“All our problems solved.” Triumph comes darkly from Carter’s voice.
Almost all. Marcus and Walsh are becoming more difficult problems by the day, but I keep that opinion to myself.
“I wish they all knew,” Daniel speaks up. As he kicks off the wall and walks closer to the far edge of the room to look down at the tied-up man, the light sends shadows over the harsh expression on his face. “It’s too quick and not public enough for what you deserve,” he tells Romano. His voice is hoarse, and anger and mourning both linger there.
The memory of Tyler dead in the street plays tricks on my mind as I look out the large window feeling the cool breeze against my face. The cast iron fence separates the estate from the road and it’s just beneath us. The road ahead is a backroad; many don’t travel on it and it’s not the road where Tyler died, but any black road slick with rain will carry that memory forever.
“Justice is a funny thing, isn’t it?” I murmur as I tap my blunt nails along the windowsill, opening the window even more, as much as I can to feel the cold air blow in. “It never feels like enough.”
“What?” Daniel asks from behind me, so I turn around to face him.
“It’s never going to feel like enough… because it’s never going to be all right.” With the singular truth exposed, a raw pain grows from my empty lungs and radiates upward.
“I’m grateful he didn’t get away and the feds didn’t fuck this up for us. We’ll spread it around, that we didn’t like him talking to the cops,” Carter says and looks pointedly at Seth, who nods. Rumors travel fast in this town and everyone needs to know it was us. Romano fucked with us. Now he’s dead. That’ll make a lot of other pricks question whether or not they’re willing to do the same.
“What about Tyler?” Daniel asks. His forehead creases as he continues, “They should know Romano killed him and that’s what gave him a death sentence.”
“We’d be admitting we didn’t know the truth until recently,” Carter speaks up, shaking his head. “It’s easier to keep it a secret.”
A lie, hisses in my ear, and I have to turn away from my brothers, once again looking out into the empty street only to see the ghost of memories there.
“I don’t like it.” Daniel disagrees with Carter. Seth and Declan are quiet, simply observing the two of them.
“Tyler deserves justice,” I speak up before being conscious of it. “It shouldn’t be kept a secret.”
“Romano dies tonight.” Carter’s harsh words whip through the air. “What more do you want?”
I’m surprised by Daniel’s words as he says, “Humiliation, pain… I want it to be a spectacle.” He’s still filled with hate over Tyler’s death. He’s still angry. He’s still grieving. I’m convinced the five stages of grieving aren’t like steps where you take one after the other. I think they’re waves that constantly crash onto the shore and you never know which one will hit you.
“That’s not going to help our FBI situation,” Declan answers, peeking up from the corner of the room where he’s standing behind Seth. I can feel all their eyes on me, but I don’t look back yet. All I can look at are the spikes that line the top of his iron fence. All I can think about is how awful it would be to die like that, to fall onto the spiked fence beneath us and be impaled next to an asphalt road. It’d be the last thing he ever looked at.
“We decided this was how it would be… now you want to wait?” Carter questions, his voice tight with incredulity.
“No, we don’t have to wait.” I turn to finish my thought, looking at Daniel as I suggest, “We can throw him out this window. That would be a spectacle, as you called it.”
Daniel smirks while Declan lets out a chuckle and then asks, “Wait, are you serious?”
“He can die committing suicide by jumping onto a spiked fence,” Daniel says and smiles over Romano’s muffled pleas. The man’s fighting in his chair now, causing it to roll slightly across the floor. I kick the back of it gently, just to push him away from me and torture him some more.
“Who would kill themselves that way?” Declan asks. “Who commits suicide by spearing himself onto a fence?”
“No one,” I answer him and Daniel adds, “That’s the point.”
“That would send a message,” Seth comments although it’s not meant to agree or disagree. He stays neutral in all of this.
Carter’s voice is low as he says, “It would send a message to the feds too. That we don’t care they’re here and that we’re still running this town. Is that the message you want to send?”