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When I look closer, I find them to be gardening secateurs.
His man places them down gently in the center of his palm, like a scalpel being offered to a surgeon.
Cordoza ponders the cutters with a curious stare. Finally, he looks to Tim and lifts a brow. “If Emilio Pastore thinks it’s good business to slice a Malone and send him home in pieces, then it’s only fair you do the same in return. To balance the scales of power in our city, you don’t kill him. You repay the favor.”
“Oh god!” Pastore sobs loudly, his chest heaving with a hitching breath. “Please no.”
“You do not run this city.” Cordoza glares down at him. “And you don’t harm another family unless you wish for me to step in.” He brings his eyes back to Tim. “Who wants to do it?”
“Me.” I step two inches to the right and place myself between Estefan Cordoza and the man who will lead our family to another war. Maybe.
Tim doesn’t want any of this. He doesn’t even want the name he was born with. But twenty feet away, Micah’s body grows weaker. His skin is as gray as my father’s was an hour ago, which means Tim is in this until his family is safe.
“I’ll do it,” I repeat, extending my hand in wait. “But my brother needs a doctor.” I look back to Micah. “He needs help immediately.”
“Yes.” Cordoza snaps his fingers again, so the middle of the group, made of color and gowns, shifts. They swallow up Micah and Cato, while other soldiers leave the room at a sprint, if only for long enough to collect a doctor and supplies.
“Your brother will be taken care of.” Carefully, Cordoza places the cutters in my palm and grins. “I haven’t looked into your eyes since you were sixteen years old, Archer Malone. Who have you become? What will you do for your family?”
“Whatever needs to be done,” I rumble seriously and turn the tool over in my hand.
Why, in this moment, do I think of Minka and the tools she uses to cut through a man’s ribcage? Why, when I stand in front of Estefan Cordoza, do I remember that autopsy she allowed me to watch, and the way her shoulders grew with strength because of the work she put into each cut?
“You’ll even the scales of justice?” Cordoza asks.
“Yes.” I nod. “I’ll do it.”
Wrapping my palm around the handle of the instrument and gently pushing Tim back, I stop in front of Pastore and crouch to get on his level. His eyes burn red, and the long vein in his forehead pulses from adrenaline and terror.
The first will help him with pain management. The second… won’t.
“It didn’t have to go this way,” I murmur to the prick. “You shouldn’t have touched what wasn’t yours. I never had to be in New York, if not for you thinking you could impose on my family.”
“I’m sorry!” Sobbing, he blows spit with each word. But he doesn’t speak to me. His pleading is for Cordoza. “Boss, I’m sorry. You know this year has been hard! You know the Malones took advantage when the Mancinos fell. What was I supposed to do?”
Chuckling, Cordoza comes closer and threads his fingers in Pastore’s slick hair. Tugging his head back with a vicious yank, he waits until their eyes meet. “Funny you should mention the Mancinos, Emilio. I received an interesting phone call just this morning from someone you might find familiar.”
“W-wh…” Emilio heaves for breath. For calm. “What do you mean?”
Glancing over his shoulder, Cordoza merely looks to his wall of soldiers to have them stepping aside. Then the middle of the wall, the color I spied, moves forward.
Women in gowns, just as I suspected. Long, brown hair, beautiful faces.
Two women who clearly share the same genetic makeup step forward in dresses that belong at the most elegant black-tie events. But only one carries a gun. The other merely looks down at Emilio and smirks.
“M-Michelle?” Pastore chokes out. He attempts to push up straight, but Cordoza’s guards keep him hunched. “Michelle?” he tries again. “Oh my god, Michelle! You’re safe?”
My eyes narrow, because recognition flares in my belly. My fingers wrap around a pair of secateurs, but my brain searches, searches, searches for where I know these women from.
Michelle Mancino is easy to place; the name, but not the face.
“Estefan.” The woman in front crosses the room with the other just behind, the one who is clearly her sister. She sidles up under the boss’ arm and accepts a gentle kiss on her cheek. “Such a lovely party you’ve invited me to.”
He chuckles, gentle and adoring. Somehow, she makes the man we all fear… soft. “It makes this old man’s day when a beautiful young woman calls me up and asks to be my escort to Emilio Pastore’s birthday party.” He glances to the other woman and looks her up and down. “Two of them.” He winks.
“I don’t…” Pastore looks from one to the other. Searching. Comparing. “I’m so…” He groans when thinking seems to hurt too much. “I would have invited you, Michelle. I didn’t know where you—”
“You don’t know where I live,” she cuts in with a sly grin. “Yes. I know.” She stops close on my left and bends in a beautiful gown made of midnight blue. The fabric slits near the top of her thigh, and when she leans down, I glimpse her bare back, too.
