“You following me?” I ask.
He shrugs, and I walk over to Vincent, putting my boot to his hand, which is trying to pick up the gun, and I crush a few bones. He grunts pulling his hand to his chest.
“We’ll take it from here,” one of Amidio’s other men says, bringing Vincent to his feet.
His face is now pale from the amount of blood he’s lost; I’m sure an artery was hit. One of the men brings over a towel, wrapping it around Vincent’s wrist while the others start to clean up the mess.
“We had a deal,” I remind them.
“Deal still stands. Right now, boss has some questions for him. We’ll be in touch,” he says as he and another man drag Vincent from the room while another man talks to Layla, who is crying hysterically.
“Now what?” Sven says, looking between Kai and me.
“Now, we wait.”
It isn’t until two in the morning that Kai gets a message to head downtown. When we arrive at the location, I’m surprised by the amountof cars gathered outside.
“What the fuck is going on?” Kai asks, looking over at his man, Frank, in the driver’s seat. How the hell he got the name Frank when he’s Hawaiian and looks like he could be a sumo wrestler is anyone’s guess.
“Don’t know. You want me to come in with you?”
“Nah.” Kai shakes his head, looking around at all the cars. “These men know not to fuck with me.” He gets out of the SUV and bends over, pulling something out from under the seat and putting it in the waist of his pants. “Keep it running and use your gun if you have to. If something seems off, leave, get Myla, and head to my parents’.”
“You just said they know not to fuck with you,” Frank tells him, pulling his gun from his inside coat pocket.
“Doesn’t mean they aren’t stupid, brother,” Kai mutters, slamming the door.
“Myla won’t be happy,” I hear Frank say as I slam my door.
When we get to the building’s entrance, one of the guys from the hotel earlier meets us out front and escorts us inside and down a hall.
“What the fuck is going on?” I ask when we’re taken into a large room.
It is full of men of all different ages yelling at the top of their lungs as a man in the center of the room pulls a pair of metal cutters from his pocket and walks to Vincent, who is strapped to a chair. He picks up Vincent’s hand and touches each of his fingers with the tip of the clippers before settling on one.
Vincent doesn’t even flinch when his finger is clipped off and it rolls across the floor. His body is now black and blue, and he’s bleeding from his nose, mouth, and other wounds. I can tell just by looking at him that he’s in shock. The good in me fights to the surface, not wanting any human being to suffer like he is, but then I remind myself of the shit he’s done and how much pain he’s caused and the urge to end his pain is beat back as anger is put in its place.
“You’re up next,” Paulie Jr. says, walking up to me and handing mea knife. “What’s going on?”
“Payback. He betrayed a lot of people, and all those people get their pound of flesh before he’s ended,” he explains.
“Take this back.” I hand him back the knife and pull my gun.
“You can’t kill him, and you only get one hit,” Junior tells me.
“I won’t.” I walk past him to the center of the room.
Vincent raises his eyes, but at this point, with the kind of damage that’s been done to his body already, I would be surprised if he even understands what’s going on. When I reach his side, I put the gun to his shoulder at the same place he shot Autumn. Then I think about her face, the damage that’s been done, and how, regardless of how much she heals, every time she looks in the mirror, she will be reminded of what happened. I pull the gun away from his shoulder and walk around to the front of him. My hand moves to his jaw and I pull it open.
“I told you, you can’t kill him.”
I ignore him, put the gun in Vincent’s mouth, and lean it to the side so the muzzle is sitting against the inside of his cheek. I feel a gun come to rest at the side of my head, and I start to say something when Kai comes over and whispers inaudibly to Paulie Jr., making him back up.
“You shot my girl,” I say quietly, tilting his head back and forcing his eyes to mine. “You know I could kill your son and wife and you can’t do shit about it,” I taunt only loud enough for him to hear.
His eyes widen and I know he understands. Before he can respond, I pull the trigger, and blood and flesh spray out across the room and onto some of the people who are standing too close.
A loud cheer goes up as I make my way back to Sven and Kai. When I reach them, I notice a man talking to Kai. He’s young—I would guess mid-twenties. He’s wearing a suit and his blond hair is pulled back into a ponytail. His posture is casual, but the expression on his face is anything but.
