Page 47

?

?

AUbrY

The head of the Brassica family strolls into the room like he’s making a lunch meeting.

He doesn’t bat an eye at the blood splattered across the carpet, save for stepping around it to protect his shoes.

So thin I swear I can hear his skin snapping over his bones, he is the complete opposite in Mr. Ato in size, both figuratively and literally.

“Brock.” The madness snaps from Mr. Ato’s eyes only to be replaced with utter panic. “We don’t have anything scheduled…” He waves his hand at Goji who flips his gun around and pulls out his phone.

“Nothing here,” Goji says as if that can shield Mr. Ato from the mighty fist of the Brassicas.

“Can a man not stop by to check on his assets?”

Sadie’s forgotten. I’m forgotten. The files.

Everything vanishes from Mr. Ato’s mind as he folds in on himself and scampers away from a man that could be blown over in a light breeze.

“Of course. Of course. Please. Can I get you a drink? There’s…

” He stares at the mess of glass, some of which is still embedded in Red’s face.

I snake a hand out to take Sadie by the arm only for Green to dig the gun into my temple. “Don’t,” he warns.

The move snags him the wrong attention. Mr. Oli casually glances over his shoulder at the piece about to splatter my brains across the tomato painting. “Is that really necessary?” he asks.

“Put the gun down,” Mr. Ato orders.

“But you said…”

“Do it!”

With a grunt, Green flips his gun away. I barely wait for the metal to pull off my skin before I take Sadie and herd her behind me. She trips in the pools of blood failing to soak into the scotch guarded rug. As her hands land on my chest and back, I cinch my arm around her waist and hold her.

My eyes dart to the door, but there’s more than just Green and Goji in the way. The Brassica head brought friends. A lot of them.

“What…? What can I get you, Brock?” Mr. Ato asks, scampering for his stock of good shit. “Would you like a chair?” He glances to the one they tried to torture me in. The one I broke in half in the fight. Without missing a beat, he grabs his and starts to wheel it around.

“That isn’t necessary, Tom,” Mr. Oli assures him with a grandfatherly smile. “This shouldn’t take long. I’m only here for one thing.”

“What’s that?”

The smile drops. “Clarity.”

“Hey.”

“Fuck!”

The Brassica guards move fast, binding then bagging Green and Goji.

Not that they have a huge challenge against the ones who were beaten to a pulp either by me or Ato.

Red tries to run at one’s knees, but he’s only been brought back to life for a dozen minutes.

The sudden exertion crumples him to his knees.

Without saying a word, two men in black suits zip-tie Red’s hands behind his back, then slap a velvet bag over his head.

I try to block their view of Sadie, hoping she might be lost in the scuffle, but the Brassicas don’t glance twice at her. Or me.

“Would you mind giving us some privacy?” Mr. Oli asks, not taking his eyes off of Mr. Ato.

Without saying a word, two men drag Gogi out. One literally drags Red across the floor. When the last man drops his hand on Green’s docile shoulder, the Bell sibling whirls around. The zip-tie around his hands shatters and he spins his arm, the gun back in his palm.

I weave, following the path, but before he can even line it up against one of the Brassicas’ heads—electricity arcs through his body.

Green’s black-bagged head shakes like a condemned man’s, his whole body twitching until piss runs down his leg, and he collapses.

Two of the Brassicas catch him, but neither cares about the gun that clatters to the floor.

After they cart Green out strung between their shoulders, one gives a quick glance around the room, then closes the door. I know they’re not really gone. They’re sitting right outside the room, ready to react the second anything goes wrong. I ease for the gun without taking a step.

“Brock, I can—”

The skeleton of a man whirls on Mr. Ato.

He might not have much muscle, but his spindly arms give him a level of torque that pounds so hard into Ato’s jaw it snaps his head back.

The rings across all five of his fingers certainly help.

While Ato could fight back and probably win, we all know what attacking Mr. Oli would mean.

The Brassica family wouldn’t just hunt him down.

They’d blow up his casino, salt the earth, then exterminate every member of the Nightshades from either blood or loyalty.

“This is about the last quote. There’s been a mix up. We got a new girl and—”

With a grunt, Mr. Oli punches Ato in the stomach, then shakes out his hand. “I knew you were skimming off the top, Tom. If you weren’t, I’d be worried I hired the wrong man for this job.”

“Then—” Blood drips down Mr. Ato’s chin. He wipes it off with the back of his hand, not taking his eyes off of Mr. Oli. “Then what’s the problem?”

