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We would welcome him later that night in a way that would give him nightmares, but for now, his blood was enough, it was a through-and-through shot, and a little bit of suffering never hurt anyone, not when it came to our lives and what we protected.
“Let’s go,” Chase barked.
I sat down and grabbed my glass of wine.
Nixon sat to my right, Phoenix to my left.
“What?” I asked.
“This won’t end well,” Nixon said under his breath.
“No, but mark my words, I will fucking end it,” I snapped.
CHAPTER FIVE
“I have built my organization upon fear.” —Al Capone
Katya
Alice and Santino had dressed every wound, fixed everything on me, added cream, and much to my embarrassment, when Alice couldn’t quite finish the stitches on my stomach because she was crying so hard over my bruised ribs and hips, Santino took over.
She was still there, she held my hand, but I was nearly naked, in nothing but clean underwear and a black sports bra, while Santino easily stitched the rest, tied them, and moved to my arm. I could barely feel the needle since they’d given me pain medicine and a local anesthetic.
The hands of an assassin for the mafia—his hands were gentle, and I didn’t want to feel peace when he touched me when he sealed the wounds and kept the blood from spilling when all he did was spill blood.
Wasn’t that irony or an oxymoron?
Either way, he was good at keeping people alive as well as killing them, a man of many talents. When he was done, he went and washed my blood from his hands and waited for Alice to help me dress.
When Alice left. He stayed watch by the door. Did the thought ever occur to him that having an actual assassin watch me sleep was having the opposite effect?
Finally, I faked it. I started breathing a bit deeper and closed my eyes.
The floor creaked as he moved—thinking I was asleep.
The joke was on all of them. I wasn’t going to be able to sleep for a very long time. The bastard even came all the way over to the bed and poked me, then hovered over me like a distressed parent before finally cursing and shutting the door softly behind him.
It was three seconds, maybe four.
Stupidly I almost reached out to him, almost grabbed his arm, and begged him to stay—to hold me and tell me that everything was going to be okay. That I wasn’t just trading nightmares and jailers. Maybe I didn’t want an assassin watching me sleep, but it was nice knowing he would use his body as a shield if anyone broke in.
I squeezed my eyes shut harder and kept my breathing even.
Several voices sounded from downstairs; most of them sounded happy, and then I heard a gunshot.
I pulled the covers over my head as my body shook.
Did everyone have guns?
Knives?
What sort of world had I just walked into?
What sort of brother did I even have?
I squeezed my eyes shut tighter as visions of my father’s gun flashed in my line of vision, of my brother Andrei’s blood as he got hit with the back of my dad’s hand.
My mom’s hollow eyes.
