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It was an idiotic emotion and I would be nobody’s idiot again.
His visceral terror was a waste of time, the calming hope that he could offer me a shaky smile and that all of this would just go away in a puff of smoke was futile. The only option we had right now was to get this over and fucking done with. I had a check-in and I couldn’t be late.
Not after I’d worked this damn hard.
“Money. In the bag, now,” I ordered, in a tone that came out much calmer than I felt, while waving the gun toward the register.
Being an associate of a crime family was no easy feat. It was as ball-busting as it was fucking grueling. Especially for a fourteen-year-old kid from the streets. It wasn’t like finding a lost soul to recruit as a run-around, stupid enough to do all the dirty work, was a position that would be hard to fill. Which meant that I needed to be different and not expendable. Ensure they saw something in me that set me apart from the rest because there was no way I’d be a grunt forever.
$2,560.
That was what I needed to hand into Tony—a soldier for Ravensdale’s very own crime lord, Luigi Black. That total was our weekly target, and between myself and the people he had recruited, brought in a hefty wage. I’d always brought in a little bit extra and this week would top all of the others.
“I don’t have all fucking night, man. In the bag. Now!”
Burt, as it read on his name tag, hurried to empty the crisp dollar bills into the bag I handed him and as soon as it was full and the register was empty, I hauled ass out of there and did a few circuits around the block and made sure I wasn’t followed.
It was my fourth hit of the night and I’d collected around $6,900 in total.
An hour later, I pulled up to our usual meeting spot down by the quarry. Shadows danced in a pearl essence across the slick ground, still damp from the rain that not long ago fell. There was a slope that lead down to the crystalline waters as they lapped against the shore. Some quarries were fucking magnificent. The waters so clear, they would often resemble paradise.
That’s why I loved it here.
Because nobody would expect something so beautiful to be so fucking deadly.
Just like her.
Quarries were filled with toxins, so if you ever came a cross one, avoid popping in for a swim like it’s the damn fucking plague.
Tony wasn’t the only one standing there waiting for me, like he normally would. He puffed of his cigar and I could smell the plethora of smoke as I approached.
Another man stood at his side, dressed in a suit that seemed to cost more than the money burning a hole in my pocket and was blacker than the night. It made his darkly tanned skin glow in comparison under the moonlight. As I shuffled toward them, Tony looked up at me and smirked. There was nothing kind or familiar in it. It left me cold and angry, seeing the way his eyes drilled into mine with a challenge I wanted to answer. But I knew who the man idling beside him was and if I fucked this up, I inevitably fucked up the rest of my life.
“This the kid, Tone?” Luigi Black asked him with an indifferent look on his face. He offered me one fleeting glance as he shook out his arm, rubbed the corner of his eye and flickered his gaze across the waters.
That one second he spared me a look though, was like be stared at me as if he saw right through me. As if there was nothing but a hollow shell of a boy that stood before him and wasn’t worth the examination.
“Sure is, boss. The one that always brings us that little extra every week.”
“You think he’s ready?” He sounded like he was bored, like this was just another Sunday night and to him, it probably was.
“Whatcha think, kid? You ready?” Tony huffed a broken chuckle and took a long toke on his cigar before he blew the smoke in my face.
I gritted my teeth and swallowed to keep myself from biting back at the revolting smell of his breath that carried on the wind. “For what?” There was a little too much attitude in my voice and I quickly adjusted myself, standing up a little straighter.
“To give yourself to the family,” Luigi filled in the blanks and Tony was soon forgotten. I focused solely on him. The made man who took over Ravensdale with effortless ease. If I wanted the life I sought, he’d be the one to give it to me. “You do this, kid. You follow through with what I’m about to ask, tonight will be the first night of the rest of your life.”
A car door opened behind me, but I remained staring down the boss, as Tony had called him. Something told me that if I showed him any fear, I’d be the one sleeping with the fishes and not the poor sack of shit one of his men just dragged from the trunk of his fancy little car.
I didn’t move as the unknown soldier dumped tonight’s victim on the sodden ground. Nor did I even blink when he sobbed like a broken man in the face of death. I still had my gun on me from the hold-ups I did earlier, so when Luigi offered me one of his, I looked away from him and withdrew my own.
I didn’t trust that if need be, they wouldn’t use my prints against me.
The man laid at my feet clawed at the cold stone beneath him. Blood welled under his cuticles and painted crimson stripes at my feet. He looked like he was tweaking. Coming down of some kind of high that looked more like a horror show than it did any kind of bliss junkies swear they get from the shit they put into their bodies.
Another rule of this life.
You had to stay clean.
