“Carmine? What the fuck? Carmine?”
A neon blue Post-It note sticks to the top of his forehead. Half of it is soaked with blood. My eyes blur out of focus and back again. I squat down lower to read what’s scribbled on the note.
Two dead.Eight more to go.
Nausea hitsme low in the gut and sputters up my chest. I stand back up, covering my mouth. I can’t puke. I can’t. I’ve seen worse than this. I once watched someone disembowel a man with a shank while I was doing time. Watched his intestines spill and splatter all over the cellblock tiles.
But somehow this is different.
Dark smears of dried blood clotted over the walls, glittering with flecks of tissue and stringy tendons. It makes me feel sick. There are no bullet holes. No smell of gunfire. Just open bubbling wounds and a dying man calling out the name of his dead friend. “An-ge-lo. An-ge-lo.”
I look up toward the ceiling—in the direction Carmine’s apple-shaped eyes stare. Is he seeing a ghost? Or is he saying a dead man did this?
“Carmine? Who did this?” I whisper, kneeling beside him.
But Carmine can’t answer. His body stills and his eyes lose their gleam.
His blood soaks through the bottom of my pants and covers my hands.
Two dead, eight more to go.
Someone’s knocking off Tony's gang. Meticulously, one by one.
The ghost of a dead mob boss killing off every member of the outfit. Savage vengeance.
I move to the corner of the room and wait.
I wait and wait and watch the lengthening of the shadows hoping to see ghosts. No one comes. It’s only me, alone with a rotting corpse.
I put the call into Tony when Carmine’s body turns room temperature and I can't stand the smell of the room any longer.
After a few moments of icy silence he whispers, “Take care of it.”
So I do.
Same as I always do.
Ten hours later, the Fretolli family’s personal,and discreet,housecleaning service is thirty-five grand richer and I’m heading back to the club, praying I don’t get pulled over.
But somehow I end up at Felony’s front door, blood still covering my clothes. It’s been a day since I’ve seen her. A day since I felt her.
I ring the bell and pull in a long steady breath. I need to calm down, my fists are clenched, my muscles strained. Death is all around us, monsters versus monsters, I just wish I knew who the enemy was.
My heart rate slows, evens out, I’m getting a handle on controlling it. Right up until she opens the door.
She’s a roar of thunder in my chest. My heart thudding wet and loud, my pulse swooshing past my ears, along my neck, taunting me: You have no control here.
None.
My eyes focus on a pair of long tan legs. Silky black panties. The hard peaks of her nipples pressing out against her white shirt. Her hair cascades over one shoulder and her lips are glistening with a pale pink gloss.
It’s her night off and she stills dresses like she’s made of pure sex and all my filthy fantasies.
I can't tear my eyes away. She could hold a gun to my head and I still wouldn't be able to control my own body, my own thoughts.
“Corey?” There’s a divot that deepens between her brows. “Corrado? Corrado, are you hurt? What happened? You’re covered in blood.”
I want her to take what I saw away. I want her to erase it all.
