Henry narrowed his eyes despite Arlo not looking at him.
“It’s usually men who are about to die who say it’s a mistake,” Arlo said in a deceptively calm voice. I could hear the sound of trickling, something wet hitting the ground. My vantage point allowed me to see one of the men had pissed his pants, urine trailing down his leg and creating a puddle on the floor.
“You fucking weak asshole,” Henry sneered as he clearly realized one of his spiders had lost his bladder. Arlo pressed the gun harder against Henry’s skull, and he straightened in his seat, gritting his teeth. “You have no idea who you’re messing with.”
No, Henry had no idea who he was messing with.
“You stupid girl.” The low voice that came from behind me and the feel of a gun pressing into the center of my back had my entire body freezing. But it wasn’t the gun pressed between my shoulder blades that had me tightening. It was the voice… the voice of my father. “You should have stayed away. Not like Henry wasn’t gonna find you.” His breath was warm and thick with the scent of booze. “He did find you, was gonna bring you back. You’ve made my life hell by skipping out.”
I looked over my shoulder at my father. His face was beat to hell, black-and-blue and swollen. It was clear me leaving had caused Henry to use the man who’d been my sperm donor as his personal punching bag. Yet I felt nothing. No sympathy. No empathy.
He nudged my back with the gun until I stumbled forward. Arlo lifted his eyes in my direction, but other than a subtle tic in his jaw, he showed no emotion. He might keep that steely composure, but I knew he was pissed I was here, that I hadn’t listened. Surely he knew I couldn’t allow him to do this on his own. He had to know I’d stand beside him to make this right.
This was my fight, and I wouldn’t do it in the safety of a car with a gun in my lap as someone else put their life on the line for me.
Henry started laughing, and not even the gun pressed to his head could stop him. “So this is your doing, Galina?”
A low rumble filled the room, and I realized it came from Arlo. He leaned in so his lips were close to Henry’s ear and said something in a voice too low to carry to me. I could see Henry’s skin become pale, his eyes flashing with fear, but then they shifted to something evil as he stared at me.
When Arlo stood, his eyes were trained on my father, who stood behind me. He now had a firm grip on my arm as if he thought I’d try to run. But I was done running. I was sick of hiding. I was here to face this head-on no matter the consequences.
When we stood a foot from the card table and off to the side, the two other men sitting glanced my way with terror clear on their faces. They were lackeys, pawns in whatever sick game Henry played.
“Henry, just give them what they want. He’s not playing.”
Henry looked to the side and bared his teeth at the man who’d spoken. “Fucking coward.” He wasn’t smart, not even with a gun pressed to his head. He kept his fear covered in knock-off designer suits and too much cheap cologne.
The gun was ripped out of my hand by my father, but he still had his gun pressed to my back. But as I stared into Arlo’s face, I wasn’t afraid of dying. At that moment I wasn’t afraid of anything. My entire life and all the situations I’d experienced so far had come full circle. I knew from this moment on that I would never allow anything to control me. I wouldn’t allow someone to scare me enough to have me running away. It always caught up with you anyway.
Henry looked me up and down, his gaze lewd and just as slimy as I remembered. He grinned and spat out, “Lookin’ just as perfect as the last time I saw you, Galina. I wonder if that tight little virgin cunt is still untouched, or if you became the whore I envisioned shaping you into myself.”
Pop.
I blinked once, my ears ringing, that bang of a gun being discharged echoing throughout the entire room, seeming to shake the lone window and crack it even more. I stared at where Henry sat, the bullet hole in his head leaving a trail of red right between his eyes and down the bridge of his nose.
He slumped forward, his skull cracking against the card table hard enough the flimsy piece of furniture shook from the force.
“Holy shit.”
“Fuck!” the two men on either side of him screamed out, eyes wide, their fear saturating the room.