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He chuckled nervously, shuffling his feet while I took the opportunity to saunter closer to him like I had the upper hand here.
“I won’t fall for your tricks, boy.”
“Suit yourself.” I shrugged while faking to look at my nails, putting on the damn performance of a lifetime. “You know fairly well what we are by now. No point in hiding it anymore. I’m not much into forcing myself onto women like you, but I do get a good kick from a little light torture. You know. Some wooden splinters under the nail, sanding some skin, and moisturizing with lime and salt. All green, I can assure you. We make it a point to use bamboo only. Mara will appreciate the effort.”
“There’s no way you could have gotten to her so quickly.”
“I have my ways. But it’s your gamble, really. I’m an all-in kinda guy, too. Wanna call or check?”
“Drop her!” He roared out of nowhere, the forks dropping down a whole foot before stopping.
My heart hammered like thunder inside my chest, but I kept the blank mask in place, taking a lesson out of my brother’s fucking rule book.
Serenity and control.
“That was close,” I teased, bringing a chuckle to my lips as if I were cheering him on, biting hard on my tongue to keep myself in check. “My turn.”
With one hand stretched out towards Mercier, I fished the burner from my pocket and dialed Don Massimo on speaker before tossing the phone for Mercier to catch.
“Hello?” A thin, sweet voice called from the other side, broken and fragile with fear. They knew not to hurt her. It wasn’t her fault her father was a sick motherfucker, and hurting women and children didn’t sit right with me. The innocent ones, at least. But Mercier didn’t know that.
“Mara!”
“Dad?” She asked again, incredulous. “What’s going on? Who are these people?”
I watched his face pale further as if it didn’t have the color of decaying flesh already before a rush of redness filled his cheeks.
Don Amato’s eyes were fixated on the man controlling the forklift as if he were daring him to drop the crate.
The man knew that, by now, he’d fucked up enough to leave with a shiny black body bag as an accessory to his gray suit. If not today, he’d have the whole Cosa Nostra ready to settle the score with such a dishonorable Made Man.
By blood you enter, by fucking blood you leave.
In a fit of rage, Mercier threw the phone against the concrete floor, smashing it to pieces. He couldn’t think that would fix his predicament, right?
Wrong.
“Drop her!” He roared again, and this time the machine pulled back, the forks slipping from under the crate.
My soul left my body in that instant. The motion of the crate falling cut the oxygen straight from my lungs.
No.
No!
NO! This couldn’t be happening!
In less than the blink of an eye, the wooden box smashed onto the concrete, pieces flying in every direction. A twelve-foot drop was enough to destroy the fragile container and anything it held inside.
I had done this. I had driven him to drop her like she was nothing.
Both Don Amato and I ran to the pile of wood without even looking. It was an instinctual reaction. And as panic settled in our hearts and minds, Mercier ran while we faced a huge pile of broken wooden planks and nothing else.
“Fuck…” I exhaled in relief while Don Amato panted heavily beside me, his heart clearly still lodged in his throat.
“I’m gonna kill that fucker.” He said, standing up and running towards his gun before taking after Mercier.
I stood with my hands still shaking. Panic, fear, rage. All of the above coursed through me like a lethal poison as self-preservation slipped through the cracks of my trembling fingers. Reaching up, I grabbed one of the metal hooks hanging from the steel rods above my head, walking calmly down the path Mercier and Don Amato had taken.
