With one fell swoop I toss Jason to the side and away from Tommy. He lets his arm go out of instinct and stumbles several feet to the side. Ray lets Tommy go to reach for his gun, but I’m quicker.
I pull my gun out and point it directly at Raymond.
“You don’t have to—” he starts, but it’s too late. I’ve pulled the trigger and sent a bullet straight into his head.
Blood splatters outward, and his eyes glaze over in a second.
“Holy shit,” Jason says, and then I hear his boots hitting the wet ground.
My fists are trembling as I turn around to see him running the opposite direction. I walk quickly after him, taller and therefore faster than him. My strides making up half the distance.
“You’re not going anywhere.” I reach for the back of his shirt and pull him backwards until he hits the brick wall to the right of us. I slam the gun and the side of my hand against his face.
He looks stunned, like he still hasn’t quite figured out why I’m here, what he did wrong. I’ll help him connect the dots.
“You touched him and now you’re going to pay for it, you understand me?” I tell him, wanting him to know exactly why I’m going to kill him. The reason why Raymond is lying in a pool of his own blood on the asphalt.
“You’d really protect one of them?” Jason asks me breathless, fighting with me, his hands on my shoulders.
I growl and toss my head in his direction, knocking my forehead against his hard. “You don’t get it, do you?” I ask him, but I don’t care for his answer. I punch him again, and again, and a third time as he’s squirming and struggling to get away from me. I watch the blood start to run down from his nose over his lips and the bruising start to form. I listen to him gasp for air and beg me to stop between breaths.
“You? You are nothing.” I spit on his face. “You are a maggot in a rotting bowl of shit that no one wants, no one cares about.”
I press my gun under his chin and he puts his hands up, trying to plead for his life. His eyes dart round, looking for something, anything to help him, but we’re all alone.
“What is he?” Jason asks, his voice strained. “What is that useless fucker to you, Trevor. If that’s even your real name.”
I press the gun tighter to his jawline and his body stiffens into rock.
“Everything.”
I pull the trigger. Blood and brain matter explode out of the top of his head and rain down on me. I can taste and smell his death in the air. It soils my sweater and gets caught in my hair.
The second his body slides down the hall and hits the ground, I turn around and head over to Tommy’s body on the ground. I drop to my knees and place my fingers on the side of his neck.
His face is battered and bruised. He's covered in blood, but not all of it may be his blood. I noticed the two men I killed were already a bit beat up. So, he didn’t go down without a fight.
My heart squeezes in my chest as I look at him lying here unconscious.
I take a breath and try to focus on feeling his pulse instead of my own racing one. I push my fingers harder against his veins...
He’s alive.
15
TOMMASO
Everything is hazy. All I know as I start to wake up is that my entire fucking body hurts. I don’t remember anything about how I got here, or where I am. Not while my eyes are still closed and I’m simply lying on my back.
What was I doing before this?
Suddenly the image of Alek running toward me in a dark alley comes to me. I gasp as my eyes shoot open.
“Aleksandr,” I croak out.
I hear a shifting beside me. The creaking of springs. "I'm right here." Alek's voice is quiet but close. As my eyes start to focus, I realize we're in his room at the underground base.
The dim off-white light above my head bounces off the dusty concrete walls around me. At first, a panic rises in my chest as I remember what I’d been up to. Going after the Carvels on the street. I remember confronting them, asking them what their real plans were with the Bianchis and how they expected to beat us. More than that, I remember their fists slamming into my face over and over again. Normally, going after two people isn’t such a big deal for me—I’m known for fighting more than one person at a time—but tonight…I was off. It was like my head wassomewhere else entirely. I was so worked up that I didn’t realize they had me surrounded and before I could draw my gun, I was on the ground.
