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The moment his laughter dies, they all stop.
“His girlfriend got frisky with me so I gave her what she wanted,” Vito says, inching closer and closer to me, his voice getting sleazy. “I can tell you want it too. You’re a little large for my tastes, but you’re nice’n young, so I’ll give you a go.”
My chest feels like it’s going to shatter in half. My heart slams, slams, slams against my ribs.
A little large for my tastes.
All my life, it comes back to that. Whenever I get into an argument, whenever somebody wants to wound me, they resort to my size.
I clench my fists at my sides, my hands shaking, praying to who-knows-what for this to end right now so I don’t do something I’ll regret.
Or maybe I won’t be able to regret it. Maybe it will end right here, in blood and pain, and I’ll only have minutes or seconds to realize I need to get control of my temper.
“Look at this, fellas,” Vito sneers, but he keeps his gaze firmly pinned on me. “It looks like she’s getting a little feisty. What is it, sweetheart? You want to—”
“Please,” the man in the trashcan murmurs. “I can’t breathe…”
Vito spins and kicks it, and then he starts leaping around, swearing at the sky, using every curse word he can seemingly think of.
I would laugh if I didn’t get the sense it would result in my death. I feel frozen in place, like I’m sinking into quicksand, unable to move. All I can do is seethe silently as he recovers his poise and runs a hand through his hair.
“Interrupt me again,” Vito growls at the trashcan, “and I will fucking let you out. But you won’t like it.”
Vito sighs and glances at one of his men.
“We have to deal with her. Make her disappear,” he mutters. “She’s seen too much.”
“Yes,” the man says, without any change in his tone of voice. He’s probably around forty years old, on the heavier side, with a weighty gold chain hanging around his neck. “But maybe we should get him to do it.”
“He doesn’t do women,” one of the others says, a younger man with a broken nose.
I feel like a rat trapped between a gang of wildcats, with no escape, with no possibility of escape.
They’re discussing my murder the same way they’d discuss ordering a cappuccino.
Vito snaps his gaze to the younger man.
“He’ll do whatever the fuck I tell him to do,” he growls.
He turns back to me with an unhinged grin.
“I’ll be seeing you very soon, Rosie Smithson, very soon indeed,” he says.
They turn and begin to stride down the alleyway. I see the black car parked across the street.
How did I miss that before?
They were watching me the whole time, probably laughing their asses off.
“Wait,” I say, my voice rising despite myself.
One of the men – the younger one with the bent nose – spins before the others and shakes his head frantically at me. There’s fear in his eyes, and a message, Shut up, you idiot, or he’ll shoot you right here.
Vito turns slowly.
“Did you say something, bitch?” he says.
“I need my driver’s license,” I murmur, even as a voice inside of me screams to shut up, just shut the hell up right now. “My Mom is sick and I need to take her to her hospital appointments.”
Vito narrows his eyes at me as though he thinks I’m joking.
His hand twitches toward his jacket, as though he’s going to grab his gun and shoot me any second.
The younger man glares at me, glares hard, screaming silently at me.
“I’m sorry,” I say, somehow forcing the words past my closing throat and the panic rioting through me. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“That’s right,” Vito said. “You shouldn’t. Tell your cunt mother to get the bus.”
He turns and stalks back over to his car.
I stumble out of the alleyway, feeling as though my throat is closing up. All the air in my body feels as though it’s being sucked out of me, my belly suddenly empty, sickness churning acidly inside of me.
I move down the street, trying to make my breathing come slowly. Even as the street wavers and distorts with my tears – and seems about to fall sideways at any moment – I try to force down the rising terror inside of me.
When I finally reach my apartment building, I want to scream with all the pent-up fear bubbling up inside of me.
I stumble across the lobby and then pause, glancing at the door.
Fuck.
I’ve forgotten the lemonade.
But it’s not like I can go back now.
I keep walking.
Chapter Four
Ryland
I sit in the bar, moving my finger around the edge of the whisky glass. I haven’t taken a sip. I won’t take a sip.
I can never relax around mob guys. They’ll laugh with you one second and then go for their guns the next.