Mr. Oli’s paying him no attention. Instead, he’s calmly dropping his rings into his pocket. Then he starts to slide on a pair of leather gloves. “The Phoenix.”

“The what?”

White leather clamps onto Mr. Ato’s remaining hair, wrenching him back so hard he sinks to his knees. In a flash, a blade slings out of a switch. Unlike Ato’s rage, Mr. Oli remains completely calm as he draws his knife to a man’s face.

“Don’t look,” I whisper to Sadie, pulling her face tight to my shoulder. I’ve only seen the kind of punishment the Brassicas dole out once. The nightmares will haunt me until I’m dead.

Pressing his fingers so tight that Mr. Ato’s cheeks bulge against the white leather, Mr. Oli drags his blade down the scruff pocking Ato’s jaw. “The Phoenix. A cargo container out of Turkey. The one you were tasked with getting to our shores.”

Mr. Ato’s wild eyes dart away from the man at his throat to me. He’s planning my gruesome death behind them.

“You told me it was an accident. Swore on your own mother’s grave that the storm couldn’t. Be. Helped.” With each word, Mr. Oli scrapes another hair off of Ato’s chin until he’s as smooth as a baby’s bottom.

With an unnerving smile, Mr. Oli stares down at the man he shaved. “You lied.” In one quick swipe, he slices down the back of Ato’s left ear. Half of the ear flops off, leaving a stub gushing blood down Ato’s suit and across the now crimson leather gloves.

“You rat-fucking bastard!” Ato screams.

Still smiling politely, Mr. Oli shakes the piece of the ear like it’s a treat for a dog, then he tosses it over his shoulder without a care. “I can’t abide liars, Tom. You know that. After what happened with your son Po, and his little excursions with that officer.”

Blood dripping from his ear, Ato glares up at Oli with a hate I haven’t seen in years. But even as his face gnarls with pure rage, tears rain down his cheeks. We all knew that Po turned traitor and was talking to the cops. But none of us ever found out what happened to him.

“I made it right.” Mr. Ato fumes before he hocks blood onto Oli’s white shirt. The man gazes down at the spot with a wry little grin.

He touches the stain with his pinkie, smearing the drop across his lapel. In one quick jerk, he grabs Ato’s hair, wrenches his head back, and digs the knife so deep into the folds of his throat, blood spurts in a line.

The voice of the devil screams out of Oli’s lungs. “My godson was on that fucking boat!”

There are no more tears. A sober and cold Ato stares up at him. “An eye for an eye, Brock.”

Mr. Oli pulls the knife back and Ato breathes. He stares at the blade as if seeing it for the first time and a small chuckle breaks out. “What is it they say about an eye for an eye? Oh, right. It makes the whole world blind.”

His hand blurs, moving to slam the blade right into Ato’s eye socket.

“No!”

The cry doesn’t come from the man about to have his eye skewered, but the woman against my side. She’s shaking. No matter how hard I try to close her ears, she has to hear all of this. What I was.

What I am.

Mr. Oli stops just before slicing through Ato’s cornea. He doesn’t let go of the man, but he turns away. “Is that her?” he asks, pointing the knife at Sadie.

I shift in the way. “Yes.”

“She’s got quite the talent at photography. Low light, no doubt done in a hurry, but even the smallest print was legible. You have my thanks, my dear.”

“You’re…you’re welcome,” she mumbles, pulled into the Brassica web of charisma. Even while watching their atrocities committed with your own two eyes, it’s impossible to respond to their politeness with anything other than more politeness.

“Seems the young woman doesn’t want you to lose your eye, Tom. Lucky for you, I happen to owe her a favor.” Mr. Oli slaps his cheek. “But you don’t need your eyelids to see.”

Her whimpering cries seize control of my body. I don’t feel anything, I don’t hear the thunk or the pull of the hammer. All I know is in one breath, I’m standing up, gun in my hand, aiming it at the head of the Brassica family.

“Stop.”

Mr. Oli stands back, the knife still in his hand.

“Talong. Right hand man to the Nightshade gang. Tell me something. I assumed you ran because you either came into a certain amount of money you weren’t supposed to have, or a girl you weren’t allowed to touch.

” His sharp eyes cut to Sadie, and I jerk the gun so I’ll take all of his attention.

He smiles at that, then wipes back his eyebrows with his bloodied pinkie.

“But that isn’t why, is it? You were there, on the deck of the Phoenix.

You saw what your boss did to my men. My family.

And it soured your stomach to learn how cruel this man posing as your father can be.

” He hefts up Mr. Ato’s head and draws the knife down his jaw, slicing the skin. “Yet, you stop me. Why?”

