Page 121 of A New Days Don

Vicek starts to laugh, “Serves him right for being such a pussy and bowing down to his wife. Fucking embarrassment.”

“Dr. Alverez was your brother? You killed your brother?” I seethe.

“Dr. Mitch Vicek, until he took his asshole of a wife’s name. She cut the balls right off him and kept them in her purse. Killing her was divine.” Vicek reminisces, “We may have been twins, but we were nothing alike other than some of our looks. He got the fem genes, and I was given all the masc genes. Lucky for this city, one of us was brave enough to clean it.”

“That’s what you thought you were doing? Cleaning this city of what? Innocent lives? You’re a monster, Vicek, not a God.” I bite back, and he rolls his eyes.

“Of course you would think so. Those sex workers have been plaguing this city and the world. They sell their dirty fucking bodies for drugs. Gerardo was as much of a fool as you are.” His reasoning is absurd. This man is mad and sick. He deserves everything that’s coming to him.

“What do you mean Gerardo was a fool?” I tread the question carefully, watching as Vicek slams his fist against the glass of the driver’s side window. It cracks but doesn’t shatter under his anger.

“I found Gerardo flirting, wining and dining, and bringing that whore home with him.” He growls, “The man is deranged and weak. He fell in love with a fucking whore. The same one that had saved you. She should have left you for dead, but she couldn’t behave her scrawny heroin-addicted ass.”

That’s why Gerardo’s DNA was found on Jazzy. He loved her?

“She was an idiot, though. Never accepted his offers to move her in with him and start their lives together. She always insisted her calling was to help others get clean and off the streets.” Vicek calms down for a moment, his mind lost in contemplation.

My phone begins to vibrate in my pocket, making my heart race in my chest. The sound is loud enough to capture Vicek’s attention as it unravels. His crazed, hazel eyes meet mine. I don’t make a move for it until Vicek’s face relaxes, as if this game he’s playing became all the more interesting.

“Go on, answer it.” His lips pull wide.

When I pull my phone from my back pocket, I see Massimo’s name on the screen and every panicking nerve in my body quiets.

“Mas,” I murmur into the phone, not wanting Vicek to hear, but knowing he will anyway.

There is a beat that passes between Massimo and I. His shaky breath releases into the phone’s microphone, “Sweetheart, where are you?”

Hearing his voice is like the breath of fresh air that I needed. He can’t do anything to save me from what is to come, but whatever happens next, at least it was his voice in my mind, not Vicek’s.

Vicek shoots me a stern glare, one of his hands resting on his gun. Message received. Keep your mouth shut and get Massimo off our tail, or you’re dead.

“I was hungry. I am on my way to grab a bite.” I tell him as cheerfully as I can muster. A part of me hopes that, however he has been finding my location these past few months, he is using that right now and can see that I am lying.

“Angelo mio, you aren’t in the city.” He tells me, confirming everything I needed to know. He can see my location.

Relief like nothing I have felt before washes over me.

Now I have to let him know I’m with Vicek and somehow hint that he’s the killer.

“Oh, Vicek and I are headed to a little spot outside of town. He wanted to show me a new little hole-in-the-wall barbecue that sells a mean pork roast.” My voice cracks at the end. Everything in me is screaming to get out of this, to beg for my life. All reactions I know won’t work. Not against someone who has been planning your murder for years and is looking forward to the life disappearing from your eyes.

Massimo curses, and when the line goes silent, I can hear the purr of his Audi.

“It’s okay, angel. Everything is going to be fine. I have heard of those little hole-in-the-wall restaurants. You won’t be disappointed.” Massimo keeps his voice steady.

He’s trying to comfort me, but he won’t make it out there in time. Not at the rate Vicek is going.

But he knows where I will be.

Massimo’s voice breaks through the momentary blip of terror, “I should have been the one to take you out for barbecue.” Translation: I should have been there with you.

“Mas…” I whisper, and Vicek grips his gun.

“Phone call over!” Vicek snaps.

“Don’t hang up,” Massimo growls.

“I’m sorry.”