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But no less fair than slicing his throat open with a wire from the backseat of a car or shooting him on the sidewalk, or slinging him up and cutting pieces from his bones.
Herlife hasn't been fair.
Dustin's trashy daughter—
And he took pictures of my property, of the most beautiful fucking images of a sad girl who has been through too much. None of it isfair, but this life will be more than that to her from now on. The life I give her…
My body creates a shadow over him, a creeping blanket that covers the light cast from overhead. I drop to my knees, hearing the word"boy"echoing in my mind.
"Hit me," I hiss at him, lowering my arms, unguarded, and welcoming, "hit me, my friend."
He lifts up with a throaty growl. Charged, he implants the brass below my right eye, opening my flesh. Blood pours down my face and into my mouth. I smile around the hot, thick fluid.
Then I lay into him.
It is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, but—Dustin's trashy daughter—I want all his fucking teeth!
I slam my fist into his mouth, ramming several shards of white teeth down his throat, provoking him to raise his hands to protect his face. I break the bone in his forearm.
Crack!
Another hit to the mouth.
I deliver punch after punch.
The next one harder than the last, hearing his disrespectful tone talking about my father, and thinking about the warehouse. The bullshit. The disloyalty.
Fucker.
His blood begins to spray my face as I slowly cave the bones into the soft tissue within, but I keep jabbing. Even as the blood gushes from him like a fountain, as it drenches my shirt, my face.
My knuckles shift around under the pressure, once broken and having never completely healed. I ignore it. And I keep jabbing even as he stops moving, as the silence hangs ominously between each time my fist deepens the cavity now in his skull.
I keep jabbing.
Then I stop, lean back on my heels, and pant.
Still staring down at him, the unseeing glaze of death creeps across his wide eyes.
Boy.
I spit at him, the crimson fluid landing on the bludgeoned mass of his body. "Much better." I regain my resolve through deep breaths.
Slowly and calmly, I climb to my feet and turn to face the rest of my guests, knowing the sight of their colleague's blood seeping into my clothes will churn their stomachs.
I open my arms wide, smiling reassuringly, the metallic flavour of blood moving across my tongue as I speak. "I will not punish anyone else for his mistakes." Walking to the bench, I collect a towel, casually wiping the red fluid from my face and hair. I speak as the white towel is slowly dyed red. "Boxing is at the core of my Family. At the core of theCosa Nostra.I realised yesterday that not everyone has the same respect for the sport. You have never been in the ring, no? And so, I insist you embrace it.
"Every Sunday, I will welcome you all to my gym, where a member of your firm will be nominated to fight. I pick the opponent. And Vincenzo,"—training my gaze to his stern but respectful eyes, I make clear—"the Irish will be here too. Our entire operation will be welcome.Equal." I turn back to the bench and begin to pull my shoes on. They will not only be welcome, but participation will be compulsory. I don't need to articulate this, of course.
"The winner will get twenty thousand dollars, and the loser will… also get twenty thousand dollars. We will do business here after. We will bleed here. We will be aFamilyhere." I walk towards the freezer chest on the back wall and open the thick lid, white vapour emanating from the gap. "I have a gift for you."
The three men approach carefully, and I watch Lucky Louis peer hesitantly into the steaming cold pit of the freezer. His face relaxes when he sees thick pink legs of pork.
Staring blankly at him, I notice he is fighting to look away from the tightly wrapped meat, still sure he'll see something unseemly. I lift a leg up to offer him, and he sucks a rough breath in when the side of a human head previously hidden beneath the produce comes into view. Dull brown eyes stare absently up at us.
I confirm, "The boy who broke into my warehouse and costusmillions of dollars in weaponry. The other boy is below him." I hand Louis the leg, smiling smoothly through the corner of my mouth. "For your family,Lucky."
Lucky, indeed.