“I…I can’t let you kill him.”

“Can’t or won’t?” Mr. Oli asks, unruffled by having a gun on him.

I pull that trigger and every Brassica in Nevada will come down on my head. Whatever horrible things I thought Ato would do me, they’d amplify by a hundred and keep me alive for months. I shouldn’t care. Ato made his bed. He was going to hurt Sadie. Kill her.

“He’s still my family,” I cry out, locking my finger against the trigger.

A strange bead of hope flashes in Mr. Ato’s eyes.

As if we can all forget this happened and go back to the way things were.

I don’t want that. I hate this part of myself that, after every hell he’s put me through, is still loyal to him.

It’s a sickness, an addiction. I watched Green fight to the death to save him even after he almost killed his brother.

We’re all loyal to the man digging every step to our shallow graves.

Even Po, even knowing his father was going to kill him, wouldn’t flee because he loved him.

“Pull the trigger, son! We can still take them down!” Mr. Ato cries out.

I gulp, certain that’s enough for Mr Oli to stab him. Instead, the man chuckles. “Funny that you should bring up family, Talong. How was it that you came to be pulled to Tom’s bosom?”

“My grandfather—”

“Perished, tragically, in a fire. A fire that happened the same night you were home on leave. And, in an amazing coincidence, there was a fellow nightshade watching the whole thing, offering you a shoulder to cry on. And a new home.”

All the blood pools to my feet.

No. He’s not…

“That’s… What are you saying?” My hand starts to shake, the gun bounding inside my weakening grip. I smell the burning sugar cane and smoke catching in my eyes.

“Tell him,” Mr. Oli commands.

Mr. Ato’s gone silent, his lips shut tight.

“Tell him, you fat fuck!” Mr. Oli jabs the tip of the blade to his throat. “Before you have to drink soup out your neck hole for the rest of your life!”

The face I swore my life to, the eyes that made me promise to do unspeakable things in the name of family, swerve up to me. “Talong, son, I would ne—”

I fire a round into his shin. He collapses, screaming at me, blood pouring from the wound. The door flies open and two of the men race to tackle me. A single nod from Mr. Oli stops them dead while I march toward the man I once thought of as my second father.

“You set the fire.” He was there. Right there. Watching me run into the flames. Grab my grandfather’s lifeless, blackened body, and pull it out of the house. Waiting to stoke my anger, to drive me to kill innocent people. “Say it!” I press the still sizzling gun to his temples. “You killed him!”

“I did what I had to do. You belong here, with us, but that damn man wouldn’t let you even meet with me. Son—”

“Don’t…!” I hold the gun with both of my hands. There’s no way I’ll miss, but I’m terrified of letting go. “I am not your son.”

“Aubry.”

Fingers drop onto my forearm, shaking and pale, but warm. “You don’t want to do this.”

“He murdered my Lolo!” I sneer, pressing in on the trigger. “You ruined my life! I was happy before—”

“Lie to her all you want, but never to me,” Mr. Ato interrupts like it’s not his life she’s begging for. “You were miserable, serving a bunch of bigoted assholes who’d have left you to burn in that house beside him. No one came to put out the flames. I had nothing to do with that.”

They hated me. They hated what I was, what I am.

Sadie presses a cool palm to my shoulder, then she lays her head down. “Aubry,” she whispers, a name for a man who doesn’t exist. A kind man with a cat who was once a bouncer, then met a woman that changed everything in his life. “Please…”

I stare down the barrel into Mr. Ato’s eyes. Still wheeling, trying to find his way out of this. How much blood is on his hands? How much is on mine because of him?

Brave Sadie runs her palm up my locked arm.“Let’s get out of here.” She brushes against the back of my hand, her voice pleading. “Let’s go home.”

The gun slips, twisting around my finger as my hold fails.

One of Brassica’s men grabs it before it falls more than a few inches, but I don’t care.

I turn and wrap my arms around her. Pressing her beautiful face to my chest, I run through her hair, telling myself that she’s safe. And that’s all that matters.

“Take Mr. Ato to our…deluxe suit,” Mr. Oli says. The two men nod, then quickly tie and bag him up.

From under the velvet, I hear a muffled, “You should have killed me,” before he’s dragged toward the door.

I need to pick up Astin, my clothes. Find a car. Get away. Keep running. Sadie stares up at me and my panicking heart calms. Take her away from here. Do everything I can to keep her safe and make her happy.

Go back to Loomis.

A hand clamps onto my shoulder. Mr. Oli smiles wide. “Mr. Talong and I have much to discuss.”