“I want to know,” I tell him even though a tremor of fear runs through me.
“All I care about is you being here when I get back. Tell me you’ll be here.”
“I’ll be here.”
I wish I’d told him I loved him, but he kisses me and then leaves me breathless on the bed. I can feel it in his kiss and when he leaves, when the door is closed and he’s long gone, I ask as though he’s still here with me, why won’t you tell me you love me?
I refuse to believe it’s not love. It’s fucked up a million ways and then some, but this is love.
Jase
“In some cultures, people bury the men they murder face down so they can’t come back to haunt them.”
Four stories up in the vacant and grand estate, the large windows are open and the rooms are all bare. The empty old office is bigger than the entire house I grew up in. The ceilings are tall; the light wood floors shine with polish. When Romano left his place weeks ago, he took off and got rid of everything. One day he was here, the next he was gone. The worst decision he made was coming back.
“Face down? Like in their grave?” Seth asks from across the large room. There aren’t any lights in the room; the full moon and the streetlights give us everything we need. He’s still dressed in jeans and a shirt, both black. His men are downstairs sweeping the place and preparing for what’s to come, while we’re up here with our guest of honor.
I nod, listening to the muffled noises that come from behind the balled-up rag in Romano’s mouth. Hysteria is setting in for the old man as his face turns red and Carter, Declan and Daniel join us. He’s never looked so old to me. So close to a fucking heart attack and then death. Wouldn’t that be ironic? If the fucker had a heart attack while tied down in that desk chair and we didn’t even get a chance to kill him.
“They thought if they buried the men they killed face down, when their spirits woke up, they’d be disoriented,” I explain to Seth and to whoever else is listening.
Seth lets out a rough chuckle, playing with a knife as he sits in a wingback chair in the corner. The leather is old and cracked. I guess that’s why Romano left it behind. Everything left in the room was meant to be thrown away. Now Romano’s been added to that category.
“I’ve heard of feeding the dead to pigs. They’ll eat anything,” Seth answers.
“Can’t bury a man if he dies with dynamite in his lap, can you? Or feed what’s left of him to the pigs?” Carter questions and then pats my shoulder as he enters the room. He only glances at Romano, not paying him much mind as he walks around the room. This estate has to be a hundred years old. It was a family legacy. One that’s ending tonight.
Although the conversation borders on lighthearted in tone, tension is thick in the room.
“This used to be your office?” Carter asks Romano as he leans forward, placing a hand on the soon-to-be dead man’s shoulder. From behind the rag comes nothing but rage and the muted sounds of what I assume are curse words.
I wonder what it’s like to be him right now. I’d rather have a heart attack than to be him right now.
Carter only smirks at him, standing up and pushing off of his shoulder, sending Romano rolling away in the wheeled desk chair. Gagged and tied down, this is how he’ll die. In the room where he made all of his decisions. Decisions to murder and decisions that require consequences.
“Any situations tonight?” Carter asks Seth who shakes his head. “In and out, he was sleeping so the chloroform was easy. Overall it was,” he says as he looks Carter in the eyes, “uneventful.”
“And the detail in the next room? Did they try to interfere?”
Seth answers, “Didn’t see them, didn’t hear them. It was all over in under ten minutes. Even if it was filmed, we were masked and didn’t talk. There’s no way to ID us.”
“Good work,” I chime in and my brother agrees.
“Explosives are planted everywhere but the main room where we hid the cash in the safe. It’ll look like he came back to hide evidence, but mistakenly set it off too soon,” Carter explains.
“What a tragedy.” Daniel’s comment drips with sarcasm. Out of all of us he’s been the most quiet, the most still. Leaning against the back wall and staring at Romano all night.
Romano says something. It could be his last words for all I care, they won’t be heard.
Declan adds, “It keeps the feds off our back, they go away. I want them the fuck out of here. And we take over the upper east side.”