyes narrow. He folds it in halves and takes it over to his jacket hanging by the door. He puts it in the inner pocket. "Don't you worry, I'll take care of them."
That does nothing but make me worried. I know this guy is probably rich or well off, but some of those names on the list can make him disappear without even trying. It would be like he was never even born.
He sits back down on the couch and sips what looks like only vodka in his glass. "Those scars on your body, which one of those bastards did those?"
My stomach flips as flashes of Harold cutting me comes back to my mind. "Harold. Once we started to age out of what his clients liked he would punish us for doing anything he didn't like by cutting us. It was his way of making sure no one would ever want us and that we would never want to get away because we would be alone. And he was supposed to be our family. The last thing he would mark is the face. I got away from him before he could do that. It would've made trying to get a job even harder."
He shakes his head. "I'm so sorry you had to go through any of that." He reaches out and takes my hand.
I stare at our joined hands. His touch is nice, soothing. The kind of touch that could lull you to sleep because it feels like they're healing you. My heart hammers so hard. He makes me want to never let him go. But I have to. I can't let my heading towards drunk brain, as the vodka settles more into my system, think that I have a chance with someone like him who makes me feel safe. He's just being nice, him holding my hand doesn't mean anything,
I pull from his grasp to sign. "That's my story, at least of how I got here. If you want more details I will have to be plastered for that."
He shakes his head. "I have my list, I don't need more. No reason to make you relive more things when you don't need to. I'm going to go take a shower. Feel free to put a movie on that you want to sleep to."
Getting up he gets sweats and a shirt out from under the bed. I washed the set he left here. I'm so glad this place has a washer and dryer and I didn't need to hang things from tree branches to dry.
He pauses as he turns toward the bathroom, he looks at me. "How is your side doing? Has the wound given you any issues? Any infection?"
My hand presses to my right side and then I lift it to sign, "It's doing better. It healed pretty fast. I took out the stitches yesterday. The skin is fully fused, so I think I'll be okay. No infection, that shot they gave me worked."
His gaze goes to my side. I get the feeling that he wants to see it, but I don't feel comfortable exposing any part of me to him right now, I don't want to see the disgust in his eyes.
After a moment he nods. "Just keep an eye on it until it's fully healed. Infection can still set in or you could rip it by accident when the skin is still fresh."
I nod and watch him go into the bathroom. I let out a sigh. Harold was right about one thing. I don't want to be alone anymore. I want family, but who would ever love me?
Chapter Ten
Porter
Joe Materson,also known as The Bet on the streets. He works with the Kotovs and a bit with our family. He's known for being good at making bets. He's won a lot of money messing with the systems. We've used him to make more money, it turns out he's one of the men on her list. From what I could gather Richard Dockson had been the head of a prolific sex ring. Full of influential figures. Gwen had been pulled into it and managed to get out before they killed her. Rage seethes in me at the fact that a scumbag from that circle has been working with our families. He was around when Rosalie was still a little girl.
My stomach turns at the thought of Ros being pulled into that life and not being able to get out. That's why we all made sure she knew how to cut a man's throat almost as soon as she could walk so that no one would be able to touch or mess with her without her consent. She's a killer now through and through, and I don't worry about her, but I wish more women could be brought up like that. If Gwen had, she would've been able to figure out a way to get out before anything happened to her. She would've been able to take down that monster.
I train my scope on Joe Materson as he plays golf with several rich men. I've been tailing him since I got back to New York, he's probably one of the ones that put a hit on her. He knew she was in New York and wants her dead so she can't cause problems for him.
I want to shoot the bastard here and now, but I can't. Was he one of the men that touched her? I want to tie him up by his penis and let him hang in pain until the thing dies from loss of blood and he dies from infection. Only the most painful death will do. Making him disappear won't be as hard as some of the names on the list. I just have to plan it well. He may be rich, but he's still a low-life criminal. So making anyone around him think that he ran off to a foreign island won't be that big of a stretch to believe.
So far, for the past two days, he's been golfing with a group of men. They seem to be making some kind of deal, but I don't speak Cantonese. Ros has always been the one fluent in multiple languages, but she's off trying to seduce the leader of some small country, her newest hit. So I can't have her tag along with me and try to get the eye of any of these men, so she can listen when they think she doesn't understand.
I do think they'll be parting ways this evening, and that will give me a chance to get the asshole and take him somewhere. I'm not going to let him go quick with a bullet to the head. No, he's going to suffer greatly before he passes on, and so are all the other men on the list. Some of them will be a challenge, but they all deserve it. Not just for Gwen but all the other lives they've ruined. She deserves to feel safe again.
Tonight, this bastard will get what's coming to him.
