“Home is that way.” He pointed backward. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll head back now.”
I stared him down, unwilling to give him my fear. Stupid, fudging Renzo Iannelli. I dealt with bullies enough at school to know that showing a chink in your armor was the best way to make a situation worse. The strong only responded to the strong, while the weak got stomped on.
“We’re just taking a detour for some snacks at the shop two blocks down. Not that it’s any of your business,” I snarked, crossing my arms.
“What of the six shops you’ve passed since you left your little club?”
My eyes widened, but I tried to keep my cool. “That one has better candy.”
He hedged closer to us, placing the street at his back. Lou and I walked backward quickly until our backs hit the brick wall behind us.
Lou whimpered, and I shoved her between me and the wall. He kept on advancing, flicking open a knife, until we had nowhere left to go. The cool press of metal dug into my skin. I hissed through the sting, my neck going hot as I tried to hold my breath.
“This is how it’s going to go. You’re going to go home. You’re going to forget you saw me and everything you know about Mr. Iannelli. If you don’t…” The knife trailed down my neck as I bit down hard on my lower lip to contain my trembling. Lou sobbed softly into my bruised arm, gripping it hard.
Why was no one on the street calling him out? A woman in her thirties locked eyes with my pleading ones and just walked by. A man in his twenties turned his head in our direction but kept strolling past us.
“Is that clear?”
Sudden pain sparked through my collarbone, and I gasped out a sob. Then the tip of the brute’s knife flashed in front of my eyes, stained red. Lou’s tears quietly soaked the back of my sleeve and shirt.
“Don’t make me say it again, kid.”
I wasn’t going to give in and let go. Noah deserved more than that, but I wasn’t stupid either. I nodded slowly, glaring into my own reflection in this asshole’s sunglasses.
“Good, see that it stays that way.” He wiped his knife off on my shirt. “Or the next time you see me, I’ll make sure to leave a much more permanent mark. On youandon whoever’s with you.”
His knife angled toward Lou’s exposed side. I nudged her further behind me.
“Point made,” I gritted out. “Now, leave us alone.”
“You know, I don’t like your attitude. Maybe I should—”
His phone rang, and he pulled it to his ear. “Yeah,” he grated. “I’ll be there.”
With one last grim glance at us and a twist of his knife in front of our faces, he strode away with a bounce to his step. We watched him cross the street and turn a corner. Only then did I breathe again, slumping against the wall.
I pressed a hand to my chest and gulped bile reflux back down. The little nick against my collarbone stung. My ears were ringing, and my legs were shaking, but I clutched Lou’s trembling little body against me and tried to forget the rest.
“We’re okay. I got you. We’re okay.”
She barely made a noise in return. She’d long ago learned that the best way not to attract attention was to stay quiet.
The way I saw it—silence might not attract the monsters, but it certainly didn’t keep them at bay. It wasn’t good enough to leave the monsters be. They needed to be slain, even if their deaths were slow and painful, cut by little cut. I just had to start somewhere.
Chapter 10
SUBORNER
You’re the reason I can’t trust anyone
Bloodtrickleddownacut below my eye. I twisted the scrap car part in my gloved hand and massaged my temple with the other. My slow exhale thundered in my head. The dead man at my feet wasn’t going anywhere. Another dead end and more complications. Damn it.
“You need to see the doc?” Massimo, my capo generally in charge of collections, asked.
I shook my head, too busy thinking through this mess. Piled cars and parts surrounded us. As expected, the meeting with Stathis Dimakos in a junkyard was a trap. We’d disarmed. He’d been outmanned, yet he still had the gumption to try to take me down in hand-to-hand combat and slice my throat with scrap metal.
Now his brains were splattered over my shoes and suit, along with all the cars and crap in this corner of the junkyard, includingthe bloody handbrake handle I held. At least the imbecile confirmed the rumors before his attack, although he also said the Sahin clan and the Armenians both worked solely in imports from the Middle East and Eastern Europe to the United States. They didn’t hassle themselves with exports.
