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The tears stop after a while. I don’t stop crying, but the tears refuse to come and eventually I’m left blinking around blearily at the room I’m in, the muscles in my chest and back and stomach aching from constantly tensing.
The floor is cheap, thin tile. There’s a drain in the center. A bucket was placed in the far corner. I can guess what that’s for. There’s a utility sink and some shelves on the walls. A simple metal stool sits in the corner. A door in the far wall. It smells musty, and I guess I’m in a basement, but I don’t know. There’s no window. The walls are bare drywall. I wonder if I could punch and kick my way through. Drywall isn’t that tough. Maybe, but they’d hear.
Not that it matters.
I sit up, dizzy still. I must have a concussion. I shouldn’t have been allowed to sleep, but I’m not sure these men care about whether I live or die. Though they did go through the trouble of bringing me here, which suggests they have a plan for me after all.
Wherever here is.
I close my eyes and lean forward, head in my hands. Aiden’s dead. Shane’s dead. Aiden will have a closed casket like his older brother did. Will Callum and Nolan face the same fate? Throats cut, mourned before their time?
I hear footsteps and suddenly something on the door clicks. I try to stand, but I’m too dizzy and I sink back down. The door opens and Maceo steps into the room. He’s wearing new clothes—black shirt, black slacks—and he stares at me for a long moment. I try to look past him, into the hall, but it’s dark.
He closes the door behind him and stands there, staring at me. Frowning, as if he doesn’t like what he sees.
Maceo’s a big man. Broad shoulders, big chest. He’s in good shape, though getting a little soft in the middle. I guess he’s in his forties, and there’s some gray speckled into his dark beard. His brown eyes stare into mine with a vicious anger, one I don’t fully understand. Why does this man seem to hate me in particular? I get that heady sense of familiarity again, like I’ve looked into those eyes before, as he walks over and drags the stool across the tile. He sits in the middle of the room, perched like a gargoyle, palms on his thighs.
I gaze back at him. I don’t know want to speak right now. I’m not sure I even can. My mouth is dry and my tongue feels huge. Dull pain and fear pulse through me, and I try to get myself together, but it’s hard, like I’m dragging myself along the bottom of a muddy lake.
“Your brother is dead,” Maceo says. “Your family is in shambles. I should feel good about this. I should be happy I got some small measure of revenge. But nothing feels good anymore.”
I frown at him and blink, trying to keep his face in focus. “I don’t understand.” My voice sounds like a croak.
“I wanted Anarbek to crack your brother’s head like an egg. It would’ve been fitting, and Anarbek has done much worse. But Emin insisted it must be clean. Bad enough that we were killing the son of Fergal Halloran, but to do it in a disrespectful way? No, even Emin wouldn’t cross that line.” Maceo releases one bitter laugh and leans forward. “I would’ve done it myself if given the chance.”
“Why?” I whisper, trying to understand. “The war?”
“The war,” he says, sneering. “Yes, the war, and a lot more than that. Do you have any idea what your family has done over the years? The suffering you’ve caused? I bet you do. I’m sure you’re aware. Dead sons and husbands and fathers and grandfathers. Scores of bodies littering the ground. Lining the bottom of the Schuylkill river. Feeding the Delaware fish. We were so close to settling things with your father, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not after what happened to Hasad.”
A part of me wants to argue. Some corner of my mind is so warped by a life in close proximity to the clan that I want to try to make him see that the violence is necessary to keep order. That the clan does more good than harm. The clan takes care of its own, feeds its families, provides work and prosperity for its members.
There’s joy in the clan. There’s happiness and real family. Love lingers beneath the pain.
But I don’t believe any of that, not really.
Instead, I ask, “Who is Hasad?”
He bares his teeth. “Hasad was my brother.”
“What happened to him?”
“He was sent to kill you. Instead, his body was brought back in a bag. His skull was crushed. Smashed to pieces. He was brutally slaughtered, my brother Hasad, the only person I’ve ever loved in this world. Slaughtered because of you and your family.”
